forestry

A New “Study” on Forest Certification: SFI’s Latest Attempt to Fool Consumers?

I’ve posted before on the competing systems of forest certification, in particular the fight between the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), which is really the gold standard, and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), an industry-driven effort that has substantially weaker standards and many have accused of greenwashing.  SFI has improved its standards in recent years, but …

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Lawyerly Greenwashing from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative

A few weeks ago, I argued that only wood and paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council really should be called a sustainable product.  Much to my surprise, the post got a robo-comment from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the paper industry’s group, claiming that it, too, was a legitimate certification organization.  Given SFI’s pretty shameful …

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Paper or Plastic…or Neither?

Paul Koretz is a Los Angeles City Councilmember who represents most of the city’s west side (including UCLA) and large chunks of the San Fernando Valley.  And he’s got a proposal that environmentalists love: Hoping to reduce the billions of grocery bags circulating throughout the city, an L.A. councilman Tuesday called for a sweeping ban …

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Google Earth Engine and Forest Offsets in California Cap-and-Trade

Last week, Google Labs released Google Earth Engine, an online platform for viewing and analyzing satellite imagery and data.  The platform’s strengths are ease of use for viewing images, collaboration tools, and use of Google’s computing infrastructure to analyze the satellite data.  Google intends to use the platform to, among other things, help developing countries …

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