International Business Briefs: wastewater, organic labelling and sequestration

Water treatment company USFilter has won a US$27 million contract to operate and manage water treatment, distribution, meter reading, customer service and billing systems in Hale County, Alabama. The contract is in the form of a 20-year public-private partnership, and is expected to generate more than US$2.5 million in savings and solve the district’s high water loss rate.

IT company Haestad Methods has launched a series of free training programmes for its software clients. The company’s new Connecticut-based educational facility is to be the site of a series of free training programmes on the first Thursday of each month, beginning 7 November, with the first Friday of the month reserved for advanced training. The company’s clients can enrol in either class.

Retail company MotherNature.com has announced that it is among the first retailers to label all of its organic products under the US Department of Agriculture’s new organic standards labelling scheme. The new labels fall into three categories: 100% organic; organic – containing at least 95% organic ingredients; and ‘made with organic ingredients’ – which contains at least 70% organic ingredients.

And finally, Japanese energy company Kansai Electric Power, has announced that it is will be planting around 2.5 million eucalyptus trees on 1,000 hectares of farmland in Western Australia. Kansai intends to take part in a future emission trading market.