Working together to deliver a low carbon future for Scotland
Global emissions of carbon dioxide may be showing the first signs of a “permanent slowdown” in the rate of increase. According to a new report, emissions in 2012 increased at less than half the average over the past decade.
The CDP Global Water Report, launched today, shows businesses are starting to realise threat of water-related risks, but will they take action? It took the best part of a decade for large corporations to start reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions in significant numbers. Transparency around water, in contrast, looks set to unfold much faster.
Back in September Richard Benyon, the then environment minister, launched the UK Peatland Code. Its name might sound like a set of rules to protect the country’s peat bogs and fens but its scope is much more limited: it is a voluntary standard designed to encourage companies to sponsor the restoration of already-damaged peatland in return for some good PR.
Despite signs that the economy is beginning to recover from the biggest financial collapse in living memory, the investment outlook remains challenging. In this environment, as the difficulties of maintaining short-term returns dominate discussions about investment strategy, climate change may seem to many a less than pressing issue. Yet it represents a significant financial risk with enormous implications for the retirement outcomes of today’s savers. While understandably preoccupied with the fallout from the 2008 crisis, pension funds …
Our pursuit of constant growth can never be sustainable. Instead, we must deconstruct our consumer society to consume less and value more. Tuesday 20 August 2013 was Earth Overshoot Day, the day every year when humanity exceeds the yearly ecological limits of the planet, and starts to consume and pollute more than the Earth can endure.
