The Green Village recently attended a roundtable discussion about Sony Ericsson’s new GreenHeart mobile phones. The company wants to position themselves as the greenest electronics company in the world and to lead other companies to follow in their footsteps.
Accompanying Sony Ericsson at the meeting were, Forum for the Future and ChemSec, two NGO’s that the company has been working with over the years to develop an environmentally responsible business.
Most people would argue that motor racing and the environment don’t fit together well, and usually they’d be right. Especially when you consider the amount of parts, fuel and tyres that teams get through in a season. But thanks for the University of Warwick, that could change.
A new Formula 3 racing car that has been developed by the University of Warwick Team based in WMG (the Warwick Manufacturing Group) and the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre boasts a range of environmentally sustainable technologies, including being fueled by waste chocolate and vegetable oil, a seat made foam made from soybean oil, and a steering wheel derived from root vegetables, specifically carrots. The car also incorporates new technology in the form of a catalyst coating on the radiator that destroys emissions.
The company behind the innovative USBCELL battery have today launched a new campaign, Save Battery Waste. The campaign aims to increase public awareness of the importance of recycling batteries, and with over 15 billion of them being manufactured and thrown away each year, it’s not difficult to see why.
Moixa Energy Ltd began their campaign at the UK Aware conference held on 17th and 18th April at London Olympia by holding a collection at their hybrid solar PV and battery run stall. Their collection of spent batteries totalled 90kg by the end of the event, which shockingly is only about 1/100th of the amount of batteries currently disposed of in the UK every week.
A report by two climate scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego warns that the effects of climate change could lead to shortfalls in targeted water supply for homes serviced by the Colorado River; an area that has never before suffered a shortage.
The area, made up of vast areas of farmland and millions of domestic properties is estimated to be affected by shortages up to 90% of the time by 2050. Even without the expected effects of climate change, however, shortages would still be expected due to the targets being based on water levels of the Colorado River during the 20th century, which analysis of tree rings has shown to be one of the wettest centuries of the last 1200 years.
The government has given the go ahead for a new generation of coal fired power stations with the caveat that carbon capture and storage technology must be installed by 2025.
Executive director of environmental activism organisation, Greenpeace, John Sauven commented yesterday on Ed Miliband’s proposed action to tackle the issue of polluting coal fired power stations, stating:
“Finally a cabinet minister has faced up to the massive threat coal poses to the climate, but we’re not there yet. Very significant questions remain unanswered, with environmentalists concerned that emissions from coal could still be undermining Britain’s climate efforts for years to come.”
National Geographic and Merscom, a global video and games publisher, today launched ‘Plan It Green’, a new time management game that challenges players to create their own green and sustainable cities.
Kirk Owen, Merscom’s CEO, believes that the game has been launched at the right time, with green issues and sustainable living being so high on the public agenda, commenting that,
“This is the right product for the times. Not only is it a fantastic game, but it integrates a theme we all hear hundreds of times a week.”
With the unveiling of 11 proposed sites for new Nuclear Power Stations announced by the UK government last week, a period of public consultation has now begun to get feedback from the British public about their thoughts and feelings regarding the locations put forward.
The sites, which include one in Anglesey, Essex, Suffolk, Somerset and 3 proposed locations in Cumbria, have been put forward by EDF Energy, EON, German producer RWE and the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA).
A new report undertaken by spam expert, Richi Jennings, ICF International, a global firm that provides consultancy and technological solutions to issues such as climate change and environmental problems among others, has been commissioned by Internet Security Firm McAfee to investigate the carbon footprint of spam emails.
Spam emails cause everybody grief from time to time. There isn’t much that’s more annoying than unwanted emails trying to sell you products you don’t want and requests to transfer money to your bank account when all you want to know is whether your friends and family have been in touch.
After permitting farmers to grow Monsanto’s GM maize variety MON 810 since 2005, Ilse Aigner, Germany’s Agricultural Minister has announced the country’s decision to ban further growth of the genetically engineered crop. This decision, Aigner added, is based on science, not politics, as they have concerns that the variety could be a threat to the environment.
Germany will join Austria, who banned the import of another GM variety produced by Monsanto in July 2008, MON 863, after reports of rats that had eaten the maize suffering damage to internal organs; Hungary, France and Greece, in refusing to grow the variety, which the biotech industry comments is as safe as traditional maize varieties.
A new children’s book, ‘Colonel Trash Truck’ has been launched ahead of Earth Day and aims to inspire children to care for the environment and get involved with recycling and leading greener lives by asking them to help him and the Green Team on their quest against the litterbugs.
The author, Kathleen Crawley, explains the inspiration behind her rubbish collecting character,
“There’s no better way to teach kids to respect and save the environment than to introduce them to Colonel Trash Truck. Colonel Trash Truck believes cleaning up trash and recycling is something we all must do and he wants nothing more than to have kids join him in his quest to ‘Keep the Planet Clean and Green’.”
