press releases

A new report from the environmental group Greenpeace shows how the UK construction industry can have a positive influence on the management practices in forests around the world. The report, entitled "Setting a new standard: alternatives to unsustainable plywood in the UK construction industry" is a practical guide for companies wanting to avoiding the use of illegal plywood on construction sites.

If the government is serious about renewables and energy efficiency, Britain doesn’t need to build major new power stations to keep the lights on, according to a new report released today by independent energy experts Pöyry.

Today, the leaders of the UK's largest coalition dedicated to stopping climate change warned Gordon Brown that a green light for a new unabated coal plant at Kingsnorth will lock Britain into decades of spiralling emissions and severely undermine the government's ability to meet its climate targets.

David Cameron today dropped the strongest hint yet that a future Conservative government would not lend its support to a third runway at Heathrow airport. Addressing a "Cameron Direct" town hall meeting in Brentford, Cameron remarked "I haven't heard any persuasive arguments for Heathrow expansion". The statement is the strongest indication yet that the Tory leader is unconvinced by the economic and environmental justifications used by the aviation industry and the Labour government.

A court in Aomori, Japan has ruled that two Greenpeace peaceful protestors who exposed a major scandal around the embezzlement of whale meat from the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling programme will spend the maximum time in custody without charge permissible under Japanese law - 23 days.

A call by David Cameron's favourite think tank for a radical new approach to UK energy policy was today echoed by the UK's biggest green groups. Policy Exchange is calling for the kind of greenhouse gas efficiency standard that is applied to cars to now be applied to power stations. The call comes on the same day that Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth and the RSPB released a joint recommendation for the introduction of a tough new performance standard of 350g of CO2 per kilowatt hour for power plants.

Reacting to Gordon Brown's comments that the UK needs to increase its nuclear power capacity, Robin Oakley, head of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign, said:

"This looks like nothing more than a clumsy attempt by Brown to talk up British Energy's share price. The nuclear industry has had a woeful 24 hours that must be shaking confidence in this outdated technology.

"Sizewell B shut down unexpectedly, clean-up costs are soaring and the reactor that France want to sell us has had construction halted for safety reasons.

Tuesday's power cuts were due to an "antiquated energy system", according to environmentalists.

Robin Oakley, head of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign, said: "Britain's antiquated centralised energy system relies on a few large power stations, such as our aging and increasingly unreliable nuclear power plants. When they fail the impact can be enormous. Sizewell B for example, the plant that failed on Tuesday, has the single greatest need for back-up on the national grid.