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World Dental Federation (FDI) has published its inaugural Consensus Statement on Environmentally Sustainable Oral Healthcare, aimed at moving the oral healthcare sector towards more environmentally friendly practices that ultimately reduce the carbon footprint of the profession. Oral healthcare contributes to the environmental burden through air pollution arising from the release of CO2associated with travel and transport, incineration of waste, lack...

In this thought piece, Polly Billington, the founder and CEO of UK100, the only network of climate ambitious local authorities in the UK, tells us how local leaders and UK Infrastructure Bank can work together to unlock local net zero.   Six months on from the UK hosting the world’s most influential climate conference, COP26 Glasgow, the urgency of climate action...

Energy Saving Trust has announced that it will continue to oversee the management and allocation of Energy Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme (Energy Redress Scheme) payments following the renewal of its contract by Ofgem. Ofgem’s enforcement and compliance activity collects voluntary payments from companies that may have breached the regulator's administered rules and the Energy Redress Scheme distributes these funds to...

New report from the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab, 'The Energy of Freedom’?: Solar energy, modern slavery and the Just Transition', warns that the rapid increase in demand for solar energy risks fuelling demand for products made with forced labour, including the polysilicon used in solar panels and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. The report takes its title from a...

Welsh peatlands can now be seen on a new map that will track how the habitat recovers through conservation action over coming years. Vital for storing vast amounts of carbon in the fight against climate change, peatlands also harbour a wealth of wildlife, help purify water and can reduce flood risk. Responding to the climate and nature emergencies, the Wales Peatland...

The water regulator for England and Wales is proposing to run a third Water Breakthrough Challenge in Autumn 2022, a fourth in 2023 and a fifth in either 2024 or 2025, with the potential to run competitions beyond 2025. The £200m Water Innovation Fund – designed to drive long-lasting change and innovation in the sector – has already generated multi-sector...

A permanent post-pandemic switch to hybrid working may do little to reduce carbon emissions as the majority of remote workers travel further each week than their office-based counterparts, according to new research from the University of Sussex Business School. The researchers found that prior to the pandemic most remote workers in England travelled further each week than office-based workers -...

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) provides new concepts for banks, asset owners, asset managers and other financial institutions to define and set net-zero targets in a new paper. The Foundations Paper on Net-Zero for Financial Institutions paves the way for the SBTi’s Net-Zero Standard for Financial Institutions, which is due to be launched in early 2023 to bring the...

Following the publication of the much-anticipated British Energy Security Strategy, Chris Stratton, ICON's Policy & External Affairs Manager examines different aspects of the government plan to make the UK less reliant on energy imports. What can we make of the government’s new energy strategy? Coming up with a coherent energy strategy in the face of record global oil and gas...

In this opinion piece, ICON's reporter/researcher Ida Vaisanen takes a look at inclusivity of greenspace from her native cultural perspective.   Since I started working in sustainability, and around words at that, one of the most foreign concepts I've come across so far has been the word 'greenspace.' As a concept, it does not naturally roll off my tongue. Born and raised...