Hannah Bullock

A government proposal to generate 15% of energy from renewables by 2020 paints a radically different picture of life in just 12 years’ time: solar panels on 7 million buildings, 3 million homes heated with biomass...

Feeding our cars

General Motors turns food waste into fuel

It seems that everybody wants a share of our household food waste. Over in the US, General Motors is planning to transform the stuff into ethanol to fuel cars.

Take-off for biofuels?

First ever biodiesel flight launches amidst controversy

A Virgin Atlantic test flight has boosted biofuel enthusiasts’ belief in its technical viability as aviation fuel. Yet the breakthrough comes as European targets to raise overall biofuel use are called into question – over the environmental and food security implications of large-scale production

Green uplift

Sri Lankan bra makers set eco-benchmark with M&S

If Marks & Spencer puts into practice its promise to work with suppliers on sustainability, set out in last January’s Plan A, it has a whopping 15,000 suppliers to green. So what better place for the chain store to start than at a lingerie factory in Sri Lanka?

From here to Timbuktu

‘Chocolate-powered’ biotruck completes Saharan expedition

Two Brits reached Timbuktu on Boxing Day after an epic 4,568-mile journey powered almost entirely by waste chocolate.

Car clamps

Norway edits out the greenwash

The Norwegian advertising watchdog has introduced some of the strictest rules in the world, designed to clamp down on spurious ‘green’ car ads.

Doing property properly

Investment fund to boost green offices

A sustainable property investment fund due to hit the market next year is aiming to outdo conventional building portfolios by “future-proofing” its stock

Street cred

Green reward cards hit the mainstream

It all started last summer with Barclycard launching its Breathe credit card, offering a special low APR on bus and train tickets, alongside discounts on bikes, efficiency products and green electricity.

Hungry for change?

Food and industry to play catch up on the environment

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) is gearing up to use “peer pressure” to green the laggards in the UK’s biggest manufacturing sector.

Energy for Eigg

Renewable energy gives Eigg power 24-hours-a-day for the first time

Having asserted their independence ten years ago by buying the island from an absent landlord, the people of Eigg won energy independence today too – with a combination of wind turbines, solar panels and low-head hydro.

Pure and simple?

Soil Association takes complex stand on air freighted organics

Keen not to be seen as promoting organic ‘air miles’, the Soil Association is setting extra conditions for approving produce that’s grown overseas and flown in to the UK.

Premises promises

Low carbon offices raise the bar for refurb and newbuild

Great premises can speak louder for a company’s green credentials than any CSR report. Especially for architects – as witness Sheppard Robson’s £350,000 makeover of its Manchester offices earlier this year.

Greening the greenbacks

Banks launch billion dollar initiatives

International mega-bank HSBC is spending $100 million on a scheme to promote “action – not apathy” among its 300,000-strong global workforce.

Small change, big difference

City investors bank on the world’s ‘unbankable’

$108 million was raised in a Morgan Stanley bond – to be turned into microfinance. That’s the truly exceptional thing about the ‘BOLD-2 transaction’. The money, raised in May this year, will be loaned to microfinance institutions in 12 developing countries.

Hemp on the hub

Plant-based brakes to reduce pollution

Britain’s motorists get through a not-so-cool 80 million sets of brake pads every year, leaving a dusting of heavy metals which end up in water run-off from roads, and in our lungs when we take the tube.

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