Posts Tagged ‘carbon emissions’

Carbon reporting should be mandatory

May 12th, 2011
By
0

Defra has launched a consultation on GHG emissions reporting by UK companies (See here consultation document).A number of businesses, led by The Aldersgate Group believe the Government must introduce regulations for all large businesses to report their carbon emissions (Click here for the full press release).

My view is that carbon reporting should be mandatory for large companies. Big business come with big responsibilities and they need to help society to deal with climate change. Reducing absolute emmisions should be scrutinised publicly and this process starts wiht mandatory reporting.

But if we want to get businesses to come up with real solutions we need to make mandatory to report at product level. Most of the impacts of companies are outside their boundaries, either in their supply chains or customers. What’s the point of a car company reporting their corporate emissions? They should focus on the car emissions, which is several times bigger. Same for many physical products like a carpet tile, where around 70% of the impact is embodied in the raw materials.

So mandatory corporate reporting is good but mandatory EPDs (product reporting) would be even better….

| | | |
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

Shale gas ‘worse than coal’ for climate

April 14th, 2011
By
0

Interesting article in the BBC about the last research which raises the issue that shale gas might be emitting more CO2 than coal.

The study talks about the methane released when the shale is exploited.

My view: we need more research

Also it would be good to know whether this is genuine academic research with no agenda or whether this has been sponsored by the coal industry or other forms of energy.

Read the full article here: Shale gas ‘worse than coal’ for climate

Image Source: BBC

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

Carbon offsets in perspective: Beware of snake oil salesmen

April 7th, 2011
By
0

This is part of a series of entries that form a response to the Offsets Edition from Green Futures.

Let me first state that at InterfaceFLOR we are supporters of proper Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) offsets.

We are heavy users too, having bought around two million tonnes since 2003. We have an interest in repairing the tarnished reputation of carbon offsets but believe that this cannot be achieved without clearly acknowledging what went wrong, why and what needs to change.

It wasn’t the environmental movement that tarnished the reputation of offsets.

The offset industry brought the problem on itself. A young industry, seeing rapid growth in the last five years, was tempted into unhealthy ‘innovation’ in accounting and standards.

Interface has bought offsets since 2003. We have seen the industry develop and concluded that we needed to conduct our own rigorous audits to be sure that our money is achieving the intended carbon savings. Here are some of the ‘innovations’ we have seen from offset companies claiming to follow VCS standards:

  • Being sold offsets in 2005, but with the carbon savings purchased still not delivered today.
  • Offset providers issuing VCUs on the APX VCS registry form but never retiring the certificates.
  • Offsets sold in 2004, 2005 and 2006 which will only mature in 2017.
  • Confusing booking systems that don’t reconcile with each other.

The clear message is, buyer beware.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

EU’s transport white paper

April 5th, 2011
By
0

The European Commission published a white paper last week establishing a road-map to a single European transport area.

Here’s the report and here are some highlights:

  • The oil import bill for the EU was €210b in 2010. (Even if you hate the environment there is a very selfish reason to bet for renewables)
  • The EU transport still depends on oil and oil products for 96% of its energy needs.
  • Sticking to business as usual (current policy) means oil dependency would just be a little below 90%, emissions 30% higher than in 1990 and congestion costs increasing by 50%.
  • By 2030 the goal is to reduce GHG emissions to around 20% below 2008. That would still be 8% above 1990.
  • Transport is responsible for about a quarter of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. 12.8% of overall emissions are generated by aviation, 13.5% by maritime transport, 0.7% by rail, 1.8% by inland navigation and 71.3% by road transport (2008).
  • By 2050 goal is 60% emission reduction target
  • Transport industry employs 10% and accounts for 5% of GDP
  • Curbing mobility is not an option

How are we going to achieve this?

  • No more conventionally-fuelled cars in cities.
  • 40% use of sustainable low carbon fuels in aviation; at least 40% cut in shipping emissions.
  • A 50% shift of medium distance intercity passenger and freight journeys from road to rail and waterborne transport.
  • All of which will contribute to a 60% cut in transport emissions by the middle of the century.
  • Multimodal combination will be key (to encourage the shift to rail and short sea for long hauls).  Exactly what we are doing at InterfaceFLOR with our Holland-Italy transport by rail, our transport to Nordic countries by short sea and using the canal to Rotterdam through barges.
  • Multimodal is a great option for longer distances (distances of less than 300kms will still be done on trucks). The EU is aiming at upgrading its rail network and more efficient seaports.


|
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

EU gives more allowances than previously thought for the aviation emissions trade scheme

March 22nd, 2011
By
0

ENDS report that the EU commission is giving 212.9 million tonnes of carbon for 2012 on the various ETS schemes, which is higher than previously thought.

Clearly the lobbies have put the pressure on and the EU succumbed to more allowances.

Will history repeat itself?

Will we see some aviation companies making money out of selling some of these allowances as son of the steel industry players has done?

We hope not but the only way to be sure is giving less allowances.

Read more about this here

|
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

How would you meet the UK’s energy demands and reduce carbon emissions by 2050?

March 17th, 2011
By
0

DECC (the UK department of energy and climate change) has developed an innovative web-based tool to ask citizens what would be the choices they would make in terms of energy mix and efficiency policies. It’s great initiative because it makes people think about the trade-offs but also it’s a way of understanding what the citizens want, a sort of web-based democratic way to choose the energy mix of the future.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/my2050

You can choose your energy type based on banning the type of energy you hate (eg some people hate nuclear, others coal or gas, others dont like on-shore wind turbines). And then you have to fill demand based on investing in other types of energy.

You also need to choose demand scenarios, from example by decreasing the average room temperature on heating houses or using more public transport or putting external wall insulation on homes.

I was thinking that you could almost do this exercise based on the countries that would benefit the most. For example the Middle East (oil), Russia (gas), France (nuclear), Denmark and Spain (on-shore wind), Germany and China (photovoltaic)…

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™

Redesign of products in the West is the key to cut carbon in developing countries

October 26th, 2010
By
1

On Wednesday I heard Friedrich Hinterberger from SERI speak. He had 54 slides with lots of world sustainability figures but one that got my attention was the net importers and exporters of carbon.

It shows clearly how the West is importing carbon emissions from countries like China. Most of these emissions relate to the embodied impact of raw materials that go into products. For example, around 70% of the LCA impact of a carpet tile is in the raw materials. This is more or less similar in most physical products.

So what is the best way cut carbon emissions in China then? No, it’s not transferring renewable technology there. It’s redesigning the products that we design in the West so that they have much less embodied carbon (for example by using raw materials less carbon intensive).

And is this difficult or costly? No, it’s not. The actual bottleneck is that people don’t bother to do the maths and use LCA.

Download the full deck from Friedrich here

| | |
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Reddit] [StumbleUpon] [Twitter] [Email]
Powered by Bookmarkify™