Search Results for: Environmental health

Automakers selling battery electric vehicles (BEVs) into the 27-country European Union (EU) market are working hard to fulfill EU regulatory requirements to provide digital battery passports using a unique serial number and QR code from February 2027.  https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/07/10/council-adopts-new-regulation-on-batteries-and-waste-batteries/

The law was only adopted in July 2023, creating a compliance challenge for EU market automakers, many of them US-owned, said Beatriz Ildefonso, circularity and materials manager at the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), the suppliers representative body.…

The launch of European Sustainably Reporting Standards (ESRS), guiding mandatory European Union (EU) sustainability reports, coming progressively into mandatory force across the EU from 2025 (1), is pushing EU auditors to expand their skill sets.

They are already having to audit comprehensive EU sustainability reports for major companies, focused on double materiality concerns of a company’s impact on the environment and society as well as its financial exposure to such social and environmental trends.…

Universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide are being encouraged to focus on achieving global sustainability initiatives with the help of a new United Nations (UN)-sponsored reporting and measurement resource.

On July 15 (2024), UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) unveiled its Sustainability Evaluation Tool for Higher Education Institutions (SET4HEI).…

A new set of advice for the global academic publishing sector has been released that aims to link academics with civil society, businesses and governments, so that their innovations can be understood to help deliver the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).…

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe could help its long-established and highly regarded textile sector to boost its sustainability and ability to recycle materials. With the European Union (EU) generating some 12.6 million tonnes of textile waste per year, (1), the European Commission has been pushing the sector to improve its recycling, just as the EU has passed a groundbreaking regulation, in force from July 12, law designed to encourage AI and its ethical use (2).…

Can usage and sales in Europe’s largest economy, Germany, are robust, indicating a positive outlook for metal packagers and fillers. Separate data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and Forum Getränkedose (FGD), an association representing can majors such as the Ardagh Group, Ball Beverage Packaging Europe Ltd and Crown Holdings Inc, show that the metal can was the only beer container to see growth in Germany in 2023, at 3.8%, compared to a 4.5% drop in overall beer sales (1). …

It is a rule of thumb that every new economic and social innovation brings its response in fraud, and the phalanx of sustainability reporting rules and certification is expected to prompt a wave of environmental fraud.

Companies have long been accused of ‘greenwashing – making false sustainability claims about their goods and services – and regulators are increasingly cracking down on the practice, with a new European Union (EU) green claims directive under consideration.…

The release of a National Clean Cooking Policy in Nigeria this April (2024) is poised to impact west Africa’s dominant country’s energy sector and environment. With Africa’s largest population (218 million out of 1.2 billion continent-wide) and Africa’s largest economy (GDP of USD477 billion out of USD3.1 trillion), this policy – designed to offer clean cooking systems to the 30
million
households
in
Nigeria
that burn wood in their kitchens – could transform the economy of Nigeria and west Africa (1).…

Anti-fraud professionals are seeking greater access to larger data pools, inside and outside their organisations, to improve the ability of audit procedures to identify financial crime.

Said Linda Miller, founder and CEO, of the US-based fraud risk consultancy Audient Group: “Fraud is a data problem.…

Increasing pressure from researchers is prompting revised regulatory controls to reduce the use of flame retardants in textile products over concern that consumers may be exposed to air-borne chemical emissions that might damage their health.

A new US-focused study in the academic journal Environmental Science & Technology, for example, (1) has concluded that the integration of flame retardants in car seats may increase passenger and driver exposure to cancer-causing chemicals – especially during the summer.…