The overwhelming majority of the British population will not gain access to a proper financial plan as a result of changes to be introduced in the retail distribution review (RDR), according to The Gaeia Partnership director Brigid Bensonat the Citywire New Model Adviser Conference this month.
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COP15 Copenhagen
It is now day 10 of the conference and things have turned out quite badly.
There seems to be little prospect of a meaningful deal. The USA will not sign up to Kyoto; the developing world will sign up to Kyoto extensions only. It looks like they’ll have another meeting in 6 months in Mexico. Up there with USA is Canada with its “tar sands” extraction of oil at enormous expense.
The only long-term solution is to use only as much energy as can be extracted from energy arrivin
g from the Sun. This includes solar panels, wind farms and hydro. [ The Sun creates the wind and couds which are the source of hydro ]. In the meantime it is possible that we shall carry on burning fossil fuels until they just run out. Sad but true.
The pre-meeting hack of the Climatic Research Unit emails and files seems to have died down apart from in the hard denier community. It certainly looks to me like the climate scientists make poor software engineers.
Cadbury are making their Dairy Milk chocolate bar Fairtrade. Full story on our main website.
Pity about George Alagiah having to leave Fairtrade leadership because of paranoid BBC. But worse Cadbury is closing Keynsham Dairy Milk factory - moving to Eastern europe.
I hope neither of these changes has anything to do with Cadbury going Fairtrade.
The climate change doomsday film I saw some time ago has now opened to good reviews in New York and Los Angeles. It stars Pete Postlethwaite.
The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan plots out how the UK will meet the cut in emissions set out in the budget of 34% on 1990 levels by 2020. A 21% reduction has already been delivered – equivalent to cutting emissions entirely from four cities the size of London.
Transforming the country into a cleaner, greener and more prosperous place to live is at the heart of our economic plans for Building Britain’s Future and ensuring the UK is ready to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.
By 2020:
The Transition Plan is the most systematic response to climate change of any major developed economy, and sets the standard for others in the run up to crucial global climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
Areas Covered
This year will see an 18 per cent rise in the number of investors opting to make ethical investment choices, according to new research from The Co-operative Investments. The results show that a correlation exists between the current financial crisis and a growth in the popularity of ethical investment, The Co-operative Investments suggests.
It also believes that further evidence also exists that reveals an increase in consumer demand for green investment opportunities on the back of the credit crunch. For example, The Co-operative Investments found that its own ethical fund – the Sustainable Leaders Trust – has seen a similar increase in unit growth, growing 16 per cent in 2008 and continuing into 2009. The Sustainable Leaders Trust invests in around 50 small, medium and large companies, the majority of which are based in the UK, that make a postitive contribution to the environment, human welfare and sustainability, whilst avoiding industries which have a negative social impact, such as armaments and tobacco companies.
Over a five year period, the fund has outperformed the FTSE All Share and the UK All Companies Sector average, providing a return of 28.63 per cent, compared to 15.49 per cent and 9.66 per cent respectively.
Figures from the Investment Management Association (IMA) also reveal an increased appetite for ethical investment, despite the economic crisis, reporting higher inflows into ethical funds than outflows for 14 consecutive months since February 2008. “The financial crisis appears to have encouraged investors to think not only about how much money they make, but importantly, how it is made,” commented Zack Hocking, head of investments at The Co-operative Investments.
“Many ethical funds have now proven that they can deliver performance in line with the very best unit trusts in the market, while helping to bring about positive change in society.”
For the first time since whaling was outlawed in 1965, blue whales—the largest animals to have ever lived—have appeared in the northern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada and Alaska. Experts believe that decades of hunting in the northern zones did such damage to blue whale populations that they “forgot” the former feeding ground. “It is feasible that whales lost the cultural memory of the Alaska and British Columbia feeding destinations as a result of the intensive whaling there,” says Jay Barlow of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.
Blue whale
What has brought the whales back, however, is still not entirely known. It may be part of a natural cycle in which the whales are following the cool water zones in the Pacific, as temperatures there fluctuate every 20 to 30 years. It’s also possible that the species’ recovery has been so successful that they are heading away from California in search of more krill. But the worry among experts is that the opposite is true—that climate change has reduced the amount of krill available and sent the whales foraging for more. Before the advent of whaling there were an estimated 200,000 blue whales across the globe—now there are just 2,000 off the west coast of North America and anywhere from 5,000 to 12,000 worldwide.
Source: New Scientist
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Chemical-free cleaning
ENJO’s (pronounced ‘en-yo’) unique fibre based cleaning products offer a chemical free alternative to traditional bottled products. ENJO has been widely used around the world since its launch in 1990 and has already had a massive positive effect on the environment, saving over 50 million litres of chemicals from entering the world’s waterways and significantly more plastic bottles from being burnt or entering landfill.
ENJO is a global heavy weight when it comes to the environment, as was shown by the appointment of its Australian distributor, Barb de Corti, as one of Al Gore’s Climate Messengers. It has also been awarded an ISO 14001 certificate for its cross company measures to keep environmental impact to a minimum, as well as winning various green awards such as the Gold Award at the Eco-Products International Fair in Singapore.
ENJO is the next step in environmentally friendly cleaning because it eliminates the need for any cleaning chemicals – even the ecological ones that many people now use which still have an impact on the environment and aquatic life.
ENJO ticks many environmental boxes that other chemical based products cannot. It helps us become more green by eliminating the cleaning chemicals we put into the water, reducing water consumption, eliminating the hot water used, eliminating plastic bottles from the clean and reducing cleaning waste to zero, and reducing the source manufacturing and transportation impact of traditional cleaning products.
ENJO also makes homes and businesses even safer and healthier as a result of getting rid of the chemicals and it saves time and money too. What’s more, there is no need to compromise on results as can often be the case when taking the “environmental” cleaning option – all of ENJO’s products have been scientifically proven to clean much better than chemical based products. All this from some funky looking gloves and cloths!
ENJO is still relatively new to the North West and we at GAEIA are proud to have joined some other early adopters in Manchester such as MERCi at Bridge-5 Mill, the Earth Café in the Northern Quarter and Marmalade in Chorlton.
The Earth Café has had this to say:
“For the last nine years Earth Cafe has been busy producing vegetarian meals for the people of Manchester and trying to apply Buddhist ethics to all aspects of the business. Until recently one area where we have been aware of an unfortunate compromise has been our cleaning system. This has involved the use of a range of chemical cleaners and sanitisers.
We have now adopted the ENJO cleaning system in our front of house operation with excellent results. This technology is even better than we hoped and means that we can clean tables throughout the day without introducing a chemical mist around our customers, our floors are getting a deeper clean than they’ve enjoyed for years, even the bathrooms look and feel cleaner being chemical free. We no longer use any chemical cleaners and all areas are cleaner than ever. Annoying smeared surfaces are history, cleaning is faster and furthermore we are saving money!
To be able to avoid supporting the chemical industry in this small way is a triumph and is directly in tune with our care and concern for the environment and all who live on this fragile planet.”
ENJO has a team of local consultants who offer in-home/business demonstrations of the products. To book your own demonstration, or to find out the dates of the next city centre demo’s, contact ENJO Manchester (Matt Oliver) on 0161 236 2741 or 07962 979 842 or at matt.oliver@enjo.co.uk.
Website for more information: www.enjo.co.uk