Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AD Rutten, chief operating officer (COO) of the Netherlands’ Schiphol Group running Amsterdam airport had a busy Christmas and New Year. With Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year old Nigerian ‘underpants’ bomber, trying to blow up a A330-300 Airbus en route to Detroit from Schiphol airport on Christmas Day, Rutten has been working hard.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH and KEITH NUTHALL

THE POWER industry has good reason to pay more attention than usual to the anticipated appointment of a new European Union (EU) energy Commissioner this February 10. Under the newly ratified Treaty of Lisbon, the EU has gained constitutional authority to frame energy policy in general for all 27 member states.…

Anil Giri, in Kathmandu

Ahead of the UN Conference on climate change, in Copenhagen, the Nepalese
government has held a cabinet meeting at the foot of Mount Everest to bring
attention to the impact of climate change on the Himalayas.

The meeting comes after the government of the Maldives hosted a similarly
unusual cabinet meeting (in that case underwater in the Indian Ocean), where
they urged the international community to cut their carbon dioxide
emissions. The Maldives have long been at risk from global warming-linked
sea level rises, which threaten to drown the small islands.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PAINT and coatings industry is being offered a data resource by the European Commission and European Environmental Agency through a new pollution register. It shows in 2007, (the latest figures available), the European dyes and pigments industry released 969,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air, water and 652kg of nickel and compounds into water, for instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MOST detailed study into the environmental, energy and social costs generated by auto manufacturers when making cars has dubbed Germany’s Daimler the world’s cleanest and greenest automobile painter regarding volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. The study coordinated by Queen’s University, Belfast, gave major manufacturers comparable sustainability ratings over VOCs, giving Daimler top score (on 2007 data) of plus 5,905.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SIGNIFICANT increase in production at Pirelli’s new tyre plant at Slatina, Romania, is anticipated after the company announced it had secured a Euro 50 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The European Union’s (EU) largest public financing institution lends at llomg-term competitive rates, and in a statement the Italian company said the loan would finance more output of car and light commercial vehicle tyres at the plant, which opened in 2005.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER

NORDIC governments are pushing ahead with energy-centered reforms to build a significantly larger regional market for the production and sale of biofuels. All these neighbouring countres are expected to follow Sweden’s lead and implement policies to eliminate fossil fuel dependence by 2030, Sigbjørn Johnsen (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT), Norway’s finance minister, said in an address to the country’s Storting (parliament) on December 14.…

BY GAVIN BLAIR

JAPAN-based food retailer Seven & I Holdings has opened a new online mall, ‘Seven Net Shopping’, stocked with five million items.

The service consolidates the online presence of the group’s department stores, supermarkets and convenience stores, while adding 32 outside specialist retailers, including record labels and an animation studio.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has effectively ordered the Bulgarian government to recoup Euro 222 million in restructuring aid paid to bankrupt Bulgaria steel maker Kremikovtzi. After an investigation, the Commission concluded that Kremikovtzi had not followed a business plan it accepted as a condition of receiving special government restructuring subsidies.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AS Indonesia’s economy continues to grow so too does demand for paint and coatings in the region. In 2008, the archipelago recorded a 6.1% increase in gross domestic product (GDP), moving from a GDP per capita of US$3,700 in 2007 to US$3,900 the following year (using purchasing power parity adjustments).…