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October 24, 2012      
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A Hard Look at the Sustainability of Soft Commodities

A new report by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) outlines both alarming challenges and promising opportunities for investors in the so-called soft commodities: agricultural, forest and seafood commodities. According to WWF's analysis, consumption of natural resources has risen to the point where it would take 1.5 years for the Earth to fully regenerate the renewable resources that humans use in one year. "Humanity must now produce more food in the next four decades than we have in the last 8,000 years of agriculture combined," the report tells us. On the positive side, the report finds plenty of room to adopt improved practices that are not only more sustainable but also yield economic benefits to producers and investors including improving efficiency and productivity and generating new income streams and energy from waste products.

The report covers 10 major global commodity sectors with significant impacts on global biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use: aquaculture; beef; cotton; dairy; palm oil; soy; sugar; timber, pulp, and paper; wild-caught seafood; and bioenergy. For each commodity, the report provides figures on the geographic distribution of production and consumption; the environmental and social risks associated with production of the commodity; the key performance criteria that determine the responsibility and sustainability of production; relevant third-party sustainability certifications; and trends and opportunities.

The 2050 Criteria Guide to Responsible Investment

For instance, in the case of beef, environmental risks include land conversion of forests or other native habitat that may contribute to climate change, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Relevant key performance criteria include protection of land areas containing primary forests or with high conservation value...

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  Green Attitudes Among Lower-Income Consumers
Green products are often positioned as luxury items, the choice of affluent consumers who view environmentalism as an expression of personal style. The environmental attitudes of lower-income consumers are not commonly discussed in green-marketing circles. That's why this new study by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, an industry group whose members include electric-utility companies and vendors of technology used to create "smart" power grids, is interesting.
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  Extreme Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind
Americans increasingly believe that global warming is affecting the weather and that the weather is getting worse. This study conducted at the end of this summer by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that a large and growing majority of Americans say "global warming is affecting weather in the United States."
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This work is licensed under a CreativeCommons License. Copyright Sustainable Life Media Inc. 2011