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The Carbon Trust Standard certifcate is awarded to businesses that have made, and continue to make, genuine reductions in carbon emissions without recourse to offsetting. At launch, the standard was awarded to 12 organisations that in the last three years have collectively achieved an 84% reduction in carbon emissions, equivalent to 250,000 tonnes of CO 2 .

These include Abbey Corrugated, B&Q, Crown Prosecution Service, DEFRA, DSM Nutritional Products, King’s College London, London Fire Brigade, Morrisons, Thames Water,

Trinity Mirror and University of Central Lancashire. The new standard will be run alongside the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction Label, which displays the carbon footprint of individual products and services.

New carbon offset body . Eight international carbon offset providers have set up a new trade association for their industry. The International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA) will promote ‘reduce-and-offset’ carbon management strategies and build support for standards that exist for the voluntary offset market. Five of the eight founding members are headquartered in the UK: Carbon Clear, The CarbonNeutral Company, ClimateCare, co2balance and targetneutral.

www.icroa.org

Big savings . Businesses that take advantage of the free services and professional advice offered by Envirowise save an average of £5,000 a year, according to a new report commissioned by the Government-funded programme. Envirowise’s latest impact assessment report shows that in a period of twelve months, its recommended effciency measures helped frms save 17 million litres of water and almost 85,000 tonnes of raw materials. 0800 585794 www.envirowise.gov.uk

Renewables on the rise . The number of renewable energy generation projects could rise following the launch of an initiative that makes it easier for small-scale generators to get wind turbines, biomass or waste-to-energy projects off the ground. The Local Community Renewable Generation Initiative (LCRGI) brings together would-be generators, developers, investors and customers, providing generators with a revenue stream and businesses with an additional source of renewable energy. The LCRGI is run by energy consultancy Utilyx in conjunction with the Renewable Energy Association (REA) and law frmWragge.

www.utilyx.co.uk

The Carbon Trust and British Computer Society are collaborating on a new simulation tool to help businesses understand energy use within datacentres. The software will allow operators to manage the total cost of ownership, energy effciency and carbon emissions (carbon footprint) on a per service or per application basis. It is being developed in conjunction with Romonet and is expected to be available in frst quarter of 2009.

The recent furore over the employment practices of some of Primark’s Indian suppliers demonstrates the diffculty of monitoring the ethics of a global supply chain, especially for retailers with a commitment to FairTrade and other ethical programmes. One solution mooted by Marks and Spencer and the Shell Foundation is to establish a new kind of supply chain based on ‘ethical agents’ that could bridge the gap between major retailers with high social, environmental and quality demands and small-scale developing world producers with limited capacity.

The retailer and charity make the recommendation in a report on their three-year partnership that has seen M&S become the frst major UK retailer to sell products made from Fairtrade cotton, improving the livelihoods of 1,500 Indian farmers, and sell more than one million bouquets of fowers harvested and packed by workers from poor communities in South Africa. Shell Foundation now plans to develop ethical agencies, such as The Better Trading Company (TBTC), a South African-based business that has already signed deals with two other major retailers and a range of small African producers, and Agrocel, an Indian agricultural services provider, which is helping more than 30,000 farmers convert to organic and fairtrade practices and access global retailer’s shelves.

Old mobile phones don’t die, they just get left in a drawer and forgotten. A global survey released by Nokia shows that just 3% of old phones are recycled, 4% are sent to landfll, 16% are sold, 25% are passed to friends and family, and 44% are kept and never used again. Nokia claims that 65-80% of the materials used in its phones can be recovered and used to make other products, such as kettles, park benches, dental fllings and musical instruments. Anything that can’t be recovered is either burnt to provide energy for the recycling process or ground into chips that are used in construction and road building.

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