Uk | News & Views

‘Water poverty’ to rise in the UK as scarcity pushes up bills

“Water poverty” will become the new fuel poverty for an increasing number of households as scarcity of supply pushes up bills, according to an influential thinktank that says Britain must deal urgently with climate change.

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one of the largest social policy research-and-development charities, says that low-income households are at particular risk because of new methods being introduced to increase the efficient use and distribution of water. It defines “water poverty” as when households spend 3% or more of their income on water bills.

The report, Vulnerability to Heat Waves and Drought: Adaptation to Climate Change, by the environmental consultancy AEA and a team from the University of Surrey, warns that water is becoming scarce as a result of climate change and increased consumer demand. An estimated four million households in the UK are already “water poor”, according to the report, and the situation is likely to worsen, with bills predicted to rise by 5% a year for some customers.

Water companies are moving away from flat-rate fees to new charging models that bill customers with steadily higher prices according to how much water they use.

The report warns that this could create affordability problems for some low-income households and lead to “water poverty”.

“The issue of water poverty – just like fuel poverty – is extremely important, especially as we start to look into the future and consider how climate change is going to impact society,” said the report’s lead author, Magnus Benzie. The south-west of England, where bills are on average 43% higher than in the rest of the country, is set to be particularly affected as the UK becomes significantly drier in coming decades, according to the report.

It suggests that any influx of people into the region, coupled with increases in tourism, will exacerbate the problem. The region has tried a new pricing system, using three tariffs that ratchet up with increased water use, but there are concerns that this may see some households hit disproportionately.

“We currently waste a lot of water, so on one level it makes sense to encourage greater efficiency by charging people depending on how much water they use,” Benzie said. “But some tariffs can put unfair pressure on households that cannot reduce their water consumption, either because of household size, medical needs or an inability to invest in water-efficient appliances.”

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Papier-mache milk bottle arrives in UK supermarkets

Taken from The Guardian

A Suffolk-based inventor believes he may have found the answer to Britain’s rapidly developing landfill crisis.

Each day some 15m plastic bottles are used in the UK, many ending up on the country’s burgeoning waste mountains. And as the average plastic bottle takes 500 years to decompose, this legacy will have an impact on generations to come.

But now, inspired by a papier-mache balloon that his son made at school, Martin Myerscough believes he has come up with the answer. The GreenBottle, which looks remarkably like the conventional two-litre plastic bottles on supermarket shelves, comprises a sturdy paper shell with a plastic liner to keep the milk fresh.

Once the lining is ripped out, the paper shell can be quickly flattened and recycled up to seven times – plastic bottles can be recycled only once. Alternatively the paper bottle can be turned into compost within a matter of several weeks.

The bottle has been trialled at Asda stores in East Anglia and a national roll-out across the supermarket chain will start this week, beginning in Cornwall.

Myerscough dreamt up the idea for Greenbottle after talking to a man in his local pub. “A chap I row with was running the local landfill, so I asked him what was the main problem and he said plastic bottles, especially milk bottles, and that set me thinking.”

Recalling his son’s efforts with papier-mache, Myerscough played around with several designs before coming up with a prototype.

Currently 1,000 two-litre bottles are supplied to shops around Suffolk, and Myerscough claims customers have been “overwhelmingly positive”.

There are plans to make the next generation of bottles entirely from paper and to sell products to other industries, such as detergent and shampoo manufacturers.

Asda’s decision to introduce the bottles nationally should help bring costs of production down. “The price is the same as a plastic bottle,” Myerscough said. “Our target is to be competitive with plastic bottles.”

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UK plastic bag use on the rise

Taken from The Guardian Online

Plastic bag use in Britain is on the rise after the limited success of a voluntary agreement by retailers to cut the number of bags given to shoppers, according to figures compiled this week.

By contrast, in Ireland, which imposed a tax on plastic bags in 2002, the number of plastic bags has plummeted. Consumers in the UK now use nearly four times as many plastic bags as those in Ireland.

According to the figures by the New Statesman from official government sources, the number of bags used a month by each person in the UK dropped from 11 in 2002 to 7.2 in 2009, but then rose again to 7.7 last year – equivalent to 475m bags in total per month. In Ireland, the equivalent figure – compiled from plastic bag tax receipts – has dropped from 27 in 2002 to 2 in 2009, suggesting that the tax is having a strong impact on consumer behaviour.

“Ireland’s shoppers are enjoying freedom from the endless unnecessary plastic bags, as these figures show,” said Julian Kirby, resource use campaigner for Friends of the Earth. “A standard charge in England would help save resources and cut climate-changing gases.”

Four years ago, single-use plastic bags became an environmental issue in the UK, after the residents of Modbury, Devon, banned them from the village. Photographs of wild animals caught up in plastic bags drew attention to the damage the bags were causing, and the Daily Mail joined the campaign, with a call in 2008 to “Banish the bags”, so that “our streets, fields, parks, seas, rivers and beaches will be cleaner for our grandchildren to enjoy”.

But, despite support from many sides, Gordon Brown backed away from imposing either a ban or a levy on the bags, and instead allowed retailers to create a voluntary agreement. The New Statesman’s waste policy report suggests the agreement – although initially leading to a drop in bag use – has had only a limited success.

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Sales of sustainable seafood soar in UK supermarkets

Taken from The Guardian Online

Sales of “alternative” species of fish and seafood have soared after being championed in Channel 4’s newFish Fightcampaign, the UK’s leading supermarkets reported today.

Consumers are favouring coley, dab, mussels, squid and sardines over the staple salmon, cod and tuna following the programmes last week, which highlighted the wasteful use of “discard” in fishing practices while encouraging shoppers to take the pressure off popular fish stocks by being more adventurous in what they eat.

The cook and Guardian writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, credited with boosting demand for higher-welfare chicken three years ago, has taken the lead in the new campaign.Programmes from fellow chef Jamie Oliver have shown consumers new ways of cooking less popular species such as mussels, squid and trout.

Sainsbury’s said sales of “bycatch” from its fresh fish counter had been “promising” overall, while sales of pollack had leapt by 167% week on week. It said customers had responded well to the fish featured in Jamie Oliver’s programmes with sales of British and MSC-certified mackerel up 60% and mussels up 16%.

Sales of its sustainable “line and pole caught” canned tuna increased by 17% over the last week, while sales of organic salmon grew by 16% and normal salmon sales remained unchanged.

Tesco, the UK’s biggest fish retailer, said it had seen an increase in sales of between 25 and 45% for fresh sardines, coley, brown crab, sprats and whiting in the week since the first programmes. It said in a statement: “We sell around 40 species of fish on our fresh counters and our staff are trained to advise customers on trying new varieties. Sales of fresh cod, herring, mussels, mackerel and canned tuna also increased compared to last week.”

But the supermarket was singled out by Fearnley-Whittingstall for misleading labelling on its canned tuna, leading the company to pledge to catch 100% of its own-brand canned tuna using the “pole and line” method. Tesco last week came fifth out of the major supermarkets in a 2011 league table of sustainable tuna, compiled by Greenpeace.

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UK spends more on carbon labelled goods

From LowCarbonEconomy

The total annual retail value of consumer goods sold in the UK bearing the Carbon Reduction Label has reached £2 billion, and could double in the next two years, according to a report by the Centre for Retail Research.

The announcement comes as new research shows that 9 out of 10 homes in the UK bought a carbon labelled product last year.

The milestone figure was reached after Tesco confirmed it has added the Carbon Reduction Label to its own brand dried egg and dried Finest pasta. It means that the average UK household spends £77 on carbon labelled products per year.

If sales of business (B2B) products were added, the total sales value of goods bearing the label would rise to approximately £3 billion. CEMEX UK, Marshalls plc and Continental Clothing all feature the label on their B2B products.

The Carbon Reduction Label also continues to grow internationally. Last summer, Aldi put the label on the bottles of its own-brand olive oil in stores across Australia. And last month, the New Zealand Wine Company became the first wine maker to measure and commit to reduce the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine, putting the Carbon Reduction Label on their Mobius Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

Euan Murray, director of footprinting at the Carbon Trust said:

“It’s great to see carbon labelling growing both in the UK and internationally through our partnership in Australia with Planet Ark. With the emergence of a carbon conscious consumer we are confident that more and more international brands will commit to carbon labelling as it will help deliver the triple benefits of reducing cost by reducing energy spend, boosting their company’s reputation and helping to ensure customer loyalty.”

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Co-op and Marks & Spencer named UK’s ‘greenest’ supermarkets

From The Guardian

Co-op and Marks & Spencer named UK’s ‘greenest’ supermarketsThe Co-op and Marks & Spencer are today named as the UK’s “greenest” supermarkets in a new survey which rates retailers’ progress in areas such as sustainable and ethical sourcing. Tesco, Asda and Netto were identified as the three worst performing companies.

As households stock up for the festive season, Ethical Consumer magazine urges shoppers to cut the environmental cost of Christmas by shopping from retailers with a proven track record of pursuing “green policies”.

The environmental and ethical performance of 19 of the country’s leading supermarkets and convenience stores were scrutinised in the survey, included detailed analysis of the companies’ corporate social responsibility reports.

The results reveal a clear divide between the top two performing supermarkets the Co-op and M&S and the other 17 companies.

Policies praised at these two major high street chains include the Co-op’s fish policy, whose goal is to operate its fish-sourcing policy in line with the aims and objectives of the Marine Stewardship Council. The Co-op also sources 98% renewable electricity in its 5,500 sites across the UK.

M&S was highly praised for its palm oil policies. It now stipulates the use of sustainable palm oil in many of its own-brand goods and is advised on the issue by WWF. M&S also scored well for its climate change policies which include a target of using non-crop derived biofuels in its fleet of vehicles.

Rob Harrison of Ethical Consumer, and co-author of the buyers’ guide, said: “If you’re lucky enough to live close to a local independent shop that has an ethical stocking policy then this is where we would recommend people to shop. However the reality is that the vast majority of us now shop in supermarkets and we would therefore urge shoppers to choose either the Co-op or M&S.”

He went on: “These two companies have made genuine efforts to reduce the environmental and ethical impact of their operations and have demonstrated that they are setting the environmental agenda for supermarkets.”

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CCC: UK should cut emissions by 60% by 2030

The UK should aim to cut carbon emissions by 46 percent on today’s levels within the next two decades, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has recommended.

Releasing its fourth carbon budget report, for the years 2023 to 2027, the CCC called for a 60 percent cut in emissions on 1990 levels by 2030.

It also recommended the current 2020 carbon budget should be “tightened” from a 34 percent reduction on 1990 levels to a 37 percent cut.

This is higher than the European Union target, which calls for a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Lord Adair Turner, head of the CCC, claimed: “Any less ambition would not be compatible with the 2050 target in the Climate Change Act.”

The committee named a number of factors it believes could lead to the emissions reductions required, including a “radical decarbonisation and reform of the electricity market”.

In addition, it called for a more widespread use of electric vehicles, the transformation of the UK’s built environment, and the use of more carbon-efficient practices on farms.

A combination of the use of carbon capture and storage technology, biomass and biogas heating and more energy efficient practices was said to be able to cut emissions from industry by half.

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UK’s largest smart grid project unveiled

Homes and businesses in the north-east and Yorkshire are to benefit from the largest smart grid project ever to take place in the UK.

Some 14,000 homes are due to take part in the £54 million project, which will aim to assess the impact of electric cars, solar panels and other low carbon technologies on the electricity grid.   All homes taking part in the study will install smart meters, while 1,500 will use air or ground source heat pumps, 800 will install solar PV panels and 150 will drive electric cars.

The findings will then be applied to the whole of the UK using data from 160,000 smart meters. Solutions will then be trialled to see how the capabilities of the grid can be improved.  Durham, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield are among the major cities participating in the project, which is being supported by CE Electric, British Gas, Durham Energy Institute and EA Technology.

Phil Bentley, managing director of British Gas, said: “It is vital that Britain makes the transition to a low carbon economy – and no single company has all the answers.”  Figures released from Ofgem recently, in relation to the Feed-in Tariffs, revealed that solar panels account for 97 percent of installations under the scheme

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UK is ‘laughing stock of Europe’ for climate initiatives

The UK is the “laughing stock of Europe” in terms of eco-incentives and climate initiatives, according one microgeneration expert.

Commenting on the government’s recent announcement about the Green Deal, Andrew Moore, founder of British Eco, said that the initiative must form “part of the bigger picture”. Some 26 million households are expected to benefit from the Green Deal, which allows people to make energy-efficient improvements to their properties without the upfront cost, over the next 20 years.

The programme is intended to reduce both carbon emissions and energy bills, and, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, it will also help to support 250,000 UK jobs. Mr Moore said: “On climate issues, we are the laughing stock of Europe really, and we need to get going with it.”

However, he added that the Renewable Heat Incentive, which would reward homeowners for generating green thermal energy from technology such as solar thermal panels, biomass boilers and heat pumps, could “revolutionise the market”.

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Branches of low carbon restaurant chain to open in the UK

The low carbon restaurant chain Otarian is to open its first UK branches in London this week.

Based on the principle of vegetarianism, the chain will be the first to include information on carbon footprints to internationally recognised standards on all of its menus .

Restaurants in Wardour Street, Soho, Shaftesbury Avenue, and Covent Garden are due to open on August 20th.

Otarian operates a no air freight policy, meaning all products are delivered by road and if a reliable supply cannot be obtained the dish is altered.

Some 98 per cent of waste from the restaurant is either composted or recycled and sustainable building products, such as floor tiles made from recycled glass, are used throughout the building design.

Radhika Oswal, said that vegetarianism is the most sustainable way of living as it has “a lighter ecological footprint, reduced resource impacts, and lower carbon emissions than non-vegetarian equivalents”.

A report released earlier this year by the Centre for Alternative Technology entitled Zero Carbon Britain suggested that an 80 per cent reduction in livestock in the UK would contribute to the country producing zero emissions by 2030.

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