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Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 12/29/2006


This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here.

Titles here, abstracts below them:
  1. Mayo Clinic Study Explores Link between Nanoparticles and Kidney Stones
  2. Design for the Next Generation: Incorporating Cradle-to-Cradle Design into Herman Miller Products
  3. Looking for Environmentally Friendly Paper? Here Are Some of Your Options
  4. Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility
  5. EEB: End chlorine's use of mercury
  6. Against the Public's Will: Summary of Responses to The Environmental Protection Agency's Plans to Cut Toxic Reporting
  7. The 2006 Autodesk Green Index
  8. Transfer of lead from shot pellets to game meat during cooking
  9. 'Sustainability' Gains Status on US Campuses
  10. Move Over WD40, There's a New Kid on the Block

1. Mayo Clinic Study Explores Link between Nanoparticles and Kidney Stones

SOURCE Mayo Clinic, December 19, 2006

ABSTRACT Researchers at Mayo Clinic have successfully isolated nanoparticles from human kidney stones in cell cultures and have isolated proteins, RNA and DNA that appear to be associated with nanoparticles. The findings, which appear in the December issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine, are significant because it is one step closer in solving the mystery of whether nanoparticles are viable living forms that can lead to disease -- in this case, kidney stones. Kidney stones are associated with pathologic calcification, the process in which organs and blood vessels become clogged with calcium deposits that can damage major organs like the heart and kidneys. What causes calcium deposits to build up is not entirely known. Medical scientists at Mayo Clinic are studying calcification at the molecular level in an effort to determine how this phenomenon occurs. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that links calcification to the presence of nanosized particles, particles so small that some scientists question whether a nanoparticle can live and if so, play a viable role in the development of kidney stones. The presence of proteins, RNA and DNA does not prove that nanoparticles are viable living forms because a genetic signature has not been identified, says the study's author John Lieske, M.D., a nephrologist with Mayo Clinic. A genetic signature would prove that nanoparticles are indeed living forms that replicate and can cause disease. "We are looking at how kidney stones start as very small calcifications inside the kidney and then eventually grow into stones," says Dr. Lieske. "In the laboratory, we have isolated nanoparticles from kidney tissue and kidney stones, and have successfully propagated them in culture. This does not clearly confirm the role of nanoparticles in the formation of kidney stones, but it offers insight not otherwise known." Approximately 12 percent of men and 5 percent of women will develop kidney stones by the time they reach 70 years old. Some $5 billion is spent in the United States each year to treat patients with kidney stones, but exactly how kidney stones form is not known. Scientists theorize that if nanoparticles become localized in the kidney, they can become the focus of subsequent growth into larger stones over months to years. Other factors, such as physical chemistry and protein inhibitors of crystal growth, also play a role. But what scientists don't quite understand is why, where and how they start growing, Dr. Lieske says. The study cites evidence that indicates the unlikelihood that events linked to the calcification process are driven solely by physical chemistry, but instead are influenced by specific proteins and cellular responses. Understanding these events will provide clues to develop new therapy to treat kidney stones, the authors say. "There are at least two novel hypotheses here in terms of how stones might actually form. One: an infectious agent. If that was the case, that would point us in the direction of using different kinds of treatments specific to an infectious agent. Two: the idea that cells drive calcification. That would suggest other alternative therapies," according to Virginia Miller, Ph.D., a specialist in vascular research at Mayo Clinic and a study author.

WEB LINK http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2006-rst/3843.html 

2. Design for the Next Generation: Incorporating Cradle-to-Cradle Design into Herman Miller Products

AUTHOR Rossi, Mark; Charon, Scott; Wing, Gabe; Ewell, James

SOURCE Journal of Industrial Ecology, v10 n4, Fall 2006, pp193-210

ABSTRACT In the late 1990s, office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, Inc., entered into a collaboration with architect William Mc- Donough to create a system for designing cradle-to-cradle products. This collaboration led to the creation of a tool—the Design for Environment (DfE) product assessment tool—that evaluates progress towards cradle-to-cradle products. The first product Herman Miller designed using the DfE product assessment tool was the Mirra chair. Over the course of the chair’s development, the DfE process generated a number of design changes, including selecting a completely different material for the chair’s spine, increasing recycled content in chair components, eliminating all PVC (polyvinyl chloride) components, and designing the chair for rapid disassembly using common tools. The areas of greatest success in designing the Mirra chair for the environment were the increased use of recyclable parts and increased ease of disassembly, whereas the areas of greatest challenge were increasing recycled content and using materials with a green chemistry composition. The success in recyclability reflects the use of metals, materials that have a well-established recycling infrastructure. The success in disassembly reflects the high degree of control that Herman Miller has over product assembly. The challenge to increasing recycled content is the use of plastics in chairs. Unlike the metals, which all contain some recycled content, most plastics are made from virgin polymers. The challenge to improving materials chemistry is the limited range of green chemicals and materials on the market. The Mirra chair exemplifies the value of incorporating the environment into design and the need for tools to benchmark progress, as well as the challenges of creating a truly cradle-to-cradle product.

WEB LINK http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jiec.2006.10.4.193 

3. Looking for Environmentally Friendly Paper? Here Are Some of Your Options

AUTHOR Skodzinski, Noellle

DATE 2006

SOURCE Environmental Sustainability in Printing & Publishing, www.SustainPrint.com

ABSTRACT If you haven’t reviewed your options in environmentally friendly paper in a while, it might be time to do so. There are currently more than 50 papers on the market made from recycled paper, 20 of which contain 100-percent recycled content. Others contain anywhere from 10-percent to 90-percent recycled content and brightness levels up to 97. Many are also produced using more environmentally friendly bleaching processes, such as processed-chlorine free or elemental-chlorine free processes. Supply seems to be keeping pace with demand, and as more publishers are committing to improving their environmental footprints, including giant Random House, more papers are becoming available. Currently, some 100 publishers have made commitments to the guidelines set forth by the Green Press Initiative (GPI), a nonprofit organization that helps publishers improve their environmental impact. “As publishers have increasingly communicated their wishes for environmentally sound papers, the supply chain has responded. In fact, over 20 book papers with strong environmental attributes have been developed in the past few years,” says Tyson Miller, executive director of GPI. “It is really encouraging.” Also, more printers are now making environmentally friendly papers readily available, notes Erin Johnson, program manager at GPI, which maintains a list of printers that stock such papers, meaning the papers are available immediately and don’t need to be special ordered (often meaning higher prices).“Sheridan Books became our second official GPI-participating printer. Several printers have reported changes to their eco paper stocks including Friesens, Malloy, Sheridan, Thomson-Shore and Webcom. Also, Odyssey Press has joined our list,” she says. And, she notes, “Some printers are pricing recycled sheets very competitively.”

WEB LINK http://www.sustainprint.com/story.bsp?sid=31905&var=story 

4. Strategy & Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility

AUTHOR Porter, Michael E.; Kramer, Mark R.

SOURCE Harvard Business Review, v84 n12, December 2006, pp78-92

ABSTRACT Governments, activists, and the media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their activities. Myriad organizations rank companies on the performance of their corporate social responsibility (CSR), and, despite sometimes questionable methodologies, these rankings attract considerable publicity. As a result, CSR has emerged as an inescapable priority for business leaders in every country. Many companies have already done much to improve the social and environmental consequences of their activities, yet these efforts have not been nearly as productive as they could be – for two reasons. First, they pit business against society, when clearly the two are interdependent. Second, they pressure companies to think of corporate social responsibility in generic ways instead of in the way most appropriate to each firm’s strategy. The fact is, the prevailing approaches to CSR are so fragmented and so disconnected from business and strategy as to obscure many of the greatest opportunities for companies to benefit society. If, instead, corporations were to analyze their prospects for social responsibility using the same frameworks that guide their core business choices, they would discover that CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed–it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage. In this article, we propose a new way to look at the relationship between business and society that does not treat corporate success and social welfare as a zero-sum game. We introduce a framework companies can use to identify all of the effects, both positive and negative, they have on society; determine which ones to address; and suggest effective ways to do so. When looked at strategically, corporate social responsibility can become a source of tremendous social progress, as the business applies its considerable resources, expertise, and insights to activities that benefit society.

5. EEB: End chlorine's use of mercury

SOURCE ICIS Chemical Business Americas, v270 n19, November 20 - December 3, 2006, p13

ABSTRACT The European Environment Bureau (EEB) has called on the chlorine industry to stop using mercury cells in its production processes. The EEB claims that every year, Europe's chlorine industry discharges "tonnes of mercury into the environment." According to a study commissioned by the EEB, there is growing evidence that mercury air emissions from the EU's chlorine plants maybe significantly under-reported by as much as five times. The EEB said it wants to see the phaseout of the mercury cell process by 2010, in contrast with the industries timeframe of 2020.

6. Against the Public's Will: Summary of Responses to The Environmental Protection Agency's Plans to Cut Toxic Reporting

DATE December 2006

SOURCE OMB Watch

ABSTRACT The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received, and continues to receive, overwhelming opposition to a set of recent proposals to modify the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), the only searchable comprehensive database of toxic chemical information in the United States. The proposals would relax reporting requirements for companies releasing and disposing of certain toxic chemicals in order to reduce the paperwork burden on these companies. According to OMB Watch’s analysis, EPA received comments from 122,420 individuals and groups. The vast majority of these commenters, 122,386 (99.97%), strongly opposed the changes, and only 34 commenters (0.03%) expressed some degree of support for the proposals. The opposition came from over 120,000 average citizens, 23 state governments, more than 60 members of Congress, more than 30 public health organizations, more than 40 labor organizations and more than 200 environmental and public interest organizations. Support for the proposals came almost entirely from companies and industry associations in addition to a handful of government agencies and individuals. Comments opposing the changes most commonly cited concerns about threats to public health and the environment from increased, unmonitored pollution, the reduced ability of government agencies to make sound decisions on toxic pollution and the lack of burden reduction that will result from the changes. The health concerns raised by public health officials and organizations, the safety concerns raised by local, state and federal governments and the environmental concerns raised by public interest groups bring into question the sensibility of EPA’s proposals and strongly suggest that the proposals are too dangerous to implement. Against the Public’s Will: Summary of Responses to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Plans to Cut Toxic Reporting offers a detailed analysis of the comments submitted to the EPA’s public docket on the proposed changes to TRI. The report identifies nine stakeholder groups, details the level of support or opposition of each group, and summarizes the main points raised by each group. In addition to the resoundingly negative feedback they received in the docket of public comments, the agency’s proposals have faced strong opposition through a number of other channels: the U.S. House of Representatives voted to withhold funding to implement the proposals; the U.S. Senate placed a hold on an EPA nominee in protest of the proposals; the EPA’s own Science Advisory Board wrote the agency in protest; and the Environmental Council of States passed a resolution calling for EPA to withdraw the plans. Despite this mounting resistance, EPA has given every indication that it continues to move forward with significant changes to TRI.

WEB LINK http://www.ombwatch.org/info/TRICommentsReport.pdf 

7. The 2006 Autodesk Green Index

DATE 2006

SOURCE Fleishman-Hilliard Research

ABSTRACT Autodesk, Inc. has announced the results of the 2006 Autodesk Green Index, which provides a measure of the adoption of sustainable design techniques by architects. The overall Green Index number, based on a score of zero to 100, is expected to double by 2011, from 30 in 2006. Seventy-seven percent of this year's respondents indicated that client demand is the top driver for architects to practice sustainable design, up from 64 percent in 2005's Green Index. In last year's survey, customer demand was tied with fuel costs as leading drivers for the adoption of green building practices. n 2005, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) established a goal to reduce building- and construction-related fossil-fuel use by 50 percent by 2010. More than 60 percent of architects responding to the 2006 Green Index survey predict that their integrated/high performance design work will help meet the 2005 AIA goal. The most prevalent energy-saving initiative for architects are high- efficiency HVAC systems, with 64 percent of the study's respondents specifying their use on more than half of their projects over the past year. Five years ago, only 36 percent of architects used high-efficiency HVAC systems on over half of their design project; 85 percent expect to use high-efficiency HVAC systems on most of their projects by 2011. This Internet survey was conducted in October 2006 among 150 architects practicing in the United States. The architects were queried on their use of 16 green design practices: five years ago, over the previous 12 months, and their expected use of these practices five years from now. The design practices were based on the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards. Of the architects who responded to the survey, 48 percent are predominantly involved in design work on single family homes. The rest are involved with commercial projects, institutional or industrial projects. Fifty-four percent have 15 or more years of experience as an architect. Seventy-two percent have received training or continuing education on the subject of green buildings.

WEB LINK http://www.autodesk.com/mini-sites/green/pdf/
2006_Autodesk_Green_Index_Report.pdf 

8. Transfer of lead from shot pellets to game meat during cooking

AUTHOR Mateo, R.; Rodriguez-de la Cruz, M.; Vidal, V.; Reglero, M.; Camarero, P.

SOURCE Science of the Total Environment, Article-In-Press, Available Online November 21, 2006

ABSTRACT We evaluated the transfer of Pb from shot to meat during the preparation of breasts of quails with 0, 1, 2 or 4 embedded Pb shot. A traditional Spanish recipe was used which utilizes vinegar during cooking to enhance the long-term preservation of the meat. The effect of the acidic conditions generated by the vinegar on Pb transfer was compared with the same recipe when the vinegar was substituted with water. The effect of up to 4 weeks of storage on Pb transfer has been also evaluated. The transfer of Pb from the embedded shot to the meat was much higher when cooking with vinegar than with water. However, the Pb transfer under acidic conditions did not increase significantly during long-term storage at room temperature. The consumption of only half a pickled quail per week with embedded shot may cause the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of Pb by the Spanish consumer to be exceeded.

9. 'Sustainability' Gains Status on US Campuses

AUTHOR Scherer, Ron

SOURCE Christian Science Monitor, December 19, 2006

ABSTRACT Somewhere in the curriculum, most colleges and universities include Henry David Thoreau. Now, many of them are trying to emulate him. Yes, sweeping the academic world is Walden Pond 101: the art of living in a sustainable manner. Think environmental and social responsibility. One of the best examples of the ivory tower's effort to tread lightly on the land is at Arizona State University. Next month, ASU will inaugurate the nation's first School of Sustainability - whose classes will look at everything from water scarcity to urban air quality problems. It is one of many universities putting its intellect and talents to use in the name of ecology. These institutions are devoting more research to solving global climate problems, and they're redesigning their own campuses to be examples of better ways to use and protect Earth's resources. For some schools, the financial commitment to these issues has started to run into the millions of dollars, as they foot salaries for new specialists and pay the costs of creating green buildings. At the very least, many universities are creating new courses in response to student interest. Universities are quickly latching onto the issue as several developments show. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has quintupled in size this year, as it went from a West Coast-based organization to a national group. Also, an increasing number of schools, from New York University to the University of Central Oklahoma, are getting 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. And next month, a group of colleges and universities will launch an effort encouraging 200 universities to develop a plan that would make their schools "climate neutral," meaning the schools wouldn't adversely affect the environment. Many institutions are proud of their innovations. At the University of Rochester in New York, a new optics lab will have stairwells designed to absorb heat and radiate into the building to reduce heating costs. At Berea College in Kentucky, sewage from an "Ecovillage" is treated in a series of tanks filled with plants and fish. The University of California at San Diego has identified campus rooftops where it can install 500 kilowatts of solar panels, which equals the power needed for 325 homes.

WEB LINK http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1219/p01s03-ussc.html 

10. Move Over WD40, There's a New Kid on the Block

SOURCE Biobased Solutions, v7 n6, November 2006

ABSTRACT Petroleum lubricants have been used to reduce friction and improve the performance of moving mechanical parts for centuries. Recently, a biobased alternative product derived from soy has been developed. The United Soybean Board (USB) and soybean checkoff partnered with Workcell Systems Inc. to support the development of Glysol PenTrate, a soy-based penetrating lubricant. Glysol PenTrate is the soy alternative to WD40. The soy-based lubricant contains the same properties of WD40, except that it is free of petroleum and other distillates yet has equal or better performance than the petroleum product. During more than a year of field tests, Glysol PenTrate produced 50 percent (and in some applications up to 100 percent) greater lubricity than petroleum-based counterparts. Its extremely low surface tension allows the lubricant to penetrate into minute crevices - even badly rusted components. Since the soybased product is naturally hydrophobic, it displaces water from metal surfaces and, being very slow evaporating, leaves a thin film coating that resists rust and corrosion.

WEB LINK http://www.unitedsoybean.org/Library/RecentLibraryItems.aspx


You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly interested in monitoring, and who else should see GREENLIST. An online search of the TURI Library catalog can be done at http://greenlist.turi.org/ for greater topic coverage.

Compiled by the TURI Library, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2006

This page updated Friday January 05 2007

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