Invest in your energy future at ENEX08

Energy has been the top-of-mind issue for industry over the past few years, and managing energy use is becoming even more critical as costs rise and profit margins narrow. But getting the critical information your business needs can be a challenge.

To help industry manage this challenge, the editors and publishers of Energy Management, Green Business and PEM Plant Engineering and Maintenance magazines and Canada’s largest manufacturing consortium, Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium (EMC) have joined forces to create Canada’s leading energy management & efficiency conference and exhibition.

ENEX08 (Energy Excellence 2008) is an innovative learning and networking conference and exhibition focused on world-class best practices in energy management and efficiency. The inaugural ENEX event is being held September 23 & 24, 2008 at Stage West Hotel & Conference Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.
Full story: ENEX08

RGGI States announce first emissions auction

The ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) took the next step toward launching the first-in-the-nation auction of carbon dioxide (CO2) allowances in early July. The RGGI states issued a preliminary release of technical materials outlining the process and requirements for market participants interested in bidding in the first auction. The states have committed to cap and then reduce the amount of CO2 that power plants in their region are allowed to emit, thus limiting the region’s total contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
Full story: RGGI

Businesses not being recognized for climate change work

According to a study conducted by brand strategy and design consultancy Lippincott in conjunction with The Climate Group, businesses are not being recognized for the role they play in tackling climate change, despite increasingly committed consumers who look to them for leadership. This research, carried out across the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany also found that despite substantial corporate effort and “green" advertising spend, an alarming 76 per cent of U.S. respondents could not name a single brand that is taking a lead on climate change.
Full story: Climate change

Jones Lang LaSalle snaps up ECD

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated, the integrated financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate, recently announced the acquisition of the environmental consulting firm, ECD Energy, best known as the developer of technology underlying environmental rating systems for buildings, including Green Globes for the Green Building Initiative (GBI) and Go Green for the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Canada.
Full story: Jones Lang LaSalle

In Conversation with... Larry Burns

The North American auto industry is going through trying times, and nowhere has this been more starkly demonstrated than in the challenges that General Motors has experienced over the past year, including closing plants and cutting staff at all levels of the organization. It isn’t that GM didn’t anticipate change; it’s simply that it’s happening faster than they, or anyone else, planned for. And yet, if the company can weather this, it has investments and the intellectual capital to see it thrive in a new kind of auto industry environment.

Earlier this year, I sat down with Larry Burns, vice-president of R&D and planning for GM, to get his view on the industry and where he sees it going in the near future.
Full story: Larry Burns

Bio-based lubricants: making a performance impact

While much of the information we hear today about oil substitutes relate to heating, energy and automobile fuel, of equal importance is the other major application of oil in industry – as a lubricant. One Canadian company is set to change that.
Full story: DM’s Bio-based difference

COLUMNS

Marketing and Branding: What's in a word?
By Susan Sheehan

New environmental marketing guidelines set the stage for the next chapter in sustainability marketing.

In an effort to minimize consumer eco-confusion, on June 28, 2008, Canadian guidelines were released to help companies and advertisers avoid the sins of greenwash.
Full story: Enviro guidelines

BOOK REVIEW and EXCERPT

The Necessary Revolution

A lot of books cross my desk, but few grab my attention the way one new title did recently.

The book, The Necessary Revolution, How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World, is by Peter Senge the highly acclaimed author of Fifth Discipline. The Harvard Business Review described that work as “one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years” and the Financial Times called it one of the five greatest business books of all time. So, when Senge wades in on sustainability and corporate responsibility, people ought to listen.
Full story: The Necessary Revolution
To go directly to an excerpt from the book, click here.

VIDEO REPORT

The benefits of distributed energy

Green buildings that harness renewable energy from the environment will be the workplace of the future, according to global economic and climate change specialist Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin delivered the keynote at the opening session of the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo in Minneapolis and discussed the global benefits of establishing a distributed energy regime.
Watch the video: Rifkin

EVENTS

September 23-24
ENEX08
Stage West
Mississauga, Ont.

Green Business, Energy Management Magazine, PEM and our industry partner, the Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium, are developing an energy management focused conference and trade show aimed at helping manufacturers and building owners lower energy costs and explore new energy efficient technology.
www.energyexcellence.ca

Please visit our website for many more upcoming events.