Energy Efficiency, Energy Storage, Sourcing Renewables  -  March 10, 2018

Weekend reads: IKEA opens circular gas station; An 18-mile living lab & more

 It's the weekend! Kick-back with these must-read energy stories from around the web:

US Energy Storage Market Tops the 1 GWh Milestone in 2017 (GreenTech Media)  The U.S. energy storage market is no longer in its infancy. According to GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association’s newly released U.S. Energy Storage Monitor 2017 Year in Review, 100 megawatt-hours of grid-connected energy storage were deployed in the fourth quarter of the year, marking 1,080 cumulative megawatt-hours deployed between 2013 and 2017. Even more impressive, GTM Research expects that the U.S. market will almost double this total in 2018 alone, with more than 1,000 megawatt-hours of energy storage forecast to be deployed this year.

This 18-mile stretch of Georgia highway is a living laboratory for clean energy (Popular Science)  It’s not often that captains of industry have epiphanies about climate change. So it was remarkable when, after reading The Ecology of Commerce in 1994, carpet manufacturer Ray Anderson set out to clean up his petroleum-intensive operation and succeeded in cutting net carbon emissions by more than 80 percent. Dubbed “America’s Greenest CEO,” Anderson dedicated his twilight years to proving that businesses could turn a profit without “digging up the earth and converting it to pollution.”

Why we #PressforProgress in corporate boardrooms (The Globe and Mail)  As industry leaders weigh in, and the transfer of capital moves into the hands of women and millennials, the seismic shift toward a new era of corporate sustainability is looming. The next few decades mark a critical period in domestic and international corporate reform as businesses begin to adapt to worldwide pressures for greater sustainability and changing consumer demands. The corporate sustainability movement is in its nascent years, but far more global in nature than "business case" corporate social responsibility, and is growing at a formidable pace.

600 Companies, More Senior Executives Commit to Sustainability Policies (Triple Pundit)  Record numbers of the largest and most influential companies in the US have been found in new research to be committing themselves to ambitious sustainability policies. The optimistic report, tagged Turning Point, has been released by the Boston-based non-profit sustainability consultancy Ceres, which seeks responsible solutions with prominent investors and companies. The findings, following up on an original 2014 assessment, Gaining Ground: Corporate Progress on the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability, show that nearly two-thirds of the more than 600 companies covered intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

IKEA opens circular gas station  (Innovators Magazine) In Finland are filling up their vehicles on biogas made using IKEA food waste. Innovators Magazine reported last October the deal signed between IKEA Finland and natural gas company, Gasum, to locate stations at the furniture giant’s stores across the country. And the first new Gasum station has been opened as part of the collaboration, at the IKEA store in Lommila, Espoo. “It’s excellent that the first IKEA store gas filling station is now open in Finland. This increases the opportunities to fill up on 100% Finnish biogas and clean gas. At the same time, IKEA is able to utilize food waste from its restaurants in energy production.

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