MEPs have demanded that Europe improve its energy efficiency by 20 per cent over the next decade and place a renewed emphasis on greener buildings.

This is good news, with a couple of notes.

First, it’s critical to look at energy efficiency as the key enabler for carbon reduction. It’s by far the cheapest way and usually does not require huge upfront investment.

Second, it could have been better. 20% is not very ambitious. Usually if you go for 20% you end up getting 15%. If you for 80%, maybe you get 60%. Why not being more ambitious and let industry and civil society to come up with innovative ideas.

Having a very ambitious target would give the right signals to innovators and the technology industry.

Read more about this here

Earlier today I had an article published in The Guardian Sustainable Business Blog where I outline the initiatives around reducing waste at InterfaceFLOR.

The UK will run out of landfill space in less than eight years unless radical measures are taken to improve recycling and reduce waste. The majority of UK businesses rely on landfills to dump waste, however with capacity diminishing rapidly and landfill tax rising annually, it is clear that this option is fast becoming both environmentally and economically unsustainable.

As a manufacturer of carpet tiles, an industry which sends nearly half a million tonnes of waste to landfill each year, InterfaceFLOR has made serious headway in cutting waste. Our pledge is to have zero waste to landfill by 2020 (as part of our ultimate ‘Mission Zero’ goal for zero environmental impact by 2020).

Since the mid-90s we have achieved an 80% reduction in waste to landfill, whilst 36% of our raw materials are currently either recycled or bio-based. We have also saved more than $433m in avoided waste costs. These savings are invested back into our business, to help us to redesign our products and processes and further drive down waste. Our initiatives include:….

Read the rest of the article HERE

Image Source – The Guardian Sustainable Business Blog