• Land

Biden Administration Releases America The Beautiful plan to Reach 30×30

• 30 by 30
• American the Beautiful
• Biden Administration

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer On Thursday, the Biden administration announced detailed steps to protect 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. The report, titled “Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful,” calls for a 10-year commitment to making conservation and restoration a priority.  The plan details strategies to purify drinking water, increase green space, improve access to outdoor […]

• Ocean

CI, Apple Develop Mangrove Carbon Credits

• blue carbon
• carbon credits
• Conservation International
• mangroves

by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer In Cispatá on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, scientists have calculated just how much carbon a mangrove forest stores. Up until now, that number has treated mangroves like trees on land — missing more than half of their carbon store in the soil under trees. The calculation in Cispatá estimates the […]

• Sustainability

Diamonds No Longer In the Rough: Pandora Announces Transition to Lab-Made Diamonds 

• diamonds
• mining. blood diamonds
• Pandora
• sustainable

The largest jewelry company in the world, Pandora, announced that it will no longer use mined diamonds in its wares. Instead, the company opted to use lab-created diamonds, that have the same “optical, chemical, thermal and physical characteristics.” The collection, Pandora Brilliance, is the company’s first created only with diamonds manufactured in labs. 

Why this Matters:  These lab-made diamonds are made more sustainably than their mined counterparts. 

• Sustainability

One Shareholder Uprising Thing: Dupont Loses Big Vote on Plastic Pollution

• annual meeting
• As You Sow
• Dupont
• plastic pellets
• plastic pollution
• WWF

It’s annual meeting season, and corporations are increasingly on the defensive about their carbon footprint, climate change policies, and other social issues.  Most of the time, corporate leaders manage to fend off such resolutions.  But this year, DuPont lost big on a shareholder proposal, filed by a group called As You Sow, that received 81.2 […]

• Health

EPA Will Ramp Up Environmental Enforcement, Focus on EJ Communities

• Department of Justice
• disadvantaged communities
• environmental enforcement
• Environmental Justice
• EPA
• inspections
• supplemental environmental projects

EPA’s acting chief of enforcement sent a memo to staff last week (that The Hill obtained) calling for them to “[s]trengthen enforcement in overburdened communities by resolving environmental noncompliance through remedies with tangible benefits for the community” with a particular emphasis on “cornerstone environmental statutes.” 

Why This Matters: The Biden administration can immediately make progress correcting environmental injustice through fair and strong enforcement of current laws

• Climate Change

Germany Supercharges Its Climate Ambition

• Angela Merkel
• climate change
• Germany

by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer After the German Constitutional Court ruled that the country’s climate plans weren’t sufficient, the government has announced its new plans:  Cutting carbon emissions 65% by 2030 and 88% by 2040 (based on a 1990 baseline) Aiming for net-zero emissions by 2045, five years earlier than the initial target The […]