Posts Tagged ‘carbon’

Sustainable energy for all – leadership companies join forces

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

For all those growing weary of grand proclamations, vision statements and big audacious goals that are made in the face of the world’s many sustainability challenges, consider this one: The United Nations General Assembly declared 2012 the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All, recognising that “…access to modern affordable energy services in developing countries is essential for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, and sustainable development, which would help to reduce poverty and to improve the conditions and standard of living for the majority of the world’s population.

All very laudable as a high-level objective, but what does this mean in practice?
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Could carbon accounting offer a solution to the financial crisis?

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

I was speaking to a friend Tim Harford, ‘The Undercover Economist’ writer, columnist and presenter, the other day. He said most economists had been taken by surprise by the repeating financial crisis. Watching the events of the last six months unfold has been very revealing. It is not just the economists that seem to have been wrongfooted, it is the politicians, policy makers, regulators and supra-national institutions like the EC.

All of them seem to be flailing around desperately looking for ways to prop up the endless growth-based system that everyone takes for granted as being the only way. You can see the discomfort in their faces, it really is desperate. And the striking thing: no real solutions. The only thing on offer seems to be pumping ever more ‘money’, or liquidity, back into the system through the very channels which caused a great deal of the mess in the first place – the banks and financial institutions. This is like catching a band of robbers and then giving them even more bounty and asking them to redistribute it again to their victims!

I don’t want to get started on the banks, nor even the fundamental difficulties with the principle of endless growth based on finite resources. What I do want to offer is not a fully rounded solution, which would take some serious global coordination on a scale which has never been achieved so far, but moreover an option which could be developed into something workable if the political will was there.
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Why Connecticut v American Electric Power is a boon to US business

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The debate over whether increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases were resulting in climate change ended years ago. They are.  More recently, the debate over whether humans are the primary cause of climate change also ended. We are.

The debate in the US has recently raged over who has the authority to curtail industrial greenhouse gas emissions – particularly from power generation, the largest source of emissions. Is it the job of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA – the federal regulation agency) or of  individual states? Or is it up to companies to voluntarily curtail emissions?

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Biodiversity is about far more than saving polar bears

Friday, May 7th, 2010

It’s almost 20 years since the first Earth Summit in Rio, an unprecedented event attended by most world leaders. It was a moment in history that propelled sustainability onto the popular agenda, and there were two significant outcomes.

The first was the Kyoto Protocol, which was about reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases. The result? Climate change is now a topic everyone recognises and there is a significant, ongoing effort to work out the corporate and political response.

The other major development from Rio is much less well-known – the Convention on Biodiversity. What has that achieved? Few people recognise, and even fewer understand, the issues it addressed. Until recently, there’s been little hard evidence of government or company action. This is a problem.
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Carbon emissions influencing buyer decisions

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Are buying decisions now being influenced by a product’s carbon footprint? Guardian News and Media (GNM) is a Two Tomorrows client – we provide ethical assurance to them on a range of issues. Their recent decision to choose a paper supplier on the grounds of its relative carbon footprint has prompted a lively debate on their website.
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Harnessing people power

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

I envy people who are able to stick to a gym schedule. But it’s not for me – I don’t quite manage it. Instead, I go to the everyday gym.

I’m the fella jogging up the stairs coming out of the Bakerloo Line at Paddington, running for the bus, pushing a rotary mower around the garden, making life that little bit more difficult for myself.

And I’m not the only one. There’s a growing band of people out there who recognise the benefits of a bit of extra manual effort in our daily activities. And we know it’s not just beneficial for our own wellbeing, but also for the planet’s.
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