World Environment Day Awards 2008 Wiiners announced

Tonights dinner was an amazing experience- I feel honoured being able to attend the World Environment Day Awards 2008 dinner and being amongst some of Australia's outstanding achievers.

The following organisations should be commended for their work, and a big congratulations to the Winners for the United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Awards 2008.

Building Commission Award for Best Sustainable Residential Development
WINNER: Landmatters Currumbin Valey - "The Ecovillage at Currumbin"

Sustainability Victoria Meeting the Greenhouse Challenge Award
WINNER: Global Renewables - "The UR-3R Process"

ITW Industrial Packaging Education/School Award
WINNER: Mount Manypeaks Primary School - "Natural Resource Management Program"

Lincolne Scott Triple Bottom Line Award
WINNER: Sustainable Living Fabrics - "Kiss and Leap: A Business Model with Moral Sustainability"

Szencorp Green Building Award
WINNER: FMSA Architects/Cundall - "St Leonard's College Sustainability Centre - Cornish Campus"

DSE Excellence in Marine and Coastal Management Award
WINNER: Moreton Bay Seafood Industry Association - "Development and implementatio fo an Environmental Management System for Professional Fishers of Moreton Bay, South East Queensland"

Excellence in Water Management Award
WINNER: Randwick City Council - "Randwick City Council's Retrofitting Randwick for Water Conservation"

Business Sustainability Awards

Best Specific Environmental Initiative
WINNER: Greening Australia/Alcoa Point Henry - "Moolapio"

Environmental Best Practice
WINNER: InStyle Contract Textiles - "An Integrated Company Approach to Sustainability"

Local Government Awards

Excellence Overall Environmental Management
WINNER: City of Ipswich - "City of Solutions: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally"

Best Specific Environmental Initiative
WINNER: Fairfield City Council - "Nalawala Sustainability Hub"

Community Award
WINNER: The Community of Castlemaine

Individual Award
WINNER: Dr. John Geoffrey Mosley

Media Award for Environmental Reporting
WINNER: Mark Corcoran, Vivien Altman, David Martin, Simon Brynjolffsen and David Verrechia; ABC TV Foreign Correspondent - "Bolivian Meltdown"

Google Search Trends for Earth Hour in 2008

Regular readers of my blog may remember a post I did around this time last year showing the search trends on Google for the keyword "Earth Hour" in 2007.

Just a reminder, I'm getting these results from Google Trends, a great tool used to show search trends for a specific keyword, or for even comparing search trends.

Well, this year has produced some amazing results! I thought last year was impressive, but this year the number of searches smashed 2007, with almost 8 times more searches in 2008.


Now lets look at these results a bit closer, breaking them down by region showing the proportion of searches that were made from each region globally.

The concept for Earth Hour originated in Australia, so it's expected for most of the searches to have been made by Australian users. The interesting spike in my opinion is seeing how Canada has moved in to second place, from fourth last year, leaps and bounds ahead of New Zealand, the US and UK.

Another interesting way to look at the number of searches is by city. Here's where the biggest surprise was:

My first thoughts were "Wow - surprising that Earth Hour in Toronto was a bigger event than in Sydney". When you put it in to population terms, Toronto has almost 4 times more residents compared to Sydney, so Earth Hour in Sydney proportionally had more searches per person than Toronto.

These massive results I believe are no doubt due to the big marketing and media push in 2008 following on from the success of the event last year. The amount of news articles showing up in the Google News archive clearly shows this:


All in all it's definately safe to state that Earth Hour 2008 was a huge success with some good energy reductions shown in results for cities around the world in Wikipedia. Kudos to WWF for putting together such a credible event.

I have some big expectations for Earth Hour in 2009, and see this movement as being more than an hour of support, instead becoming more than an annual event in years to come.

Environmental Events Calendar 2008

It is important for every organisation and business to show the community their support Environmental events. Supporting Environmental events is also a great way to improve your company/brand's image and public perception.

Some of our Promotional Products we recommend to show support for Environmental Events:

• Enviro-friendly Tote Bags
• Recycled Newspaper Pencils
• Customised Seed sticks and Custom Printed Seed pots
• Recycled Plastic Rulers - Australian Made
• Recycled Plastic Frisbees - Australian Made

All of these products are ideal for Councils, Government departments and organisations who aim to promote a message about improving our environment.

Here's a list of some of the environmental events taking place this year in Australia :

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

2008

• International Year of Planet Earth 2008
• Earth Sciences for Society - an International Year of Planet Earth
• International Year of Sanitation 2008
• International Year of the Reef 2008

January

• Australia Day - 26th

February

• World Wetlands Day - 2nd
• Sustainable Living Festival - 15th to 17th
• "Old Forests, New Management" Conservation and uses of old-growth forests in the 21st Century – 17th to 21st
• Business Cleanup Day - 26th
• Schools Cleanup Day - 29th
• Sydney Harbour Week - 29th

March

• Clean up Australia Day - 2nd
• Seaweek - 2nd to 8th
• Ground Water Awareness Week – 9th to 15th
• Forestry Day – 21st
  
• World Day for Water - 22nd
• World Meteorological Day - 23rd

April

• Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month
• Planning Institute Australia 2008 Conference: A Climate for Change - 13th to 16th
• Water Down Under - 15th to 18th
• Earth Day - 22nd
• Arbor Day - 25th
  

May

• International Biodiversity Day - 22nd
• World Turtle Day – 23rd

June

• World Environment Day - 5th
• Going Green Expo - 5th to 8th
• World Oceans Day - 8th
• World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought - 17th

July

• NAIDOC 2008 - 6th to 13th
• Schools Tree day - 25th
• National Tree Day - 27th

August

• National Science Week - 16th to 24th
• Keep Australia Beautiful Week - 25th to 31st

September

• Biodiversity month - all September
• Wattle Day - 1st
• Landcare week - 1st to 7th
• National Threatened Species Day - 7th
• National Bilby Day - 14th
• Sustainable House Day - 13th and 14th
• World Water Monitoring Day - 18th
• Clean Up the World Weekend - 20th and 21st
• World Car-free Day - 22nd
  

October

• Energy Awareness Month - All October
• International Walk to School Month - All October
• Walk to Work Day - 3rd (TBC)
• World Animal Day - 4th
  
• World Habitat Day - 6th
• World Food Day - 16th
  
• National Ride to Work Day - 15th
  
• National Water Week - 19th to 25th

November

• National Recycling week - 10th to 16th
• World Fisheries Day – 21st

December

• Coastcare week - 1st to 7th
• International Volunteer Day - 5th
• International Mountain Day - 11th

(source: Department of Environment and Heritage)

Contact us for help co-ordinating your promotional products and merchandise for your event

(Courtesy of JEM Promotional Products ©2007)

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If you have any questions relating to environmentally friendly promotional products, please don't hesitate in contacting us. JEM Promotional Products
Phone: (02) 8205 1334
E-mail: enquiries@jempp.com.au
Website: www.jempp.com.au

News Update

Here's the latest green news:

NSW plans 'greener' waste practices 2007-09-18 Source: Abc News online

:00 The New South Wales Government says waste management is about to become more eco-friendly. Waste-management practices will be simplified and the amount of waste going into landfill will be...

Aussie solar plan $47m funding win 2007-09-18 Source: Australian IT

AUSTRALIAN-US startup Ausra will use more than $US40 million ($47.3 million) in venture capital funds to invest in further research and development on its utility-scale solar thermal power...

China sets renewables target 2007-09-18 Source: EnergyReview.net

CHINA intends to invest US$265 billion (A$315 billion) in renewable energy by 2020, said Chen Deming, vice-chairman of the Chinese Development and Reform...

Source: Green Pages Australia (http://www.greenpagesaustralia.com.au/)

5 actions you can take to reduce greenhouse gases

In my previous post, I mentioned SITA Environmental Solutions and their newsletter we received.

Here's another interesting inclusion -

5 actions you can take to reduce greenhouse gases:

1. turn lights and other high energy devices off when not in use
2. sign up for accredited green power. speak to your current energy supplier or visit greenpower.gov.au for a list of green energy providers
   
3. get a business energy audit to identify potential energy savings
4. recycle everything you can! SITA can help you recycled a whole host of differentmaterials including paper, cardboard, glass, timber, steel, toner, cartridges, batteries, and fluorescent light globes
5. wherever possible - catch public transport, carpool, cycle or walk to your destination

Source: "News and Views - March 2007", SITA Environmental Solutions

Paper Recycling - Quick facts

We recycle all our paper at JEM Promotional Products, and recently received a newsletter from SITA Environmental Solutions. Check out some of the facts on paper recycling featured in their newsletter.

• One tree makes approximately 3077 pieces of A4 paper
• Making paper from recycled materials resultsin 74% air pollution and 35% less water pollution
• One tonne of paper is equal to 40,000 sheets of paper
• 87% of recycled paper is used in packaging materials
• Recycling half of the world's paper would save 20 million acres of forested land.
  

Source: "News and Views - March 2007", SITA Environmental Solutions

The UK's first carbon neutral home

Source: BBC News, "The UK has unveiled its first zero emission home that will set the environmental standard for all new homes in the future."

The home is said to "lose 60% less heat than a normal home" which is quite substantial, as heating costs take a considerable chunk out of electricity bills.

Progressions in architectural sustainability are important, and will have a considerable impact on future emission trends. With the world having to move up a belt size every year, with the growing populated cities worldwide, rebuilding populous areas with "green" efficiency in mind will be a high priority.

Click here to view the full story

BBC News is a great site for up to the minute news across all sectors. This story came under the Business category. Perhaps it could of been considered for Front Page News, as these sort of stories need continued and consistent exposure in the media to make them a top of mind concern for all people globally.