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Eco-action
An eco-action is any action or activity within a program that is intended to have a positive impact on the environment. For this reason it is often used as a synonym for environmental action. People adopting eco-actions tend to target activities around the ‘Three Rs’ of the waste hierarchy, Reducing, Reusing and Recycling. They may decide to carry out small-scale eco-friendly actions such as reducing the volume of paper used in offices, or purchasing products only from companies that have environmentally friendly or sustainability policies. Others may adopt eco-actions that affect where they live by cleaning up beaches, removing graffiti, supporting community gardening, and re-planting coastal wetlands because the immediate community has come to be considered part of their ecosystem. Widening trend Eco-action groups tend to be small and unstructured but as their influence grows, their ideas are being co-opted by environmental action groups, sometimes backed by non-government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Environment
The natural environment or natural world encompasses all life, living and non-living things occurring nature, naturally, meaning in this case not Artificiality, artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the ''natural environment'' can be distinguished as components: * Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, Rock (geology), rocks, Atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere, and natural phenomenon, natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature. * Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from civilize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worldwatch Institute
The Worldwatch Institute was a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., founded by Lester R. Brown. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts. Brown left to found the Earth Policy Institute in 2000. The institute terminated in 2017, after publication of its last '' State of the World Report''. Worldwatch.org was unreachable from mid 2019. Mission The mission of the Institute read: "Through research and outreach that inspire action, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute's top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing." The Worldw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Footprint
A water footprint shows the extent of water use in relation to consumption by people. The water footprint of an individual, community, or business is defined as the total volume of fresh water used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. Water use is measured in water volume consumed (evaporated) and/or polluted per unit of time. A water footprint can be calculated for any well-defined group of consumers (e.g., an individual, family, village, city, province, state, or nation) or producers (e.g., a public organization, private enterprise, or economic sector), for a single process (such as growing rice) or for any product or service. Traditionally, water use has been approached from the production side, by quantifying the following three columns of water use: water withdrawals in the agricultural, industrial, and domestic sector. While this does provide valuable data, it is a limited way of looking at water use in a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon Footprint
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbon dioxide and methane, can be emitted through the burning of fossil fuels, land clearance, and the production and consumption of food, manufactured goods, materials, wood, roads, buildings, transportation and other services. In most cases, the total carbon footprint cannot be calculated exactly because of inadequate knowledge of data about the complex interactions between contributing processes, including the influence of natural processes that store or release carbon dioxide. For this reason, Wright, Kemp, and Williams proposed the following definition of a carbon footprint: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol has extended the range of gases. The global average annual carbon footprint per person in 2014 was about 5 tonnes CO2e. Although the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region or the world (biocapacity, the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature). In short, it is a measure of human impact on the environment. Footprint and biocapacity can be compared at the individual, regional, national or global scale. Both footprint and biocapacity change every year with number of people, per person consumption, efficiency of production, and productivity of ecosystems. At a global scale, footprint assessments show how big humanity's demand is compared to what Earth can renew. Global Footprint Network estimates that, as of 2014, humanity has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marine Stewardship Council
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a non-profit organization which aims to set standards for sustainable fishing. Fisheries that wish to demonstrate they are well-managed and sustainable compared to the MSC's standards are assessed by a team of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). The mission of the MSC is to use its ecolabel, for which the MSC receives royalties for licensing it to products, and fishery certification program to recognise and reward sustainable fishing practices. The MSC has faced criticism in the past, mainly centering on its close ties to the fishing industry and conflict of interest stemming from royalties received by the industry for its certification label. Contribution to changes in the oceans When buyers choose MSC-certified fish, well-managed fisheries are rewarded for sustainable practices. In turn, the growing market for certified sustainable seafood generates a powerful incentive for other fisheries to demonstrate they are fishing sustainabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environment Canada
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment (). is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for coordinating environmental policies and programs, as well as preserving and enhancing the natural environment and renewable resources. It is also colloquially known by its former name, Environment Canada (EC; french: Environnement Canada, links=no). The minister of environment and climate change has been Steven Guilbeault since October 26, 2021; Environment and Climate Change Canada supports the minister's mandate to: "preserve and enhance the quality of the natural environment, including water, air, soil, flora and fauna; conserve Canada's renewable resources; conserve and protect Canada's water resources; forecast daily weather conditions and warnings, and provide detaile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clean Water Network
The Clean Water Network (CWN) is an American coalition of more than 1,200 local, state, and national non-profit interest groups coordinating to promote water health, safety, and quality interests in the United States. History CWN was formed in 1992 as a project of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The primary functions of CWN are to coordinate a variety of public interest organizations on clean water issues so that these groups may combine resources and advocate together, and to "safeguard water quality for future generations by working to defend, strengthen and implement the Clean Water Act and other key federal and state legislation impacting water." The Clean Water Network serves public interest groups by serving as a portal for the latest news and information on federal clean water policy developments. The Network facilitates communications among member groups and coordinates joint policy and position statements as well as activities. This combination of federal polic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-governmental Organizations
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include clubs and associations that provide services to their members and others. Surveys indicate that NGOs have a high degree of public trust, which can make them a useful proxy for the concerns of society and stakeholders. However, NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from international and intergovernmental organizations (''IOs'') in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments. The term as it is used today was first introduced in Article 71 of the newly-formed United Nations' Charter in 1945. While there is no fixed or formal definition for what NGOs are, they are general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waste Hierarchy
Waste hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption from most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability. To be sustainable, waste management cannot be solved only with technical end-of-pipe solutions and an integrated approach is necessary. The waste management hierarchy indicates an order of preference for action to reduce and manage waste, and is usually presented diagrammatically in the form of a pyramid. The hierarchy captures the progression of a material or product through successive stages of waste management, and represents the latter part of the life-cycle for each product. The aim of the waste hierarchy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste. The proper application of the waste hierarchy can have several benefits. It can help prevent emissions o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
