Bureau Veritas has issued the world's first ISO 50001 certification for a shipping company. This was awarded to Stena’s ship management division, Northern Marine Management, including Northern Marine Management (USA). The U.S. facility achieved certification to BS ISO 50001. Northern Marine implemented its first shipboard energy management plans onto Stena vessels in 2005, writes Tanker Operator.
SMA America’s Denver-based, solar inverter manufacturing site recently passed its audits for both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001standards with both registration audits yielded zero findings. TUV USA, Inc. performed the audit, the company said.
Data center services provider Equinix has announced that all nine of its data centers in the UK and the Netherlands are ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 certified. Equinix said that it's the first data center provider in Europe to earn the ISO 50001.
Smart Platform Rental Limited, a UK provider of self-drive rental truck platforms, has been awarded the environmental management standard ISO 14001. The award comes months after receiving its ISO 9001 certification. Independent third-party accreditation body British Assessment Bureau conducted the audit, the company said.
The Mexican Stock Exchange has launched a new sustainability index, the third of its type in the world. Together with the Dow Jones Sustainability and FTSE 4Good Indexes, the Mexican Sustainability Index will look to apply additional equity value to firms that implement sustainability practices. Also, through the index Mexico's hopes to meet commitment to reduce the amount of GHG emissions by 30 percent in 2020, the company said.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage signed an executive order allows the use of non-Forest Stewardship Council certified wood in the construction of green buildings, which according to a statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council is a step back for the state's green building industry. Previously, Maine required new or expanded state buildings to meet LEED green building standards, but LEED only allows for the use of FSC-certified materials. The move benefits the state's logging industry, said the NRDC.
The $1-billion Department of Defense Washington Headquarters Office Complex at the Mark Center in Alexandria, Va., has been certified LEED Gold, the Army Corps of Engineers announced. During construction, more than 90 percent of construction waste was recycled, diverting an estimated 6 million pounds of waste from landfills. The project also purchased 54 million kWh of renewable energy to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 40 percent for the next four years. The building will consume about 30 percent less energy than a traditional building.
A team of scientists, led by the University of Nevada, Reno, has installed installing fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing equipment on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The system will conduct long-term monitoring of climate change effects on the ice pack and its potential for collapse. The equipment continually records temperatures for every meter of the ice shelf and to the ocean bottom 800 meters below the surface, according to PhysOrg.com.
