Lucas Drive chooses Carbon
Neutral Investments to offset carbon emissions
LUCAS Drive, a leading international chauffeuring service, has
chosen Carbon Neutral Investments to offset its carbon emissions at Formula 1
events worldwide, making LUCAS Drive the first and only carbon neutral
chauffeur service company in F1. With over a decade of experience within
Formula 1, LUCAS Drive offers a broad range of solutions to VIP stakeholders
such as major sponsors, hospitality agencies and teams. Through this
partnership with CNI, LUCAS Drive will offer a carbon neutral service to its
clients at upcoming European and worldwide Formula 1 race weekends for the 2012
season. Carbon Neutral Investments has provided LUCAS Drive with carbon credits
from carefully chosen VCS standard projects from around the world allowing
LUCAS Drive to offer a carbon neutral service to its clients. This year, LUCAS
Drive has already offset the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona and before the
recent European Grand Prix in Valencia it offset 34,576km driven at the
prestigious Monaco Grand Prix. To read this article in full click here
Firms fined £99,000 for
failing to report CRC data
Four companies,
including the maker of Pritt Stick, penalised for missing deadline to submit
data for Carbon Reduction Commitment. The maker of Pritt Stick and Schwarzkopf
hair products is one of four companies to be fined a total of £99,000 for
reporting failures under corporate emissions cutting scheme, the controversial
Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). Henkel was last week ordered by the
Environment Agency to pay £38,000 for late submission of a footprint report and
an annual report required by the regulation, which compels around 2,100
businesses with energy bills over £500,000 a year to measure and pay for each
tonne of CO2 they emit. Failure to submit these two reports by last year's 29
July deadline also saw international utility Saur's UK arm fined £41,000,
engineering company BI Group £10,000, and engineering and manufacturing group
Tomkins Ltd £10,000. Late reports submitted within 40 working days of the
cut-off date are usually subject to a £5,000 penalty and an escalating fine of
£500 for each working day past the deadline.
To read this
article in full click here
DPD launches carbon neutral
shipping in six markets
European
parcel carried DPD has now adopted carbon neutrality for its services in six
major markets, at no extra charge to customers. The company owned by La Poste’s
GeoPost Group officially started its “Total Zero” programme at the start of
July in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, the Benelux region
and Switzerland. The offsets will apply to shipments originating from those
markets, regardless of where those items are bound, anywhere in the world.
The firm said its
other business units across Europe should begin providing Total Zero from 2013.
The carbon neutrality programme sees DPD firstly measuring and monitoring its
carbon emissions, working to reduce its carbon footprint, and then offsetting
the environmental impact of its shipments through a carbon offset initiative. Offsetting
involves the company funding environmental projects to bring about an
equivalent reduction in carbon emissions to those being generated by its
shipping activities. To read this article in full click
here
I.B.M. reports saving over
$43 million in energy costs
I.B.M. avoided
175,000 metric tons of carbon emissions in 2011 according to the company's
annual corporate social responsibility report. I.B.M. also saved more than $43
million in energy costs and conserved about 378,000 megawatt-hours of
electricity during the previous year – enough to supply power to 34,000 average
households for a year. The company has
implemented energy-saving schemes in its more than 364 global facilities, while
running projects for data center energy efficiency and environmental
sustainability. This ninth annual corporate sustainability report showed that
energy conservation projects rendered a 7.4 percent saving in the company's
total energy usage, which is more than double the yearly target of 3.5 percent.
The energy conservation schemes also resulted in a 16 percent reduction in the
company's carbon emissions, surpassing the 2005 baseline which is 12 percent.
I.B.M. said it recognizes climate change as a serious concern that needs
meaningful action on a global basis to lessen the atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gases. To read this article in full click
here
Denmark to Reach 100%
Renewable Energy Target by 2050
According to Denmark's Energy Strategy
2050, the country's aims are to reduce fuel consumption 33 percent by 2020 and
to achieve complete independence from fossil fuels by 2050. How? Numerous new
wind projects are expected to make up 40 percent of the country's electricity
by 2020, bringing the total fraction of power provided by renewables up to 60
percent. Meanwhile, aggressive efforts in energy efficiency improvements are
expected to reduce total energy demand by 6 percent, retaining Denmark's global
position as #1 in this area. Bolstered by a recent partnership with Nissan,
Denmark is also aggressively pursuing electric cars. Similarly, a recent report
from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows that renewable
energy could potentially supply 80 percent of US electricity demand by 2050.
Unlike the US, the Danish plan also includes the heating of buildings as well. Under
the “Low Carbon Urban Heating” plan, Denmark has made strong commitments to
district heating: every new power plant built since 1976 is a combined heat and
power plant and renewable heating systems are replacing fossil fuel heating systems.
Between 1980 and 2009, the heating sector in Denmark has reduced its carbon
emissions by 60 percent, which it expects to bring up to 80 percent by 2020. To
read this article in full click
here
U.K. Could Get $31 Billion
A Year From Green Economy, CBI Says
The U.K. could earn 20 billion pounds
($31 billion) a year from clean energy products, which accounted for about a
third of the nation’s economic growth in the past year, the Confederation
of British Industry said. The nation’s biggest business lobby group
estimated that Britain boosted its share of the 3.3 trillion pound global
“green market” by 2.3 percent last year. About 122 billion is invested in the
U.K. clean energy industry, accounting for about 8 percent of gross domestic
product, the CBI said. The figures are aimed at pressuring Prime
Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-led government to step up support
for wind and solar developers. Ministers are debating cuts for subsidies and
are due to make an announcement by the time Parliament rises for its summer
recess on July 17. “With the right policies in place, green businesses will be
a major pillar of our future growth,”John Cridland, director general for the
CBI, said in a statement released with a report on the issue
in London today. “The U.K. could be a global front runner in the
shift to low-carbon.” To read this article in full click here
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