Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
As environmental policy and economics researchers, we study how companies make these net-zero pledges. Though the pledges make great press releases, net-zero is more complicated and potentially problematic than it may seem.
What Is 'Net-Zero' Emissions?
The gold standard for reaching net-zero emissions looks like this: A company identifies and reports all emissions it is responsible for creating, it reduces them as much as possible, and then – if it still has emissions it cannot reduce – it invests in projects that either prevent emissions elsewhere or pull carbon out of the air to reach a "net-zero" balance on paper.
The process is complex and still largely unregulated and ill-defined. As a result, companies have a lot of discretion over how they report their emissions. For example, a multinational mining company might count emissions from extracting and processing ore but not the emissions produced by transporting it.
Companies also have discretion over how much they rely on what are known as offsets – the projects they can fund to reduce emissions. The oil giant Shell, for example, projects that it will both achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and continue to produce high levels of fossil fuel through that year and beyond. How? It proposes to offset the bulk of its fossil-fuel-related emissions through massive nature-based projects that capture and store carbon, such as forest and ocean restoration. In fact, Shell alone plans to deploy more of these offsets by 2030 than were available globally in 2019.
Environmentalists may welcome Shell's newfound conservationist agenda, but what if other oil companies, the airline industries, the shipping sectors and the U.S. government all propose a similar solution? Is there enough land and ocean realistically available for offsets, and is simply restoring environments without fundamentally changing the business-as-usual paradigm really a solution to climate change?
Concerns About Voluntary Carbon Markets
Outside of compliance emissions markets, which primarily focus on government regulation in the energy sector, voluntary markets create most of the offsets that are used to reach net-zero.
Voluntary markets are organized and operated by a diverse range of groups where anyone can participate. Have you ever seen the option to offset your flight? That offset probably happens through a voluntary carbon market. The activities that produce the offsets include projects like forestry and ocean management, waste management, agricultural practices, fuel switching and renewable energy. As the name implies, they are voluntary and therefore largely unregulated.
Because of the wave of net-zero pledges and subsequent demand for offsets, voluntary carbon markets are under pressure to expand quickly. A task force launched by United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action Mark Carney and involving several major companies released a sweeping blueprint at Davos 2021 that predicts voluntary carbon markets need to grow fifteenfold over the next decade. It suggests that the net-zero surge represents one of the largest commercial opportunities of our time – prompting keen interest from investors and big business. It also identifies and proposes solutions to some persistent challenges and critiques of voluntary carbon offset markets.
Some critics of the blueprint argue that it overlooks deeper problems rooted in the overall reliance on and effectiveness of voluntary carbon markets as a solution.
Though there is historical evidence of misuse and plenty of criticism, voluntary carbon markets are not inherently bad or useless in the pursuit of climate targets. In fact, quite the opposite. Some voluntary carbon market projects, in addition to mitigating climate change, provide other benefits, such as improvements to biodiversity habitats, water quality, soil health and socioeconomic opportunities.
However, there are real concerns about the ability of voluntary markets to legitimately deliver what they promise. Common concerns include questions about the permanence of the projects for storing carbon long term, verifying that offsets actually reduce emissions beyond a business-as-usual scenario and confirming that credits are not being used more than once. These and other challenges expose voluntary carbon markets to potential manipulation, greenwashing, unintended consequences and, regrettably, failure to achieve their purpose.
It's getting better, but over-reliance on this method for counterbalancing emissions does risk some entities' using offsets as a right to pollute.
Can Global Ecology Meet the Demand?
Voluntary carbon markets can improve landscapes and help make up for unavoidable emissions. However, they cannot accommodate all of the developed world's net-zero targets.
Most of these initiatives have not yet started, yet emitters from developed countries are already seeking offsets outside their borders. This is raising concerns that wealthier companies may be placing the burden of their emissions onto poorer countries that can produce offsets cheaply, begging the notion of a newfound climate colonialism. Local communities may benefit from some environmental improvements or socioeconomic opportunities, but should economically developed polluters be forcing that decision?
Beyond ethics, in statistical terms, there is simply not enough ecological capacity to offset the world's emissions.
Take the interest in using forests as offset solutions. There are around 3 trillion trees on Earth today with room for about 1 to 2.5 trillion more. The Trillion Tree Initiative, 1T program, Trillion Trees, and the CEO of Reddit, among others, aim to plant a trillion trees each. From just a few examples, there is already a paradoxical impasse.
Offsets can realistically do only so much for reaching climate targets. That is why the focus must turn toward reducing rather than offsetting global emissions. Voluntary carbon markets serve a critical role as innovation sandboxes for creative offset solutions, and they are mobilizing the private sector to act; however, they must be limited.
While some prominent organizations are pursuing net-zero, most businesses and governments have not yet pledged, let alone developed, clear and plausible road maps to meet targets in line with a 2050 net-zero global economy.
The Needed Goal: A Negative Net
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the world can keep global warming in check if emissions are cut in half by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, and reach net-zero by midcentury. However, it also states a need for greenhouse gas removal beyond net-zero emissions targets.
The real act of climate cleanup begins at net-negative emissions for all greenhouse gases. Only then will their atmospheric concentrations finally begin shrinking. That feat will require more renewable energy, widespread infrastructure and transportation developments, improved land management and investments in carbon capturing activities and technologies.
While net-zero is a critical step toward addressing climate change, it must be achieved smartly. And, importantly, it can't be the end goal.
Oliver Miltenberger is a Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Economics, The University of Melbourne.
Matthew D. Potts is a Professor, S.J. Hall Chair in Forest Economics, University of California, Berkeley.
Disclosure statement: Matthew Potts is also a scientific advisor for Carbon Direct. Oliver Miltenberger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
These features provide the user with the convenience of waking their TV through a voice command to a nearby smart speaker, or to seamlessly shift from watching content on a tablet or phone to the TV, without using a remote control. Our extensive laboratory testing on the standby power of 10 different models found that in many cases, enabling these features caused a TV's overall annual electricity consumption to skyrocket by as much as 75 percent.
All that extra standby power adds up. NRDC estimates it will cost purchasers of 2021 TVs who enable smart wake features an additional $750 million on their utility bills over these TVs' seven-year lifetime, barring future manufacturer design improvements. The extra electricity consumption also will lead to more than 3 million tons of additional carbon dioxide emissions.
Spoiler alert, Samsung and LG TVs have found a way to support smart wake on their internet-connected televisions WITHOUT a noticeable increase in standby power levels. Other models we tested, however, were like vampires continuously guzzling electricity while waiting to be fully awakened.
What Are 'Smart Wake' Features?
The vast majority of new TVs offer the user the ability to be connected wirelessly to a smart speaker like the Amazon Echo (which many simply call Alexa). The user can then wake or control the TV simply with voice commands by saying things like, "Alexa turn on the TV" or "OK Google, turn on the Knicks game." Another option is "wake by cast," which allows a user who is viewing a movie or show on a tablet or phone to click on the little casting icon, and their TV will quickly wake and display the same content. Lastly, users can download an app to turn their phone into a virtual remote control that can wake and control their TV. These three features are forms of "smart wake" that avoid the hassle of having to locate and use a remote control.
iStock / Diy13
How Did We Test the TVs?
NRDC partnered with Pacific Crest Laboratories (PCL) for the first in-depth study of the standby power of different TVs when these features were enabled. Most of the ten TVs we tested required the user to go into the menu and turn on/enable the smart wake features. Each manufacturer had its own terminology for the settings and in some cases, the user needed to select the Quick Start feature for things to operate properly. We tested a range of TV brands, both major and small, as well as a variety of operating systems (e.g., Roku, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, etc.) that these TVs are controlled by.
Prior to testing we connected the TV to a live internet signal and downloaded the latest software update. After displaying video content, we turned off the TV and measured its standby power. We then configured the TV so the smart wake features were enabled, including selecting wake on cast and linking the smart speaker to the TV via a wireless connection.
Subsequently, we confirmed whether the smart wake features worked and measured the TV's standby power for 40 minutes. Given that TVs may not fully power down for several minutes, we waited 20 minutes before starting our measurements and then recorded the average standby power over the next 20 minutes.
What Impact Did Smart Wake Have on TV Standby Power?
The average standby power level of TVs tested without any smart wake features enabled was 0.6 watts. Once we turned on the smart wake features, standby power levels jumped dramatically. This table shows the brands tested, along with their operating system (OS). Some of the operating systems like Android TV are used by multiple manufacturers, whereas LG and Samsung have their own proprietary operating systems, WebOS and Tizen, respectively.
Two things to note: a) Samsung and LG TVs supported smart wake features without a noticeable increase in standby power; and b) for all the other TVs tested we saw standby power levels from roughly 5 to 20 watts. We conferred with the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), which has tested roughly 40 TVs in both on and standby modes and done lots of great work in this space, and reported an average standby power level of 12.5 watts for models that showed elevated standby power levels with smart wake. (We used this value in our modeling discussed below.)
In follow-up conversations with Vizio, we learned that their TVs support wake by phone (using the phone as a remote control) when their TV is in the default Eco Mode setting and were able to achieve standby power level of less than 1 watt. The 14.4-watt level in the table was based on testing with the Vizio TV's Quick Start setting selected as that was required to get their wake by cast and wake by voice features to work properly.
National Impacts
NRDC and PCL developed a model to quantify the national impact of smart wake features. We excluded Samsung and LG TVs, which together represent just under half of U.S. market share, as they did not show elevated smart wake standby levels. We assumed an incremental standby power level of 11.9 watts, and that half of all users would configure their TVs to use one or more of the smart wake features. (Note: this article shows half of smart speaker owners connect them to TVs. While we don't know exactly what percentage use wake by cast or wake by phone, we believe it's significant and likely to grow as the manufacturers make these features easier to use and consumers become more aware of them.)
On a per TV basis, we assumed an average TV draws around 60 watts of electricity in active use and 0.6 watts in standby. Assuming a duty cycle of 5 hours on and 19 hours off per day, this translates to an annual energy use of 108 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. If that same TV had smart wake enabled and drew 12.5 watts in standby, its annual energy use jumped to 191 kWh/yr. — an increase of 76.3 percent. Over the TV's typical 7-year lifetime, it will consume an extra $75 of electricity, and twice that in areas with higher utility rates, like California and Hawaii.
We then quantified the national impacts by assuming that half of the 40 million TVs sold in the U.S. each year have inefficient smart wake designs, and half of those have smart wake enabled. The incremental energy used by these 10 million TVs over their lifetime adds up to:
- 5,777-gigawatt hours (GWh) of additional electricity use, which is equivalent to the annual output of two large (500 megawatt) coal-burning power plants
- $750 million in higher consumer utility bills
- Over 3 million tons of CO2 emissions
To put all this extra energy use into perspective, it's roughly equivalent to one year's worth of electricity consumption by all the households in Portland, OR and Tampa combined!
All of these impacts are just for the U.S. market and become a lot larger when international sales are considered.
Where to From Here?
The good news from this study is that two TV manufacturers already demonstrated that a TV can support all these smart wake features with no energy or performance penalty. We hope our study serves as a call to action for other manufacturers to work with their operating system vendors to provide a good user experience with these smart wake features enabled while achieving similar low standby power levels.
Our policy level recommendations include:
- The test method used by manufacturers and regulators to measure the energy use of TVs must be updated to ensure the TV is connected to the internet during testing and with smart wake features enabled, and that the increased standby power use this may cause is captured and reported.
- The Environmental Protection Agency should update its test method and eligibility criteria for ENERGY STAR® to ensure TVs that qualify for the label have low standby power levels, including when smart wake features are enabled.
- The Federal Trade Commission should update the testing and reporting instructions for its yellow ENERGY GUIDE label, which compares the energy use and operating costs of similar sized TVs.
Courtesy of EPA
As a result of our research and conversations with some of the manufacturers and companies that develop the operating systems, we believe these entities now understand this issue and appear committed to trying to make the necessary changes.
Let's hope that in the not too distant future the other TV manufacturers make the necessary software fixes so they catch up to Samsung and LG and we can prevent this unnecessary energy waste and the pollution that comes with it. That's something worth tuning into!
Noah Horowitz is the director of the Center for Energy Efficiency Standards, Climate & Clean Energy Program at Natural Resources Defense Council.
Reposted with permission from NRDC.
Adopting such solutions would set world leaders on track to meet their target of keeping the planet from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels this century, according to the World Energy Transitions Outlook report. The UN had warned in November that pledges to meet this goal were so far "woefully inadequate."
"The window of opportunity to achieve the 1.5 C Paris Agreement goal is closing fast," said Francesco La Camera, the director-general of IRENA. "The gap between where we are and where we should be is not decreasing, but widening. We are heading in the wrong direction."
Instead, IRENA — an intergovernmental organization based in Abu Dhabi made up of 162 countries and the European Union — calls for a change in direction and a dramatic acceleration of the energy transition as countries walk the "narrow tightrope" toward the 1.5 C target.
Global Turnaround Through Green Power
To meet the growing need for electricity in heating and transport and to make green hydrogen, the report projects that global electricity demand will triple by 2050.
That would make it the main energy source in the world, powering more than 80% of all vehicles. Heating would mainly be provided by heat pumps, whose number is set to rise 20-fold by 2050 to around 400 million.
To stay in line with climate targets, coal-fired power plants would have to be shut down and no new ones built. Ninety percent of electricity would have to come from renewable sources, mainly sun and wind, with a global installed capacity of photovoltaics almost 30 times greater than in 2018. There would have to be 14 times the wind power, and hydropower would have to double.
Fossil gas and nuclear energy, meanwhile, would make up 4% and 6% of electricity generated, respectively.
But, even with such an expansion of renewables and a drop in fossil fuels, the report relies on removing CO2 from the atmosphere to meet climate goals. This includes reforesting areas in which trees have been hacked down or burned, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere by growing plants, and capturing it from industrial sites and injecting it underground. The technology to capture carbon and store it is expensive, and exists only at a small scale.
Major Challenge, But Possible
To meet climate goals, the report assumed a globally available budget of 500 billion tons of CO2 for the current scenario. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if no more than this amount is released into the atmosphere, the world has a half-chance of warming 1.5 C and missing the target.
But, for a two-thirds chance of avoiding that level of warming, even more CO2 would have to be kept out of the atmosphere. According to the IPCC, total emissions would have to be limited to about 285 billion tons. Around 42 billion tons of CO2 are emitted by the energy and agricultural sectors every single year.
"A scenario like the one presented by IRENA is conceivable," said Christian Breyer, a professor of solar economics at LUT University in Finland, who was not involved in the study. Breyer criticized the report for its high CO2 budget and reliance on technologies to remove emissions rather than stop them in the first place.
In addition, he said, the benefits "of extremely low-cost solar electricity have not yet been fully incorporated into the scenario, but very expensive system solutions such as nuclear power and biomass with CO2 capture."
Economic Stimulus to Bring Jobs
That turnaround has already begun.
Global oil consumption will continue to fall in the coming years, and fossil gas is set to join it in 2025. "Financial markets are already reflecting this change by shifting capital away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable assets like renewables," La Camera said.
Echoing warnings from the UN last year, IRENA said that stimulus packages in the wake of the pandemic must be used strategically to meet the 1.5 C target. Doing so would also help employment. The report projects that investing in the energy transition will create close to three times more jobs than fossil fuels for every million dollars spent.
"While the pathway is daunting, several favorable elements can make it achievable," La Camera said. "Major economies accounting for over half of global CO2 emissions are turning carbon-neutral. Global capital is moving, too."
Reposted with permission from Deutsche Welle.