Legal & General: UK risks locking out lower income households from making net zero transition October 20, 2021 The UK risks missing its net zero target by limiting the climate transition only to higher income households, according to a new report by Legal & General. The government’s new boiler strategy will see £5,000 pound grants given to households to swap out gas boilers for lower carbon options such as heat pumps. However, the move risks locking [...]
Foreign investors pile into London’s green dream, making it the ‘cleantech’ capital of Europe October 19, 2021 London was the leading city in Europe for ‘cleantech’ projects last year, with investors piling into the cause as the UK chases its net zero target and maps its ‘levelling up’ agenda. The UK snagged one in six of all foreign direct investment that came in behind cleantech last year, according to Big Four firm [...]
Most Brits support net zero policies – until they make life more expensive October 18, 2021 The majority of the public support net zero policies, until they curb personal freedoms and make life more expensive, according to new research. Policies like increasing taxes on red meat and dairy rallied the least support across the older generations, while frequent flyer levies failed to pull in younger, travel-hungry, individuals, according to the research [...]
Private equity firms rush to go green as investors dodge climate risky investments October 18, 2021 “Climate risk is investment risk,” the ESG lead at investment heavyweight BlackRock has said, as the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has outlined not only what countries need to do to hold back climate change, but what they are likely to achieve. To meet the Paris Agreement’s goals, countries will need to retire unabated [...]
Scottish Power stops staff catching flights in bid to hold back unnecessary emissions October 17, 2021 Scottish Power, one of the UK’s largest energy suppliers, has stopped its workers from taking domestic flights in a bid to hold back emissions. Staff must now travel by rail between the energy heavyweight’s offices in Glasgow, Liverpool, London and other cities in the country, the Telegraph first reported. The moves comes with the UN’s [...]
Prince Harry: Africa’s ‘natural beating heart’ needs to be protected from oil and gas drilling October 15, 2021 Prince Harry has said an area known as a “natural beating heart” of southern Africa must be protected with a moratorium on oil and gas drilling. Starting with rivers in Angola, the Okavango flows through Namibia’s Kavango region to a delta in Botswana, with Harry describing it in 2019 as “this magnificent last Eden”. In [...]
Irritated Queen about COP26 in Glasgow: ‘I still don’t know who is coming’ October 15, 2021 The Queen has appeared to suggest she is irritated by a lack of action in tackling the climate crisis, and the monarch still has no clue who will attend the upcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow. Her remarks emerged in clips of a conversation filmed on a phone camera during a trip to Cardiff for the [...]
UK secures £5.8bn of foreign investment for green projects October 15, 2021 As COP26 fast approaches, around 5.8bn of foreign investment has been injected into the UK’s green projects since November last year. It comes alongside some 56,000 new jobs in the UK’s clean and renewables industries, the government said today. The fresh figures follow prime minister Boris Johnson’s ten point plan for a ‘green industrial revolution’ [...]
Net zero: ”Failure to deliver’ is still very much on the cards’, says new HSBC report October 14, 2021 The UK’s manufacturing industry, which produces 12 per cent of the country’s carbon emissions, is in desperate need of financing to reach net zero, according to a new report. The report, by the University College London and supported by HSBC, has urged that the manufacturing sector – a key driver in the UK economy – [...]
Sustainability: ‘Who is ultimately accountable? The board and the CEO’ October 14, 2021 A business’ board and chief executive are the ones ultimately accountable for creating a sustainable company with COP26 on the horizon, according to DS Smith’s sustainability lead. “Sustainability should, as a function, should make itself superfluous,” said Wouter van Tol, head of sustainability at the London listed packaging giant. Speaking at a sustainability roundtable earlier [...]