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PR Newswire

Delta Obtains Highest Platinum Rating for Zero Waste to Landfill (UL 2799) for “100% Diversion, with 8% Thermal Processing with Energy Recovery”

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TAIPEI, April 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The Delta Dongguan Plant has successfully obtained UL 2799 zero waste to landfill certification with a platinum rating. Platinum is the highest level of the certification, which confirms that none of the waste generated by the Dongguan plant goes to landfill. The plant has achieved 100% diversion, with 8% thermal processing with energy recovery. This honor not only commends and recognizes Delta’s long-term efforts in waste reduction and management, but also Delta’s specific actions to increase the chance of resources being reused and to improve the waste management system through certification.

Mr. Rock Huang, Delta’s president of global manufacturing, highlighted, “Delta sorts waste generated as well as supervises, keeps abreast of, and tracks the process and processing results in line with its corporate mission ‘To provide innovative, clean and energy-efficient solutions for a better tomorrow.'” In addition to requiring all departments to reduce the generation of waste, Delta actively strives not to generate waste, and to allow resources to be recycled effectively for environmental protection. This time the zero waste to landfill platinum rating obtained by the Dongguan plant recognizes that Delta has made tremendous progress in waste management. For the future, Delta will build on this certification achievement and continue to expand this model to all of its plants around the world.

Delta pursues the sustainable utilization of resources and the prevention of resource depletion. In 2017, it passed a review by the internal Corporate Social Responsibility Committee and set a target of reducing waste intensity by 15% by 2020 with 2015 as the base year. At the end of 2019, a total of 187 waste reduction projects were implemented, saving 4,051.7 tons of waste. Waste reduction activities include the replacement of cartons with plastic rotary boxes, a closed loop of paper, secondary use of metal scraps, improved plastic utilization, and reduced waste plastics, which demonstrate Delta’s specific achievements in waste reduction and management.

UL 2799 is a certification standard of zero waste to landfill. It requires all waste flows within an enterprise to be in regulatory compliance, inspected, and audited to confirm that waste has been properly reduced, recycled, and energy recovered, rather than landfilled or incinerated without energy recovery. Companies that achieve a diversion rate of 80 percent or greater qualify for the validation. Delta obtains the highest platinum level for zero waste to landfill with a 100% diversion rate – 92% from waste reduction and recycling, and 8% from thermal processing with energy recovery. 

About Delta

Delta, founded in 1971, is a global provider of switching power supplies and thermal management products with a thriving portfolio of smart energy-saving systems and solutions in the fields of industrial automation, building automation, telecom power, data center infrastructure, EV charging, renewable energy, energy storage and display, to nurture the development of smart manufacturing and sustainable cities. As a world-class corporate citizen guided by its mission statement, “To provide innovative, clean and energy-efficient solutions for a better tomorrow,” Delta leverages its core competence in high-efficiency power electronics and its CSR-embedded business model to address key environmental issues, such as climate change. Delta serves customers through its sales offices, R&D centers and manufacturing facilities spread over close to 200 locations across 5 continents.

Throughout its history, Delta has received various global awards and recognition for its business achievements, innovative technologies and dedication to CSR. Since 2011, Delta has been listed on the DJSI World Index of Dow Jones Sustainability™ Indices for 9 consecutive years. In 2017, Delta was selected by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) for its Climate Change Leadership Level for the 2nd consecutive year.

For further information about Delta, please visit: www.deltaww.com 

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PR Newswire

Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund to Be a Major Component in the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s New Infrastructure Funds Index

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GUELPH, Ontario, April 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Canadian Solar Inc. (the “Company”, or “Canadian Solar”) (NASDAQ: CSIQ), announced today that Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund, Inc. (“CSIF”) (TSE: 9284), listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (“TSE”), will be included in a new Infrastructure Funds Index to be launched by TSE on April 27, 2020. Canadian Solar Projects K.K. is the sole sponsor and Canadian Solar Asset Management is the asset manager of CSIF.

The Infrastructure Funds Index is an Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) related finance product offered by the TSE. According to the TSE announcement, CSIF is expected to be a major component of the new TSE Infrastructure Funds Index, along with other sponsored funds from Marubeni and Itochu in Japan.

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar, commented, “We are very happy to learn that Canadian Solar Infrastructure Fund (CSIF) will be included in the new Infrastructure Funds Index by the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). This event trails 50 years of Earth Day celebrations and reflects the growing importance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives globally. We are proud to be part of ESG focused investment ecosystem. We want to Make the Difference in Japan as we continue our solar development worldwide.”

Canadian Solar opened its first office in Tokyo in 2009 and has since expanded its operations to 9 offices in 5 prefectures. The Company has successfully delivered over 5.5 GW of premium quality modules to its residential, commercial and utility-scale customers, including its own utility-scale projects.

Canadian Solar started developing its own solar power plants in Japan in 2012, and has since developed, built and connected 297 MWp of solar projects, with an additional 63 MWp currently in construction and 218 MWp under development. Globally, Canadian Solar has built a strong track record developing and connecting over 5.6 GWp in solar PV plants.

In 2017, Canadian Solar launched the initial public offering of CSIF and listed its stock units on the TSE. CSIF was the first global IPO of a Japanese infrastructure fund. With approximately JPY 49 billion of assets under management as of the end of December 2019, CSIF is a leading infrastructure fund player on the TSE and ranks among the largest listed funds on the TSE Infrastructure Funds Index in terms of market capitalization and assets under management. The Japan Credit Rating Agency, Ltd. has assigned CSIF with a credit rating of A- with stable outlook in 2019, and the highest green rating (“Green1”) grade in 2017. Canadian Solar has a 14.7% partial ownership in CSIF and intends to play a key role in its growth strategy.

About Canadian Solar Inc.

Canadian Solar was founded in 2001 in Canada and is one of the world’s largest solar power companies. It is a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions and has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale solar power projects in various stages of development. Over the past 19 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered over 40 GW of premium-quality, solar photovoltaic modules to customers in over 150 countries. Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar industry, having been publicly listed on NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the Company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.

Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “estimates,” the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include general business and economic conditions and the state of the solar industry; governmental support for the deployment of solar power; future available supplies of high-purity silicon; demand for end-use products by consumers and inventory levels of such products in the supply chain; changes in demand from significant customers; changes in demand from major markets such as Japan, the U.S., India and China; changes in customer order patterns; changes in product mix; capacity utilization; level of competition; pricing pressure and declines in average selling prices; delays in new product introduction; delays in utility-scale project approval process; delays in utility-scale project construction; delays in the completion of project sales; continued success in technological innovations and delivery of products with the features customers demand; shortage in supply of materials or capacity requirements; availability of financing; exchange rate fluctuations; litigation and other risks as described in the Company’s SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 25, 2019. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today’s date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

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Source: Canadian Solar Inc.

PR Newswire

SAS and IIASA call for crowd-driven artificial intelligence to help track deforestation

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SINGAPORE, April 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — SAS is committed to building a global community of innovators that use technology to ignite positive change for people and the planet. This Earth Day, SAS and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) are implementing the next generation of crowd-driven artificial intelligence (AI) to help power AI algorithms designed to help us better understand our planet.

IIASA is an independent, international research institute that is known for its expertise in systems analysis and providing policy solutions and baseline information on pressing concerns for humanity. IIASA is placing a spotlight on the issue of deforestation to learn about the application of AI to elucidate the interconnectivity of Earth’s ecosystems. Today, our systems are changing rapidly, approaching levels that exceed existing human experiences, scientific understanding and traditional modeling capabilities, making it increasingly difficult for humans to intervene efficiently, effectively and timeously.

“The urgency required to address these transformations requires the application of best of breed technology solutions. That’s why we turned to SAS,” said Albert van Jaarsveld, CEO at IIASA. “By combining the power of our environmental science research platforms, SAS’ AI and computer vision technologies, and the sheer intellectual power of concerned citizens, we will develop AI models that will exponentially increase the value of human insights and strive to deliver near real-time assessment of global environmental change.”

Powerful, accurate, useful AI models do not happen by magic. The development of an AI model starts with human intelligence. For this project, SAS and IIASA are jointly launching an online crowdsource-driven app to gather the collective intelligence of the crowd. They are asking volunteers — an army of citizen scientists from middle school students in today’s virtual classrooms to artists, engineers and professional data scientists — to kick-start this effort by reviewing and judging images of the rainforest. These images show land untouched and land that may have been affected by human development.

“Since image analysis is an important first step for the accurate assessment and projection of deforestation, we are asking people to see what technology can’t see, by examining and reporting on images of smaller incremental forestry incursions worldwide,” said van Jaarsveld. “Crowdsourcing helps improve the AI algorithms, expediting what used to take years to analyze, thus helping to drive vital policy responses to protect our forests more quickly.”

When people flag regions that have seen signs of human impact, they help make AI models become smarter. For example, it is easy for a human to distinguish between a road (which signals human impact) and a river (which does not), but an AI model will not know the difference until it obtains sufficient training through learning from human observations. Additionally, results from the model ensure that the crowdsourcing app focuses the attention of human judges where their expertise is most needed. The model will allow for increased efficiency of a volunteer human force that best makes use of their attention and insights for a broad array of projects aimed at monitoring and measuring important global change matters.

With the power of the crowd and the computer combined, SAS and IIASA will have a robust, extensive platform for empowering citizen scientists to assist in cutting-edge research that helps us all better understand, predict and thrive in the world we share. While the first phase of this partnership focuses on deforestation, there are plans to extend this platform to other environmental concerns where crowdsourcing can help serve the greater good.

As a start, everyone can play a role in making AI smarter and improve its ability to help protect our forests. From students who are currently out of the classroom to AI professionals and everyone in between, this activity allows each of us to make a difference just by looking at a few images. Head to sas.com/rainforest to categorize images that show signs of deforestation and help models learn and improve at each iteration.

This crowdsourcing partnership with IIASA is fueled by SAS’ commitment to both data literacy and the Data for Good movement, which encourages using data in meaningful ways to drive positive global change.

About IIASA

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at

About SAS

SAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative software and services, SAS empowers and inspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.  Copyright © 2019 SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

Editorial Contact:
Cherie Ho
 Cherie.ho@sas.com
+65-6398-3385 (office)
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 www.sas.com/news

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