Energy Efficiency

Who should I cheer for in Euro 2008?

Posted by jossc — 9 June 2008 at 3:14pm - Comments

Swedish flag
Sweden has the best overall record on a range of environ- mental and social issues

As Euro 2008 kicks off in Austria and Switzerland this week with no British teams involved, a new quick web guide has appeared to help us decide which of the remaining 16 competing nations most deserves our support. Who should I Cheer For sensibly ignores footballing talent and instead ranks each country by ten criteria including spending on health, aid and the military, carbon emissions and renewable energy production.

Figures for the UK are also included in the list for comparative purposes and, guess what, we don't come out too well, particularly on the key climate change factors. The UK has the third highest carbon emissions (10.2 tonnes per person) behind the Netherlands and Germany, and comes joint last in terms of electricity generated from renewables (just 4 per cent).

Article tagged as: climate change, co2 emissions, energy efficiency, renewable energy

Bulb revolution sweeps into Argentina

Posted by jamie — 19 March 2008 at 4:53pm - Comments

A bulb display outside the Agentinean CongressAnother country is well on the way to making the switch as last week Argentina joined the rapidly growing list of nation states getting ready to use only energy efficient light bulbs.

If the Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gets her way, by the end of 2010 mandatory efficiency standards will be introduced which will effectively ban incandescent bulbs. Better yet, she said her decision came as a direct result of the campaign run by our office in Buenos Aires.

And earlier this year, Italy followed Ireland's example to become the second EU country to propose similar efficiency standards and is also expected to remove incandescents from sale in 2010. All these bulb bans are a small but vital step in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and introducing minimum energy efficiency standards on all electrical equipment has to be the ultimate goal.

Article tagged as: argentina, CFLs, climate change, energy, energy efficiency, light bulbs, successes

London goes retro to beat climate change

Posted by jamie — 29 February 2008 at 2:36pm - Comments

Fashion is a fickle beast but now a whole city is going retro (well, not quite but it was too good a pun to waste). The long-awaited plan to retrofit all buildings owned and operated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) with energy-saving systems and technology is finally in motion with contracts awarded to companies which are going to slash the capital's emissions.

While much of the discussion about energy efficiency in buildings has focused on new houses, there are still millions of older buildings that lack proper insulation or top-notch heating systems. No matter how good those eco-towns are, if and when they're built they'll only represent a small proportion of the building stock in the UK. Fortunately, the GLA have a cunning plan.

Article tagged as: buildings, climate change, emissions, energy efficiency, ken livingstone, london

Green bulbs switched on in the Philippines

Posted by jamie — 14 February 2008 at 6:25pm - Comments

Excellent news reaches us from the Philippines where a ban on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs has recently been announced.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced plans for phasing out inefficient bulbs by January 2010, adding the Asian archipelago to the growing list of countries, including Ireland and Japan, which are slashing their emissions by shifting to compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). So pressure is building up on our own government - and indeed the entire EU - to bring in their own mandatory efficiency standards for light bulbs.

Article tagged as: CFLs, climate change, energy, energy efficiency, light bulbs, philippines, south east asia

Visit EfficienCity, our spanking new, multimedia packed, climate friendly town

Posted by bex — 7 February 2008 at 2:15pm - Comments

EfficienCity - a climate friendly town

Visit EfficienCity, our climate friendly town

If a picture speaks a thousand words, a multimedia-packed, animation-filled interactive town must speak a million. Which is why we've launched EfficienCity - to explain exactly what decentralised energy is and how it works in practice (which can otherwise be a wordy business).

Article tagged as: climate change, decentralised energy, efficiencity, energy efficiency, multimedia, renewable energy

A life in carbon

Posted by jamie — 17 January 2008 at 5:32pm - Comments
The mobGAS carbon calculator

In the past, I've been a bit sniffy about carbon calculators and have tended to dismiss them, although if I'm honest it's been on principle rather than first-hand experience. From what I've seen, they oversimplify an incredibly complex issue and, as a colleague pointed out, shift the weight of responsibility onto individuals when it should be an energy-efficient government that leads the way.

But then I came across mobGAS, a calculator produced by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre which sits on your mobile phone and allows you to enter daily updates about your energy consumption. Hurray, a new application for me to fiddle with in a borderline obsessive-compulsive manner, and an excuse for a broader look at carbon calculators in general.

Article tagged as: carbon calculators, climate change, emissions, energy, energy efficiency

New bulbs for old in London bulb amnesty

Posted by jamie — 9 January 2008 at 12:36pm - Comments

As Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone might not be the perfect politician but at least he's streets ahead of central government on climate change and reducing emissions in the capital. His latest ploy is to hold a light bulb amnesty during which Londoners can exchange their old incandescent bulbs for a bright new energy-efficient one.

According to london.gov.uk, you can take up to two old-fashioned bulbs to any London branch of B&Q between Friday 11 and Sunday 13 January and exchange them for compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) provided by British Gas. Nice.

Article tagged as: B&Q, climate change, energy, energy efficiency, ken livingstone, light bulbs, london

Green light bulbs give you cancer and other tall stories

Posted by jamie — 8 January 2008 at 2:25pm - Comments

"Environmentally friendly light bulbs 'can give you skin cancer'" claims the Daily Mail

The Mail waxes lyrical about its favourite subject

What fun the media has been having with light bulbs lately, peddling claims that they are extremely dangerous due to the mercury they contain and that they could cause skin cancer. With an eye recently sobered by new year abstinence, let's take a closer look.

Article tagged as: climate change, energy, energy efficiency, light bulbs

Ireland is banning the bulb, why can't we?

Posted by jamie — 14 December 2007 at 2:40pm - Comments

After last week's amazing news that Ireland is going to ban inefficient light bulbs in early 2009, we thought it was time to give our own government a squeeze on the issue. The speed at which our neighbour across the Irish Sea will be ditching incandescent bulbs has shown just how ineffective London has been so far.

Not only does Ireland now join the likes of Australia, Venezuela and Cuba who have already laid down bulb legislation, it also proves our own government is dragging its feet. Earlier this year, a voluntary phase-out of inefficient bulbs by the end of 2011 was announced which even at the time was pretty rubbish. Thousands of small retailers aren't covered by the scheme so incandescent bulbs will still be on sale beyond that date. Ireland's tough new legislation now makes this initiative look even more feeble.

Article tagged as: climate change, energy efficiency, light bulbs, take action, what you can do
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