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Ford puts the brakes on water use with 8.5 per cent cut
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on March 22nd, 2013
BusinessGreen: Ford slashed the amount of water it uses to make each vehicle by 8.5 per cent last year, moving the car maker more than halfway towards its target of using just four cubic metres per vehicle globally by 2015.
The company has decreased its global water consumption from 64 million cubic metres to 24 million cubic metres since 2000, mainly due to new methods for monitoring and managing water use at its facilities.
For example, its Cologne engine plant halved water use per engine through the use...
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Report: Evidence backs greater role for environmental ‘precautionary principle’
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on January 23rd, 2013
BusinessGreen: Policymakers and businesses have been urged to take a more cautious approach to the development and deployment of new technologies, following the publication today of a major new report arguing that early warnings from scientists about the environmental impacts of new technologies are often entirely justified.
The 750-page study from the European Environment Agency (EEA) provides an update to the Late Lessons report of 2001, which explored how new technologies were later found to have harmful...
Pensions could be “wiped out” by resource shortages, actuaries warn
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on January 23rd, 2013
BusinessGreen: Shortages of water, metals, and other crucial resources could see pensions "wiped out and reduced to negligible levels", according to new research.
Such constraints are not currently being factored into standard economic modelling even though they have had a significant impact in the past, the paper by Anglia Ruskin University's Global Sustainability Institute finds.
Commissioned by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the report models how resource constraints will affect investment and...
United Kingdom: Ministry of Defence has water consumption in its sights
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on January 17th, 2013
BusinessGreen: Contractors working with Ministry of Defence (MOD) facilities will have targets to reduce water consumption written into their contracts as part of an ongoing efficiency drive.
The MOD has committed to a 2016 goal of cutting water consumption seven per cent against 2011 levels across its estate of 260 main Defence establishments, 140 training sites, and 49,000 military homes. Together, these sites use around 17.5 billion litres of water each year.
Now, under the department's Next Generation...
Hitachi UK nuclear plans edge forward with reactor design assessment
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on January 15th, 2013
BusinessGreen: Plans for a new fleet of nuclear power stations took a step forward today, after Ministers ordered an official assessment of the nuclear reactors that developer Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy plans to use at its recently acquired sites in the UK.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) confirmed Ministers had instructed the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency to carry out a Generic Design Assessment (GDA) on the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWRs) Hitachi hopes to...
Methane leaks cast doubt on shale gas climate credentials
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on January 4th, 2013
BusinessGreen: US scientists have once again warned large amounts of methane could be leaking from new onshore gas drilling projects, challenging claims the fuel can offer a lower emissions alternative to coal.
Around nine per cent of the potent greenhouse gas methane produced by a gas field in Utah was shown to be escaping into the atmosphere, according to preliminary results published in Nature by a team comprising researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University...
World Water Day
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on November 19th, 2012
BusinessGreen: World Water Day will take place on 22 March 2013, this year taking the theme of cooperation and reflecting the United Nation's decision to make 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation. The UN wants to raise awareness of increasing water stress as well as the opportunities for governments, businesses and organisations to work together to improve water management The year is also designed to build momentum created at last year's UN Rio+20 Earth summit, specifically to create new targets...
Protestors call on Obama to block Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on November 19th, 2012
BusinessGreen: President Obama is facing fresh calls to end the uncertainty over the future of the Keystone Xl pipeline designed to link carbon-intensive tar sands developments to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast.
A group of an estimated 3,000 environmental protestors yesterday gathered outside the White House to urge the newly re-elected president to confirm that he will block the controversial plans.
The protest is expected to act as a forerunner to a larger protest on President's Day on 18 February...
BP to pay record $4bn for Deepwater oil disaster
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on November 16th, 2012
BusinessGreen: Oil giant BP has been fined a record $4bn and will plead guilty to 14 criminal charges over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in the United States' history.
The US Department of Justice yesterday confirmed BP has agreed to plead guilty to felony manslaughter, environmental crimes and obstruction of Congress for actions that led to the disaster.
As part of its guilty plea, BP agreed to pay $4bn in criminal fines and penalties, which...
Water professionals urge caution over shale gas
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on October 31st, 2012
BusinessGreen: Proposed shale gas projects in the UK should face mandatory environmental risk assessments, according to a water industry body that has become the latest organisation to warn the government it must tread carefully in developing the controversial energy source.
In the UK, there is currently a moratorium on the process used to extract the gas, known as fracking, until more is known about its potential impacts, which campaigners say extend to earth tremors, landscape degradation, water contamination,...