Archive for December 2011
Electrical Courses Could Benefit Low-Carbon Push
December 31, 2011 | 
Author Electrical training courses could assist the government in trying to make the UK more environmentally-friendly.
As of April 1st, two new schemes have been introduced to try and cut down on Britain’s carbon emissions – the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC EES) and Feed in Tariffs (FiTs).
The CRC EES aims to help businesses become more energy efficient by encouraging them to make eco-friendly upgrades to their properties, while the FiTs will offer grants to homeowners who install low-carbon electricity generation technology.
Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: “The UK is leading the way in tackling climate change. Organisations and householders can play a central role in leading the move to a low carbon economy whilst saving money on their energy bills.”
And workers who have taken electrical could be in demand to install such energy-saving technology for homeowners and businesses.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change – which was formed in October 2008 – announced the initiatives.
Reducing The Carbon Footprint
Thanks to their efficient dynamics programme, BMW have been declared the cleanest premium cars. Research has been conducted into Co2 emissions across the industry and data shows that this particular manufacturer have made the biggest improvements in environmentally friendly vehicles that maintain excellent performance.
Working on averages for the first half of 2008, BMW were found to be emitting an average 161.64g/km. Compare this to the 177g/km from Audi and 192g/km from Mercedes, this is a pretty good standard. BMW’s improvements have shown to equal 11.34 percent whereas Lexus showed only a 2.14 percent improvement and Jaguar a pretty poor 2.04 percent.
An average output of 161.64g/km is a good average but by no means typical. The BMW 1 Series 118d emits a mere 119g/km, bringing it under the 120g/km that is required to avoid the London Congestion Charge. With 143hp this makes it the top performing car in such a low emissions category. The congestion charge was introduced to encourage people to purchase cars that were more eco-friendly. It currently stands at 8 pounds per trip but the Government have plans to increase this to 25 pounds for the extreme gas guzzlers.
Some researchers have claimed that driving a car that has low emissions can save you up to 400 pounds per year. This is surely changeable. Cheaper road tax, freedom from congestion charges and lower fuel costs all mean financial savings.
Co2 emissions are worked out by putting a car on a rolling road. Varying road conditions are simulated and the Co2 emitted is measured in grams per kilometre. This doesn’t take into account car weight or drag and is therefore not entirely accurate but at the moment, it’s the best thing we have.
The general thinking is that the larger the size of the engine, the higher the emission levels will be. More oxygen is needed to burn more fuel to provide the car with the extra power needed for it’s bigger engine. But people still demand powerful cars with bigger engines. They like the luxury that this brings but it also comes with a high price, not just in fuel but to the environment. So, the onus is on car manufacturers to come up with the most powerful engine possible that releases the least pollution.
This is where BMW have been working hard. They are responsible for 48% of the Co2 reduction in the car industry over the last twelve months and that’s some statement. If all car manufacturers could reduce their carbon footprint by 48% then the world would be a cooler place.
There has been much debate over the years as to just how much harm Co2 does to our environment. People are reluctant to believe that our cars are so heavily responsible when you look at the emissions of airlines and large factories. However, we cannot do much about them. He can be responsible for our own part and while there are cars on the market that produce lower levels of pollutants then we have a responsibility to do what we can. If, at the end of it, it hasn’t helped that much then the larger industries and airlines will simply have to reconsider their part in it.
The world has opened up thanks to modern technology and there is virtually nothing that is inaccessible. To this end, people will not stop flying. To put extra tariffs on flying because of the carbon footprint doesn’t stop the emissions having an effect, it just makes it more expensive for the consumer. Not many people take regular flights simply because they enjoy flying, it’s more out of necessity.
The same applies to cars. We won’t stop using them, we just end up paying more for the privilege. If manufacturers and consumers come together on this at least we can do our bit, thus bringing down the inevitable charges that the Government will bring on us.
Carbon Management in the Global Manufacturing Sector
Carbon Management in the Global Manufacturing Sector
Market Forces, Regulatory Issues, Competitive Landscape, and Worldwide Forecasts for Carbon Management Software and Services
Manufacturing is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2007, global manufacturing industries accounted for about 40% of total CO2 emissions. As a result, carbon management and reduction have become serious issues for manufacturers in practically every country around the world. To address the GHG emissions challenge, manufacturers are compelled to examine their supply chain for opportunities to manage carbon emissions effectively, all the way from sourcing and production, to distribution and product afterlife. It is impossible to understand the carbon footprint associated with manufacturing unless the entire supply chain is examined.
As a result, there is a strong and growing need for assistance in putting programs in place to manage and reduce a manufacturer’s GHG emission. It forecasts that the carbon management software and services market for the manufacturing sector will increase rapidly at a 33% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the period from 2009 to 2017. While Western Europe will remain the largest market opportunity until 2011, North America will become the largest market thereafter.
Key questions to be asked:
* What is the carbon management software and services external spending share by industry on a global basis?
* What is the size of the carbon management software and services market opportunity through 2017?
* What are the market drivers and barriers for adoption of carbon management among manufacturers?
* What are the growth prospects for carbon management software and services spending in the manufacturing sector?
* What are the winning propositions in competing for carbon management contracts in the manufacturing sector?
* Who are the key vendors in the carbon management software and services market in the manufacturing sector? What are their strengths, capabilities and future opportunities?
Posted in Carbon accounting | 
Tags: Carbon Accounting, Global, Management, manufacturing, Sector | 
No Comments »
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)- SOME THOUGHTS
Business is an economic, cost effective, financial and profitable activity to earn revenues for the owner and social responsibility is helping community without any expectations. Business is expected to create means and market, create and generate employment innovate and produce a sufficient surplus to sustain its activities and perk up its competitiveness. Society is expected to afford an environment in which business can build up and flourish, allowing investors to earn returns. Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics, once asserted that the sole aim of a business should be the maximization of shareholders value. Social Missions, according to him, are the accountability of individual social organizations and the Government. But, the depiction today is relatively diverse.
Trade depends for its survival and long term prosperity on society providing the resources; people, raw materials, services and infrastructure. To convert raw materials into profitable goods or services it needs these inputs from the society. While society provides the means of exchange, trained man power, legal and banking systems, social infrastructure like road, schools, hospital etc., business provides products and services, direct and indirect employment, income generations in terms of wages, dividends, taxes, interest etc., Neither the business can survive without society nor the society without business. Their existence, welfare and growth totally depend on this mutuality.
In the words of J.R.D.Tata The formidable challenge of the present time demanded the involvement and identification of organized industry with the life and problems of the people of community. So, every business enterprises owe great obligations to the society in which it operates and from which it derives its sustenance.
Social Responsibility refers to value oriented decisions and behaviour of management of a business towards the society. The business owes responsibility towards the segment of the society such as shareholders, employees, consumers, suppliers, creditors, competitors, dealers, Government and the Community. A fair share of return must be made to these segments by the management. So as to strike an equitable and proper balance between the interests of the people who are affected by the activities of the business or who are the cause for the legitimate existence of the company.
Corporate social responsibility is neither the brain child of a single person nor of a single organization. There has always been an ethical perspective to the business strategies practiced all over. There are several moral ethics organizations have been following for several decades. One such ethical perspective is the desire to offer help, being conscious of the fragility of the environment we are living in.
Every firm is so dependent on its social environment that it can neither survive nor grow without full social acceptance and approval of all the constituents of the environment in particular, society at large, and the Government in general.
Corporate social responsibility is the obligations of the employer of the company to pursue those decisions or to follow those lines of action, which are desirable in terms of the objective and values of our society. (Bowen)
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development in its publication Making Good Business Sense by Lord Home and Richard Watts says Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the community and society at large.
Business for Social Responsibility (a Global Non-profit Organization) defines Corporate Social Responsibility as achieving commercial success in ways that honor ethical values and respect people, communities, and the natural environment.
Frooman (1997) defines Corporate Social Responsibility as an action by a firm, which the firm chooses to take, that substantially affects an identifiable social stake holders welfare. The main aim of the concept is to bring together all the sectors, (public, voluntary and business) and work together to eliminate the old idea that economic and environmental issues are in conflict.
Carroll (1991) defines Corporate Social Responsibility as a pyramid, comprising of economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities.
Thus, CSR may be described as the obligation of companies to protect and enhance the norms and values held by the society within which it operates.
From the above definitions, it is found that, the concept is a significant one and has been gaining magnitude among the corporates as society plays a prime role in influencing the recital of the company. Some of the companies have been criticized in journals newspapers either for being irresponsible or for using CSR as a trump card in alliance with NGOs for gaining reputation. Indian companies while gaining special privileges from the society are supposed to have a greater responsibility towards the society.
It is felt that, the mutual obligation of any human being is to stretch hands, when others struggle. The companies, flourishing with huge resources with the contribution from the society have the same mutual obligation as they are run by human beings. When, every company is keeping pace with changing times and marching ahead to excel in profit, their corporate behavior must be studied in order to know to what extent they serve for the social purpose besides making profits.
Against this Background, as a part of social commitment, It is clear that, corporate managers should make decisions based on a set of principles influenced by the values, context and culture of the organization. What constitutes good corporate citizenship will evolve with the changing circumstances of a company and must be tailored to meet these situations. Implementing Corporate social responsibility structures are important but instilling the right culture, that is to say, social Culture is the Most Essential one.
ebay Does it Bit
EBay has introduced a reusable shipping box for sellers on the auction site, in a move that the company said would not only deliver environmental benefits but would also encourage buyers to become sellers.
The “eBay Box” is designed to be reused over and over again, allowing users of the site to significantly cut down on packaging waste. The box is made of 100 per cent FSC-certified and recycled material, printed with water-based inks, and is designed to require minimal tape.
The company is due to start a pilot run of 100,000 boxes from October and sellers will be invited to place orders for free eBay Boxes until supplies run out. Once the boxes have been distributed it is hoped that they will make their way around the US, as buyers reuse the boxes when they sell on other items.
EBay said each box will be printed with a number of tips on reuse and resource saving. According to calculations by the company, reusing every box at least five times would protect nearly 4,000 trees, save 2.4 million gallons of water and conserve enough energy to power 49 homes for a year.
Recipients of the eBay Boxes can log its location on TheBox.eBay.com; the site will track the boxes’ progress and engage with the people who use and reuse them to help eBay assess how the pilot has performed.
The eBay Box programme was one of five winning ideas to emerge from the company’s annual Innovation Expo earlier this year, where employees were invited to put forward new ideas for the business.
Understanding the UK's Carbon Reduction Commitment Scheme
The UK is committed to a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. To help speed up the UK’s transition towards a low carbon economy the Government created the Carbon Commitment Reduction scheme.
The Carbon Reduction Commitment is a mandatory carbon trading scheme being administered by the Environment Agency on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate that went into regulation on April 1st 2010. Since then public and private organisations that consumes more than 6,000 MWh (6,000,000 kWh) a year of half-hourly metered electricity (equivalent to an annual electricity bill of about £500,000) will have to purchase and surrender allowances each year to cover their CO2 emissions.
Basically, heavy polluters from the public and private sector will have to purchase allowances to cover their emissions each year. The revenues raised from the sales of allowances will then be recycled back to their participants according to their relative performance in the scheme.
These rewards will be based on the performance of each CRC participant. Since April companies will be monitored and ranked according to their efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A high ranking on the CRC performance league table is likely to affect a company’s reputation with customers, business partners, employees and investors alike.
During the first year, league table rankings will be highly influenced by “early action measures”. The first step of any organisation’s carbon reduction strategy is to apply for a free carbon trust survey from The Carbon Trust itself, this survey will help your company or organisation earn another “early action measure”, The Carbon Trust Standard.
The Carbon Trust Standard certifies that an organisation has genuinely reduced their carbon footprint and is committed to making further reductions year on year. To achieve certification against the Standard, your organisation will need to meet the requirements in three areas:
Measurement: Your organisation will need to measure its key greenhouse gas emissions. Initially this means measurement of the electricity and fuel you use onsite, and the fuel you use in your vehicles.
Management: Your organisation needs to show good carbon management performance. This means providing evidence of activity such as investment in new equipment, maintenance programmes and staff training.
Reduction: Your organisation must be able to show emissions reduction over the last year – either on a total emissions basis, or on a relative basis (e.g. emissions/£m turnover).
The CRC’s first phase will last three years and all qualified organisations will have to report their carbon emissions and carbon emission allowances purchases each year
Posted in CRC | Tags: Carbon Accounting, Commitment, Reduction, Scheme, UK's, Understanding | No Comments »
How, After This Year's Weather, Can Anyone Deny Climate Change?
How can anyone doubt the accumulating evidence that something major and alarming has been happening to global weather patterns after this summer?
Unprecedented monsoon weather has put vast areas of Pakistan under water and displaced some 20 million people while mudslides have destroyed whole villages and towns in China. Russia is one of 16 countries that have declared 2010 its hottest ever summer and is facing the loss of up to a third of its wheat crop.
A huge piece of ice has broken off from Greenland, while Niger is suffering from famine and once again the loss of its crops.
Is 2010 just one isolated and extreme summer?
Actually it’s not if you look back over the last decade and remember from the Tsunami across S Asia in December 2004, the hurricane that destroyed much of New Orleans, major earthquakes in China and Haiti, flooding in the Irrawady Delta, Indonesia, and massive fires in dry weather in Greece and other parts of Europe because of dry, hot summers.
To the British-born environmental campaigner Lewis Pugh, who was recently interviewed by Riz Khan, on the TV Channel Al Jazeera, there’s no question that the whole planet is at risk.
This is a man who has swum all the oceans, across the North Pole, where once there was ice, and in the Himalayas to highlight what is going on – and says he has witnessed for himself the changes that are happening in even the remotest parts of the planet, not just once but every time he goes back to these places.
He is in no doubt that the situation is urgent and of such overriding importance that all governments should be putting it at the top of their agendas.
Yet there is pessimism already about the possibility of agreement on action on global warming from November’s next climate summit due in Cancun, Mexico.
US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing is quoted in a BBC online article on August 7 as saying that many developed countries are back-pedalling from the progress that was made at Copenhagen last December.
He, too, warned that the extreme weather and events of this summer were “consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change” and that we need to act quickly.
This is all putting even greater pressure on our abilities to make progress in producing enough food – at affordable prices – to do something about the scandalous situation in which more than a billion people on the planet suffer from malnutrition if not outright starvation.
Of course, for some, it’s all just another opportunity to make money. Speculators on the commodities markets must be rubbing their expensively manicured hands with glee at the fortune to be made in pushing up the price of such basics as wheat. Well, there’s no money to be made in sub-prime mortgages any more and investors expect a return on their investment.
There have, however, been a few bright spots in the week’s news.
They include an agreement between the US and Brazil that Brazil’s £13.5 million of debt is to be converted into a fund to protect Brazil’s coastal rainforests. Ecuador also has announced a scheme intended to lock up up to a fifth of its oil reserves if rich nations will compensate it with £3;.6 billion, half of the oil’s value, payable over a ten year period.
If agreed the scheme would protect its Yasuni National Park, one of the most bio-diverse areas of rainforest in the world. The UN Development Programme has agreed to administer the project’s trust fund and several EU countries are supporting the idea.
On a visit to London the secretary general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, also sopke out against countries using the current global economic crisis to cut their protection for biodiversity and warned that destroying nature increases economic insecurity, not to mention the ability to produce enough food.
There are plenty of innovative ideas for improving the world’s food production, from Genetically Modified crops, through cloning to the Biopesticides Developers’ work on producing more environmentally friendly, bio-pesticides, fungicides and yield enhancers to contribute to increasing farm production sustainably without damaging the environment.
The sad thing is that too often governments are still relying on old and arguably discredited methods of pulling their countries out of recession.
While they are, perhaps understandably, focused on the current state of their own economies, if they don’t soon change focus to the global situation the question is what, eventually, will they have left to govern?
Time running out for CRC participants
Nine out of 10 not yet registered for Carbon Reduction Commitment
Fears mount that companies will miss September deadline for registering with flagship carbon management scheme
Fewer than 10 per cent of the companies and public sector bodies covered by the government’s recently launched Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency (CRC) scheme have registered their participation with the Environment Agency, raising fears organisations could miss the legally binding September deadline.
According to figures released last week by the agency, only 447 organisations have registered as participants, despite the fact that an estimated 5,000 businesses and public sector bodies are legally required to take part in the carbon reporting and trading scheme.
Similarly, only 2,833 of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 organisations have registered as “information declarers”, confirming that they have half-hourly electricity meters but do not use sufficient energy to qualify as a participant in the scheme.
All organisations covered by the CRC legislation have until September 31 to register with the Environment Agency or risk fines.
A spokeswoman for the agency told BusinessGreen.com that organisations which have energy bills of more than £500,000 and are supposed to participate fully in the CRC, could face an initial fine of £5,000 for missing the deadline for registrations and additional fines of £500 for each day they fail to register up to a maximum of £45,000.
She added that the names of organisations that failed to comply with the rules of the CRC would be published and would go to the bottom of the annual league table detailing participants’ energy efficiency performance.
Similarly, those organisations that miss the deadline for registering as ” information declarers” could face a fine of £500 for each half-hourly electricity meter they fail to declare.
The low numbers of organisations that have so far registered with the Environment Agency will further fuel criticism that the CRC has not been well publicised and that some firms are still unsure as to whether they are covered by the legislation.
Dave Lewis, head of business energy services at energy firm Npower, said that some companies were at serious risk of missing the September deadline.
“Compiling all the data needed to register for CRC is no small task and while many are working hard to bring this together, time is running out,” he said. ” The summer months, when internal resources are typically lower due to holidays, could also present another challenge. Any organisation that hasn’t progressed with its CRC evidence pack could be up against it.”
He added that the low number of organisations registered as participants also suggested that some could be struggling with the requirement to begin measuring their energy use from last April.
A spokeswoman for the agency downplayed the likelihood of large numbers of organisations missing the September deadline. “Based on our experience of similar schemes, organisations tend to register towards the end of the period and the registrations so far are in line with where we would expect them to be, ” she said. She added that a communications campaign featuring direct mail reminders to all affected organisations should ensure they are aware of the looming deadline.
Lewis also warned that companies only had until the end of this month to register if they wanted to take advantage of the CRC’s disaggregation option, which allows those businesses with several subsidiaries to register them as separate participants.
“The disaggregation option might seem like a simple administrative task, but it could potentially be a valuable route for many businesses,” he explained. ” CRC participation is typically established at a group level, but being able to register companies separately could make collating data and submitting ongoing evidence packs simpler.”
Source Businessgreen
What's Changing In Climate Change?
Scientists have discovered that nitrous oxide, produced mainly in agriculture, is harming the ozone layer more than synthetic chemicals are. Synthetic chemicals are being phased out by the Montreal Protocol treaty, but nitrous oxide is a natural part of the atmosphere. It is produced by microbes in soil; and when fed nitrogen fertilizer, the microbes produce even more of it. Although it’s estimated that nitrous oxide will reduce the stratosphere’s ozone 4% by the end of the century, nitrogen is an essential part of protein and a source of our food. Nitrous oxide can’t be phased out – unless we phase out eating too.
However, the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi wants to phase in Faidherbia trees. These trees capture nitrogen from the air through their roots and incorporate it into their leaves. Because these trees grow during the dry season, they drop their leaves in the rainy season, when nitrogen-needing plants start to grow. When a crop of corn was grown under Faidherbia trees, the yield was 3-4 times larger. These trees could help poor farmers throughout Africa, South America and much of south and Southeast Asia by providing free, organic fertilizer as a renewable “treetment” for soil.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, 163 new species were discovered in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia in 2008. Among the 100 plants, 28 fish, 18 reptiles, 14 amphibians, 2 mammals and 1 bird was the Limnonectes megastomias, a fanged frog that eats birds and the Nonggang babbler, a bird that prefers walking to flying. The good news is that these new species were found in regions no longer involved in decades of war and political unrest. The bad news is that their diverse habitats are threatened by droughts and floods caused by climate change – which must change.
According to an editorial in the highly esteemed British medical journal “Lancet”, making contraceptives available in developing countries could help fight climate change by reducing population growth. More than 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraceptives and that results in approximately 76 million unintended pregnancies a year. The world population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 – with more than 90% of the increase coming from developing countries. Increased need for food and shelter will increase carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. It’s hard to believe that there was a time when climate change just meant a vacation.
UK Windfarms record output
Around five per cent of electricity provided to National Grid on Monday (6th Spetember 2010) came from wind farms
The UK’s wind farms reached record levels of output on Monday providing five per cent of all electricity to the grid over the course of the day.
National Grid confirmed that 40.5GWh out of a total 809.5GWh was provided by wind farms during the 24-hour period, with output peaking at 1,860MW at 8:30pm. At its peak the wind energy sector was providing electricity equivalent to that produced by three nuclear power stations.
A spokeswoman for the grid operator said that when so-called embedded wind generation from turbines that are not connected to the grid is taken into account it is estimated that on Monday around 10 per cent of the UK’s electricity was delivered by wind power.
“Overall about 10 per cent of total electricity demand would have been met by wind power,” she said. “It is a pretty big landmark for the industry.”
The record will be taken as further evidence that the grid can cope with growing inputs from intermittent energy sources such as wind farms. “Matching demand with supply is changing by its very nature because of the intermittency of wind energy,” said the National Grid spokeswoman. “But that does not mean it can not be done.”
However, the UK has a long way to go to match the performance of some of its European neighbours. For a period back in January this year, wind farms in Spain and Portugal consistently delivered 50 per cent of electricity demand for the Iberian peninsular.
In related news, the expansion of one of the UK’s largest onshore wind farms took a major step forward this week when French engineering giant Alstom announced it has secured an order worth over €200m from Scottish Power Renewables to build a 217MW extension to its Whitelee wind farm in Scotland.
Under the terms of deal, Alstom will install and maintain 69 ECO 100 wind turbines, each with an output of 3MW, and six ECO 74 wind turbines, each with an output of 1.67MW. The new turbines are scheduled to be fully operational by May 2012.