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Got up pretty late today. It looks like a good day today. Another friend was laid off todayefficiency
- BREEAM and LEED are used worldwide, and green certification systems are popping up everywhere from the Middle East to South Africa, to Mexico.
- The January 21 conference will take a look at several office and multi-family retrofit case studies, including the LEED retrofit of the famed Transamerica Building, and pinpoint which approaches were the most fruitful.
- One of the earliest, the Integrated Design Associates (IDeAs) headquarters in San Jose, will be highlighted at our January 21 conference.
- The latest in our series of GreenBiz Reports explores and outlines the 10 best practices..
Full Story: Six Key Lessons on Green and Energy Efficiency Retrofits
A typical day: it has been raining all day today. The talk today was pretty refreshing. Just got a cup of tea and prepare to start working.
- “This preliminary commitment will help Ecopetrol expand its production base, contribute to Colombia’s economic growth, and offer enormous opportunities to U.S..exporters to provide goods and services to this important market,” Exim Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement.
- The company can draw on the Eximbank commitment over the next two years to help develop its oil and gas reserves, improve existing oil field production and and upgrade refineries, Eximbank said.
- Individual transactions under the package of medium- and long-term loans and loan guarantees still have to be submitted to the Eximbank board of directors for approval.
- Hochberg was in Bogota on Tuesday to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and other senior Colombian government officials.
- The Eximbank package will help in the Cartagena and Berrancabermeja refinery modernization projects, valued at over $6.5 billion and the largest and most complex industrial projects Colombia has undertaken in many decades, Ecopetrol President Javier Gutierrez said in a statement.
- Furthermore, Ecopetrol is committed to excellent environmental best practices and is actively developing bio-fuels,” he said.
Full Story: US sets $1 bln export aid to Colombia oil company
Some wind but very nice sunshine outside. A typical day: it has been raining all day today. The football game last night was great! An intereing article from BBC Business.
- “It’ll do for now,” says Frank Torreros, a waiter in a mid-range Bogotá restaurant.
- As in Europe, unemployment figures make headline news across Latin America.
- At least half of Latin American workers are considered informal, whether the term is taken to mean jobs in small, unregistered firms or wherever labour standards are not met.
- In Colombia, informal workers are estimated to make up 60% of the workforce, five times the unemployment rate of 11.5% (itself considerable).
- What Ms. Hernandez describes as her carelessness is, for other informal workers, a deliberate strategy for short-term gain.
- As a result, according to Alejandro Gaviria, former deputy director at the National Planning Department, one significant loser from the status quo is Colombia’s healthcare system.
- Rather than rethinking the system, the Colombian government has created further incentives for workers to remain in the informal economy, by offering subsidies for poor families and encouraging micro-credit schemes.
- The way forward?”Informality is seen as a response to reality, something about which nothing can be done.
Full Story: Waiting game for Colombia’s informal workers
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