Capteurs d'Avenir
by PollutecNews and market updates for environment professionals
Business and biodiversity: What’s the Score?
In its latest global assessment, the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) showed that human activity has already altered 75% of terrestrial environments and 66% of marine environments. It also revealed that about a...
How can the environmental impact of your industrial projects be reduced?
How to reduce the environmental impact of your industrial projects?
Today, the issue of companies’ environmental impact is of interest to all market sectors, industry in particular. Given this context, industry professionals have been seeking out innovative methods to bring their projects to fruition while limiting their ecological footprint.
Ecodesign: key to the efficient use of resources
Nowadays the reduction of a product’s negative environmental impacts, or the inclusion of environmental considerations in the design process, are no longer just the preserve of a few pioneering companies. More and more manufacturers are offering ecodesigned products...
Waste management and Coronavirus
On Monday 23rd of March, the French Ministry of Ecology specified that “the waste management sector, whether treating hazardous or non-hazardous waste from households, businesses or even medical waste from hospitals, is still running to ensure waste collection and...
Algae: a multi-faceted issue
Whether brown, red, green or blue, unicellular microalgae or multicellular macroalgae are all photosynthetic organisms. Although the spread of macroalgal blooms (green tides, sargassum blooms, etc.) have given them a bad name in recent years, the many properties of...
Environmental protection: what tools are available to help companies follow the regulations?
In 2020, all corporate strategies must take into account green issues and environmental protection. It’s vital that companies remain energy efficient whilst adhering to environmental standards. Consequently, environmental professionals must keep up to date with the...
Hydrogen’s bright future
Beyond its traditional industrial applications (mainly petroleum product chemistry and refining), hydrogen has real potential to fuel the energy transition. Hydrogen can play a part in decarbonising certain sectors, including transport, as well as facilitating the...
The sewage system survey: what requirements must be met ?
In France, wastewater treatment is a highly regulated process. Different methods exist for inspecting the quality of treatment systems. One of the tools used to ensure that everything is running smoothly is the sewage system survey. The sewage system survey is a...
Air Quality: Can the targets be met in ten years?
In its latest SoE report (1), the EU forecasts that its air quality targets will be met by 2030. However, we are still a long way from achieving the targets set for 2020. So what exactly is the current state of play? As demonstrated ever more accurately by scientific...
Renewable energies increasingly competitive in France
The renewable energy production sectors, still just emerging at the start of the 21st century, are now seeing their costs fall rapidly thanks to technological advances and the economies of scale associated with the increasing installed volumes. Certain sectors are...
What are the opportunities in the Indian market?
As an emerging economy, India is faced with challenges related to water, air and waste. In recognition of both current problems in India and the region’s potential, Business France, one of Pollutec’s public-sector partners, has identified various market sectors in...
International calls for proposals for the blue economy
By global definition, the blue economy is the subject of call for proposals at European and international levels. Examples include ongoing proposals such as Investing in Blue Innovation run by the EU via the EMFF, MarTERA 2020 launched by ERA-Net and the UNDP’s Ocean...
The latest on the restoration of polluted brownfield sites
Recent years have seen a real upsurge of interest in brownfield site restoration, which involves giving new uses to abandoned land and improving the quality of degraded soils while reducing the risks to future users. Projects are now going beyond the traditional...
A new methodology to calculate material footprint
Accurate knowledge of the quantity of raw materials consumed by an economy is a pre-requisite for any circular economy policy. From this perspective the ad-hoc indicator is the material footprint. This is currently calculated using a methodology developed by Eurostat...
The environment is increasingly central to the maritime economy
Environmental matters are more central than ever to issues surrounding the seas and oceans. In late 2018, the French government’s Strategic Contract for Maritime Industries placed particular emphasis on the decarbonisation of propulsion and on-board energy (‘green...
Adaptation in question
Faced with climate change, humankind has long believed that it would equally be capable of implementing suitable adaptation solutions. However, it should firstly be noted that adaptation is not an alternative to attenuation. And secondly, some of the impacts of climate change that have often been predicted for 2030, 2050 or even 2100 are already here so we can no longer speak in the future tense.
Ten Years on from Grenelle de la Mer: Where Are We Now?
In 2009, France organised “Grenelle de la Mer” based on the same framework as the “Grenelle de l’Environnement”. Ten years on, the CNML, France’s National Coastal and Ocean Council, has produced a report highlighting the main issues that need to be further addressed. Let’s take a look at the key findings.
Water, cornerstone of Pollutec
Accounting for almost a third of exhibitors, water ranks alongside waste as one of the cornerstones of Pollutec. This traditional show sector is however by no means any less dynamic and is constantly innovating.
Heating and cooling networks: a sector worth boosting
Heating currently accounts for almost half of final energy consumption in France, but remains largely reliant on fossil fuels. Alongside fuelwood, solar energy, air source heat pumps (ASHP) and other renewable heat solutions, heating and cooling networks have their part to play too.
Bio-waste: one of the key issues for the coming years
Currently, residual household waste in France is either disposed of in landfill or incinerated. However, almost a third of this RHW is made up of bio-waste which may have a water content of 60%-90%. Instead of burying or incinerating bio-waste, is it possible to adopt a process for returning it to the soil? This is the aim of source separation for recycling.
The many environmental benefits of satellite applications
Earth observation is a key field of satellite applications. With applications ranging from resource management to land-use planning, ocean and coastline, air quality, natural hazards and climate change, its uses are becoming more widespread as technology and data analysis systems develop.
Strategic and critical rare metals: what exactly are they?
Though they’ve been talked about for quite a few years, most of us have a rather vague notion of what strategic and critical rare metals and rare earths actually are. Some of these concepts relate to geology, while others have an economic dimension. This makes them difficult to consider like-for-like. Here are some key points for each.
Pollutec Maroc, 11 years at the service of the environment
International exhibition of environment equipments, technologies and services, the 11th edition of Pollutec Maroc was held from 30 October to 02 November 2019 at the Casablanca International Fair. Report on this event.
Report on the Circular Economy Summit
The Circular Economy Summit took place at Pollutec on 28 November 2018. It gathered over 600 participants, hailing from 28 different countries, to discuss the challenges and stakes of circular economy for cities and regions.
Environmental health – a hot topic
Studying the links between health and the environment is nothing new. But it was only in 1989 that a definition of environmental health was proposed by the World Health Organization. Thirty years on, how does the land lie in this eminently cross-disciplinary topic?