United States, March 02, 2010
|  Keith Masser, a seventh generation potato farmer, is no dummy. A graduate of Penn State with a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering, Masser always has his eye on the bottom line. This includes not only the best, most productive, and most wholesome ways to grow the humble but essential potato, but ways to get it to market, in all its myriad forms, at a cost that remains competitive with other potato producers.
For Masser, who is both president of Keystone Potato Products and president/CEO of Sterman Masser Inc., the parent company, the most recent effort to stay ahead of the curve involves installing solar photovoltaic panels to cut electricity costs for his Sacramento, Pennsylvania-based factory.
The project is doable thanks to a $1 million grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority, or CFA (also known as the Pennsylvania Financing Authority), which was established as an independent agency to administer Pennsylvania’s allocations under the economic stimulus package, as funded through ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).
For this western Schuykill County potato grower/processor, the grant will go a long way toward installing what is anticipated to cost in excess of $5 million, but will in the long run save Masser and his company a bucketful of cash, given the fact that Allentown-based regional electric utility PPL Electric will be raising its rates 30 percent in 2010 due to the removal of rate caps on electric prices by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission.
The solar farm will go on 80 acres of farmland, on a sloping hill just off Fearnot Road, with the large, black solar panels making an interesting visual addition to what is otherwise a field of two-foot tall potato plants.
The solar field, which can accommodate about 159,000 solar panels, for a total output of about 11 megawatts (or enough to power about 1,400 homes), will likely end up about the same size as the Wyandot Solar Project in Ohio – which on completion this summer will be the largest in the state, and possibly in the Midwest. | | | |
| United Kingdom, March 01, 2010
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Marks & Spencer (M&S) announces a programme to be the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015, launching 80 major new commitments under M&S’ eco and ethical plan, Plan A.
The new commitments will mean we ensure all M&S products become ‘Plan A products’ with at least one sustainable quality, enable our 2,000 suppliers to adopt Plan A best practice and encourage M&S customers and employees to live ‘greener’ lifestyles. They include:
- Converting all 2.7 billion individual M&S food, clothing and home items (across 36,000 product lines) sold every year into ‘Plan A products’, so that each carries at least one sustainable or ethical quality (e.g. carrying Fairtrade or Marine Stewardship Council certification or using free range or other sustainable ingredients). We will aim to convert 50% of our products by 2015 and 100% by 2020;
- Encouraging 21 million M&S customers to live a more sustainable lifestyle starting today with the launch of a new competition – Your Green Idea – for customers to submit their ideas for ‘green’ actions for M&S to adopt. The winning idea will receive £100,000 to be spent on ‘greening’ an organisation such as a school, charity or small business;
- Becoming the first major retailer to actively tackle and bring clarity to the living wage debate. M&S will do this by determining and agreeing a fair, living wage before implementing a process to ensure our clothing suppliers pay this wage to their workers in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. Based on our successful pilot in Bangladesh, we will do this by working with our suppliers to improve productivity and management practices;
- Working with M&S suppliers to provide training and education programmes – including in basic healthcare and workers’ rights - for 500,000 workers in their factories;
- Helping our suppliers create 200 ‘Plan A’ factories with either ethical or environmental features, or both, and encouraging 10,000 farmers who produce our fresh foods to join our sustainable agriculture programme;
- Sourcing all cardboard for M&S food packaging via a single ‘model’ forest programme;
- Becoming the first major retailer to ensure full traceability of all the key raw materials used in our clothing and home products including cotton, wool, polyester, nylon, leather and wood;
- Becoming the first major retailer to ensure that six key raw materials we use - palm oil, soya, cocoa, beef, leather, coffee - come from sustainable sources that do not contribute to deforestation, one of the biggest causes of climate change;
- Increasing the number of clothing garments our customers recycle every year from two million to 20 million, including via our partnership with Oxfam, significantly reducing the tonnage of clothing sent to landfill;
- Launching a five-year £50m Plan A incubator fund to support the development of innovative new ‘Plan A’ products and services at M&S;
- Offering free home insulation and a free home energy monitor to all eligible M&S employees and giving them one paid, day-off a year to work in their local communities.
Environmental and social issues remain important to UK consumers. A ComRes survey commissioned by M&S, found that 72% of people surveyed are worried about environmental issues, with 73% saying that the recession had not changed their level of concern.
Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks & Spencer said:
“Since we launched our eco plan, Plan A, in 2007 we’ve reduced our environmental impact, developed new sustainable products and services, helped improve the lives of people in our local communities and saved around £50 million by being more efficient.
“We’ve now set ourselves the ambitious target of becoming the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015, so that we lead the way in making a positive contribution to the environment and society across everything we do and everything we sell.
“Our extended Plan A will reach further and move us faster - covering every part of our business and reaching out to forests, farms, factories, lorries, warehouses and into our customers’ and employees’ homes. We believe sustainability is a key ingredient of business success and that Plan A will continue to make us more efficient, develop new markets and build customer loyalty. It’s therefore not just the right thing to do morally but also makes strong commercial sense.” | | | |
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