INFORM

Policy Tracker

The latest reports and developments in environmental policy, regulation, legislation and voluntary initiatives

POLLUTION CONTROL

DEFRA REPORT ON TACKLING AIR POLLUTION

Details:

Defra has published Air Pollution: Action in a

Changing Climate, outlining how the UK might save £24B through measures that jointly help prevent air pollution and climate change. The effects of air pol- lution are believed to cost the UK around £15B a year and shorten life expectancy by as much as six months. The report sets out how climate change and air pollutants often share the same sources, even though their effects are seen on different geographical scales.

Information: defra.gov.uk

WASTE

DEFRA CONSULTATION ON RECYCLING TARGETS

Details:

Defra has launched a consultation on Implementing the Packaging Strategy: Recovery and Recycling Targets, Funding Transparency and Technical Changes. The consultation seeks views on new targets to recycle over 70% of packaging waste. The targets are designed to save around 8M tonnes of waste from landfill, and 9M tonnes of greenhouse gases by 2020. The consultation also includes options to make the revenue generated by the producer-responsibility system more visible to local authorities and producers.

Timeline:

C The deadline for responses is 27 May 2010

Information: defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/packaging-regs/

index.htm

SCOTTISH RECYCLING RATES RISE

Details:

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has released figures showing that Scotland’s annual recycling and composting rose to 35.9% for the year October 2008 to September 2009. The Scottish Government’s target of 30% for 2008 has been met and the next target is 40% by the end of 2010

Information: sepa.org.uk

CARBON REDUCTION

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO FIRST CCC PROGRESS REPORT

Details:

The Government has responded to the Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) first annual report to Parliament. The report was laid before Parliament last October, and suggested there needed to be a “step change” in the Government’s carbon mitigation policy. The Government agrees with the CCC that a step change in the pace of emissions reductions is needed. It highlights the Low Carbon Transition Plan as the best means to achieve this and underlines clean coal, planning reform, new grid access arrangements, plans for a smart grid and the establishment of Infrastructure UK.

Information: theccc.org.uk

18 May 2010 ❘ Sustainab le Business

Download:

SB

More Info Inside this Issue C Current Consultations

BARRIERS TO RESOURCE EFFICIENCY IN SMEs

Details:

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills

(BIS) has published Green Light? A Review of Regulatory Barriers to Small Businesses’ Resource

and Energy Efficiency. The review forms part of a package announced by the UK Low Carbon Industrial Strategy to help SMEs to understand and respond to the opportunities and risks of the move to a low carbon economy. Existing research

estimates that SMEs account for 20% of the CO2 emitted by the commercial and public sectors, or 7% of total UK carbon emissions. berr.gov.uk/files/file54466.pdf

EAC REPORT ON CARBON BUDGETS

Details:

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has published Carbon Budgets. The report finds that the Government is broadly right to use the objective of limiting the rise in average global temperature to no more than 2°C as the backbone for its targets and budgets. Its approach to setting emission reduction targets, based on equalising per capita emissions globally, is sensible. But the report also finds that the Government must be ready, if needed, to establish credible emissions-reduction pathways that go beyond what is currently regarded as politically possible.

Information: parliament.uk

NEW OFGEM GREEN ELECTRICITY LABEL

Details:

Energy regulator Ofgem has launched a certification scheme to label green electricity tariffs, which have been certified as having genuine environmental benefits. The Green Energy Certified label will be applied to tariffs that have been certified under the scheme. The scheme certifies suppliers who are doing the most to reduce carbon emissions, and implements Ofgem’s Green Supply Guidelines, published last year. The guidelines set out what green tariffs should comprise and how they should be marketed.

Information: greenenergyscheme.org

TRANSPORT

RFA REPORT ON IMPACT OF RTFO

Details:

The Renewable Fuels Agency has released a report on the impacts of the biofuel supplied in the first year of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation. Several fossil fuel suppliers failed to demonstrate the sustainability of their biofuels. Morgan Stanley and Topaz both missed all government perform- ance targets, while Chevron, Murco and Topaz failed to report any fuel meeting the RTFO’s Environmental Qualifying Standard. As well as com- panies with poor results, there were several that failed to have their data verified satisfactorily.

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