Drinks firm Heineken UK, food producer Filippo Berio and utility company Anglian Water Services are among six businesses that have agreed to six-figure charity payments after breaching environmental laws.
Northern Ireland Water has been fined
Personal carbon trading has been shelved by Government after a Defra study concluded it would be too expensive and would not be accepted by the public. In a 2006 speech, then Environment Secretary David Miliband said there was potential to create a system where individuals carried bank cards that stored carbon points which would be deducted when buying energy and could be traded with neighbours. However, Defra has now announced it is suspending its own research on personal carbon trading.
A new study investigating the social and economic aspects of biodiversity in Ireland has estimated it brings in billions of Euros every year. The report was announced by the Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley, and was produced by a consortium led by Dr Craig Bullock of Optimize Consulting. It considered a number of key sectors including agriculture, forestry, infrastructure development, human health and climate change. The authors estimated that biodiversity in Ireland has a value of at least Euro 2.6bn per year.
Members of the public were shown how to make their homes greener as one of Channel 4's flagship programmes hosted a nine-day exhibition in London. An exhibition of eco-friendly homes was one of the core elements of this year's Grand Designs Live. Programme host Kevin McCloud got his hands dirty this year, joining a team of builders to construct an eco-friendly house in front of the cameras over the course of six days.
Members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security have visited Galway to find out the key drivers of climate change in Ireland. The committee heard about the Marine Institute's programme on understanding the issue in Ireland by studying forces at work in the Atlantic Ocean. During the trip to the ocean energy wave power test site in Spiddal, County Galway, the group saw examples of the use of technology to meet the challenge of sustainable energy production.
Sustainability of biomass as an energy source will be vital if Ireland achieves its renewable energy targets, a conference in Dublin has heard. It is claimed that Ireland needs to gather together significant quantities of biomass in order to hit its targets for 2020 and an EU-wide scheme for determining the sustainability of biofuels is at an advanced stage of progression. The Biomass:Achieving Targets-Maximising Benefits conference was organised by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), Tipperary Institute and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The European Commission is taking Italy to court for failing to effectively resolve the waste crisis that has plagued Naples and the surrounding region of Campania. Piles of rubbish were left uncollected in the streets in spring 2007 and again in the winter, leading some frustrated residents to set fire to the waste. Although the crisis has eased since the appointment of a Waste Emergency Commissioner for the region, EU chiefs said the measures taken so far will not solve the crisis in the long term.
Three applications from South West Water to discharge sewage into the Atlantic Ocean off Cornwall have been refused by Government. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn decided the effluent discharges from Tintagel Fine Screening Installation and Bossiney Sewage Treatment Works would need a higher level of treatment than that proposed by South West Water. His decision agrees with the recommendation of an independent planning inspector who conducted a public inquiry into the applications in 2006.
Increasing greenwash in advertising could turn consumers away from spending their money on environmentally-friendly products, a new report has warned. The Greenwash Guide, produced by Futerra Sustainability Communications, found that the number of complaints about green claims lodged with and upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority has doubled since 2004. It also reveals only one of the top ten UK advertising agencies has a specific policy to avoid creating greenwash.
Estonian farmers are to become the first to cough up for their cattle's belching and flatulence. The country's government has announced plans to charge a greenhouse gas tax for the methane and carbon dioxide produced by cows. Each cow produces around 350 litres of methane and 1,500 litres of CO2 per day and cattle are responsible for around 25% of Estonia's methane emissions. Sam Bond
