Jewellers and retailers commit to ‘No dirty gold’ campaign
Over 100 global jewellers and retailers, including, Tiffany & Co. and Target have committed to more responsible sourcing of previous metals by agreeing to the ‘Golden Rules’ proposed by environmental NGO Earthworks‘ ‘No Dirty Gold’ campaign. As part of the initiative, companies will study their metals supply chains, revise their supplier sourcing criteria, increase recycled gold content and seek more responsibly produced metals. Beth Gerstein, co-founder of Brilliant Earth, specialists in ethically sourced jewellery, said that “we believe that socially and environmentally responsible jewellery should be widely available to consumers. We want to reduce the need for dirty mining of precious metals.” Payal Sampat, from Earthworks, said that, “retailers don’t want consumers to associate gold jewellery with polluted rivers and child labour, and they are joining us in calling on the mining industry to clean up its act.” (Sustainable Brands)
Employees
Plans to protect World Cup workers unveiled
Organisers of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar have published a ‘Workers’ Charter’ in an attempt to protect the rights of migrant employees. Football’s governing body, Fifa, pushed for the reform following criticism of conditions for migrant workers; 185 Nepalese men were reported to have died working on construction projects in Qatar in 2013, with a report last year by Amnesty International claiming that workers on World Cup projects were being treated “like cattle”. The new document, developed in conjunction with the International Labour Organisation, details the measures that Qatar’s World Cup Supreme Committee plan to enact when dealing with contractors and subcontractors, including a telephone hotline for workers to raise grievances, granting workers a minimum three weeks paid annual holiday, and guaranteed rest days or compensation. The supreme committee said its principles will be “robustly and effectively monitored and enforced for the benefit of all workers.” However the International Trade Union Confederation says the proposals do not go far enough, and that it will not sufficiently protect workers’ rights. (BBC; Guardian)
Tata urged to give tea plantation workers way out of share scheme
Tata Global Beverages, maker of the Tetley tea brand, has been urged to allow plantation workers to withdraw from a share-purchase scheme intended to make them part-owners of the plantations where they work. About 21,000 mostly illiterate plantation workers agreed to spend $128 each – more than five months of earnings – to buy shares in Amalgamated Plantations Private Ltd, a company established to hold 24 tea plantations previously owned by Tata Global Beverages. However, a study into the scheme has found that many workers barely understood the concept of share ownership or the risks entailed, with many feeling coerced by plantation managers into buying the shares. The study, by Columbia Law School, calls for the plantation company to “act immediately to enable workers to opt out of the share-ownership scheme.” The scheme, which represents around 6 percent of monthly net wages, imposes a heavy financial burden on participants; “workers described the very real impact of this ostensibly minor deduction on their ability to feed themselves, buy educational supplies for their children or take care of other debts,” according to the study. (FT*)
Sustainable Transport
Buenos Aires honoured for sustainable transport improvements
Buenos Aires has won the 2014 Sustainable Transport Award, after improvements to the world’s widest avenue turned the Argentinean capital into “a city for people, not just for cars”. The city was handed the accolade by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), following a series of measures put in place by local authorities to improve transport efficiency in the city. The ITDP said Buenos Aires won the award after giving 9 de Julio Avenue – the widest avenue in the world – an “impressive transit makeover”. It converted a number of its 20 car lanes into bus lanes and created a high-quality bus rapid transit (BRT) system. In addition, the Metrobus Sur, a 23km BRT corridor which was opened last year, encourages commuters to walk or cycle to work. Walter Hook, chief executive of ITDP, said that, “Buenos Aires took the world’s widest avenue, with more than 20 lanes of car traffic, and transformed it into a world-class BRT corridor, cutting travel time in half for more than 200,000 commuters per day.” (BlueandGreenTomorrow)
Technology & Innovation
Chinese vanishing ink could see need for mountains of paper disappear
Chinese chemists have invented a printing system that they claim could spell the end of ink and introduce rewritable paper to the workplace. Sean Xiao-An Zhang, a chemistry professor at Jilin University, said the new “waterjet” technology means that printouts fade away within 22 hours, allowing the paper to be re-used. It is claimed that the invention could slash the price of printing as well as offering environmental benefits. The system requires ink to be replaced with water in printers, whilst paper is treated with an invisible dye compound which enables colours to fade away within a day. The treated paper costs about 5 percent more than standard sheets, however, if it is reused 50 times, each piece would represent a huge saving. Zhang said that, “the quality of the waterjet printing is comparable with inkjet printing. So far, we have achieved [printouts that are] many times rewritable. The cost is extremely low. Based on 50 times rewriting, the cost is only about 1 percent of the inkjet print.” (Times*)
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