�㽶��Ƶ News - Benjamin Goldstein

Palm oil giants push out smallholders in Guatemala; deforestation risks remain

webfull — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 16:03:18 +0000

Guatemala is now the third-largest palm oil producer after Malaysia and Indonesia (which produce 88% of the global supply) and is often seen as a more sustainable alternative. Today, more than 60% of Guatemala’s plantations are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). High certification rates are largely attributed to plantations owned by a handful of producers, making it easier to certify large chunks of the industry, according to RSPO.

Published: 17 January 2024

Palm oil plantations and deforestation in Guatemala: Certifying products as 'sustainable' is no panacea

webfull — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 23:50:15 +0000

Palm oil, which can be found in roughly half of all packaged supermarket products, is notorious for causing deforestation and biodiversity loss. Efforts to curtail the damage have largely focused on voluntary environmental certification programs that label qualifying palm-oil sources as "sustainable."

Published: 27 July 2023

Mac alumni win Homegrown Innovation Challenge

webfull — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 23:42:25 +0000

Hydroponic strawberry growers and Co-founders of Vertité, Ophelia Sarakinis (FMT’19) and Phillip Rosenbaum (B.Sc.(AgEnvSc)’19, MSc.’21) and their partners have just won the first phase of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge, a “six-year, $33-million initiative from the Weston Family Foundation to future-proof food production in Canada.”

Published: 20 October 2022

Caucasian households in U.S. emit most carbon despite greater energy efficiency

webfull — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 15:00:31 +0000

Residential energy use represents roughly one-fifth of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. A team of researchers led by �㽶��Ƶ has used data from 60 million individual American households to look into how carbon emissions caused by household energy use vary by race and ethnicity across the country. Paradoxically, this first national level analysis found that even though energy-efficient homes are more often found in Caucasian neighbourhoods, carbon emissions from these neighbourhoods are higher than in African American neighbourhoods.

Published: 22 November 2021