Matthew McDermott

Feature News

Is The World Ready For Your Innovation?
Our current retail system is set up to sell new products, which are used and then disposed of – very much a linear (and inefficient) process. The Closed Loop system implies that once products are used they can be reconditioned and brought back into the sales loop
Europe`s future depends on cities resilient to climate change
Around three quarters of Europeans live in cities. Most of Europe's wealth is generated in cities, and urban areas are particularly at risk due to climate change.
Microsoft Taxes Itself - Will it be enough to drive change?
This week, Microsoft is announcing an unusual initiative that it hopes will change how the company operates. Microsoft is charging every division and data center for the carbon emissions they generate. Will it be enough to drive change?
Life Cycle Approaches Key to Canada's Competitivenes
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy today released a new report that identifies the need for Life Cycle Approaches in environmental and economic decision-making by companies and government.
Clean mining association launched
A new industry association has been launched aimed at supporting and advocating technological advancements to make the mining industry cleaner and more environmentally responsible.

Matthew McDermott

Editor - Business, Politics & Energy, TreeHugger.com, USA

Mat McDermott edits the Business and Energy sections of Discovery Communication's TreeHugger.com, as well as writing about resource consumption, animal welfare issues and the response of religious communities to environmental problems. Driving his work are two main convictions: 1) Our current environmental problems-climate change, biodiversity losses, peak fossil fuels, natural resource over consumption-are but symptoms of the greater problem of fetishizing material economic growth; and 2) only by first changing our minds, recognizing the literal and metaphorical interconnected nature of all life, will we make the lasting external changes required to create an ecologically sustainable civilization. In addition to his work with TreeHugger, Mat is an advisor for The Bhumi Project, "a worldwide Hindu response to environmental issues facing our planet...facilitated by the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies."