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A 'LOST world' wood which is a home to gems such as the rare barbastelle bat and hazel dormouse is now protected after public support secures it for the Woodland Trust. Donations came flooding in after Woodland Trust launched an appeal in autumn 2019 to raise the £1 million needed to take on part of Ausewell in Dartmoor. It will now...

A NEW project led by Pure Leapfrog seeks to make local energy systems future-proof in the North West. The charity will collaborate with 11 partners from community energy, the energy industry, local government and academia. The project will assess ways of optimising the current energy infrastructure in Warrington and develop low-carbon solutions able to deliver Carbon Budget 5, with a pathway...

AN INTERNATIONAL collaboration led by Cranfield University is set to examine the potential for low-carbon hydrogen to be the clean fuel of the future. The HyPER project (Bulk Hydrogen Production by Sorbent Enhanced Steam Reforming) will construct a 1.5 MWth pilot plant at the University to test an innovative hydrogen production technology that substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions. With £7.5 million funding from the Department for Business, Energy...

BRIGHT Blue has published a major new report, Global green giant? A policy story, offers a blueprint for how Britain can become 'a global green giant on conservation.' The report proposes around 50 ambitious conservation ideas, both for domestic and foreign policy, across five themes: a green and pleasant land; ending the plastic scourge; protecting our marine environments; eliminating the...

SAINSBURY'S has committed to investing £1 billion over twenty years towards becoming a Net Zero business across its own operations by 2040. The retailer’s current carbon footprint is one million tonnes, which is a 35% absolute reduction in the last 15 years despite its space increasing by 46% over the same time frame. Mike Coupe, CEO of Sainsbury’s, commented on the...

TOWER Hamlets has become the first borough in London to get a ‘recycled road’ made partly from old tyres that would otherwise have been destined for a landfill site. The council has been working with Tarmac, the company behind the new technology that uses rubber crumb from the 40 million waste tyres produced every year mixed into asphalt. Earlier this year...

NEW funding for the UK Energy Research Centre, which extends across 20 institutions and is hosted by the UCL Energy Institute, will enable engineers, social scientists and natural scientists to research the challenges of a net zero emissions future. In the fourth phase of UK Energy Research Centre, £22 million will be allocated to research on the decarbonisation of key...

YORKSHIRE Water is working with Itron on a new smart meter water leakage trial in Sheffield which it hopes could play a key role in its leakage reduction strategy, saving up to 250,000 litres of water per burst. The 1100 Itron Cyble TM meters will remotely send 15-minute water flow information back to Yorkshire Water every 12 hours. Using this data...

THE ENVIRONMENT Agency has carried out a major review of Sellafield Ltd's Radioactive Substances Activities permit for the first time since the early 2000s. The permit controls receipt and disposal of radioactive waste and imposes conditions and limits on discharges. Dr Rob Allot, Sellafield Nuclear Regulation Team Leader said: “The Environment Agency has been working with Sellafield Ltd for some time...

NEW data shows that air quality in some of London’s worst pollution hotspots has 'significantly improved' since 2016. The figures reveal that during 2016, London’s air exceeded the hourly legal limit for nitrogen dioxide for over 4,000 hours. Last year, this fell to just over 100 hours – a reduction of 97 per cent. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, commented on...