Search Results for: japan

A RESEARCH consortium in Canada is developing an open source model to create data-rich digital maps that can improve the operations of autonomous vehicles (AVs). The inspiration behind ‘Open HD Maps’ is to enable the holders of mapping data outside existing proprietary mapping services to contribute their information to a collaborative platform on a profit-sharing basis.…

Countries exporting the most goods and services are also the worst at foreign bribery enforcement, according to the latest report from anti-graft group Transparency International. ‘Exporting Corruption Progress Report 2020: Assessing Enforcement of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention’ finds that most countries assessed (34 out of 47), conducted weak or no enforcement of their foreign bribery laws, in part hindered by a lack of public information on beneficial ownership. …

IT goes without saying that can manufacturers and fillers have to comply with regulatory controls specifying how they make and fill cans, but maybe the biggest compliance challenge for the industry is following the world’s multifarious rules on food labelling. 

Canners and fillers with contracts to supply labelled cans have to take special care given these labelling rules do not just vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, (or even within jurisdictions), these regulations are a very dynamic topic – they change, often. …

THE CHINA Coatings Industry Association on September 14 published a draft standard for the manufacture and sale of antibacterial and anti-viral coatings – a key growth segment during the Covid-19 pandemic. The draft specifies the terms, definitions, requirements, test methods, inspection rules, labelling, marking, packaging and storage of coating products with antibacterial and antiviral properties.…

The Covid-19 crisis has had many negative impacts, and one has been the undermining of legitimate businesses. In countries with strong organised crime traditions, this has meant more opportunities for money launderers to subvert hard-pressed entrepreneurs or take them over, to use their businesses as fronts for cleaning criminal proceeds.  …

LATIN America has been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic – with Chile, Peru, Brazil and Colombia in the top-20 of countries regarding cases per million people – and its paint and coatings market and industry has faced a similarly rough ride.…

International efforts are stepping up to scope and map what it will take to wean chemical manufacturing off its high dependence on oil and gas feedstock for chemicals that are then used to make plastics, fertilisers and other important products.

Options include using building-block raw materials from biomass instead of fossil-fuel feedstock; boosting the yield of chemicals for a given quantity of feedstock; and, applying advanced recovery and recycling technologies in circular economy approaches.…

A WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel will assess whether import restrictions created by the European Union (EU) to reduce the use of carbon-intensive biofuels comply with global trading rules.

The Indonesian government is challenging portions of the EU’s renewable energy directive (RED) linked to EU guidance limiting the indirect land use change (ILUC) of biofuel feedstock cultivation.…

The Internet has hardly developed a reputation for honesty, but blockchain technologies where different computers log transactions in separate units, connected to a web of entries (blocks), are tough to falsify.

Of course, blockchain’s most high-profile use has been to underpin the reliability of cryptocurrencies, but the principle of this unchangeable and autonomous web of ledgers has so many potential uses – the tobacco sector has been exploring them.…

Textile industry innovators are seeking to create and improve naturally coloured cotton, that can reduce or even remove the need for manufacturers to add dyes that can be expensive and generate significant levels of pollution.

Natural coloured cotton is not new, with Liv Severino, head of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, a state-owned research corporation affiliated with Brazil’s ministry of agriculture, livestock and food supply, noting evidence that human clothes were made from such fibres in the Andes 5,000 years ago.…