Home improvement retailer, Kingfisher, is the greenest company in Britain and Vestas Wind Systems – a manufacturer of wind turbines – is the greenest in the world according to a survey by The Independent and Ethical Investment Research Services.
EIRIS and The Independent considered practices such as management systems, waste production and water use as well as improvements related to climate change. The companies’ involvement in renewable energy and incidents of environmental damage were also studied and issues relating to specific sectors were taken into account. The ranking was based on companies in the FTSE All World Development Index and information was taken from a number of sources including company documents that were publicly available as well as survey responses.
Car manufacturer, Nissan, has instigated an e-learning programme to educate its employees on the environment and the company’s green initiatives. The Nissan Environmental e-Learning programme, launched in June, has been developed in partnership with The Natural Step, a not-for-profit organisation for environmental education founded in Sweden in 1989.
Nissan announced its Green Programme 2010 in December 2006 in which it committed itself to introduce a systematic instructional programme to educate all its employees globally on the environment.
Two-thirds of small business owners in the US will pay more for environmentally-friendly goods and services to show their customers that they care about the environment according to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index. However, many SMEs do not believe that customers will share the added cost – only 43 per cent surveyed think that their customers will be willing to pay more. The survey takes place on a quarterly basis and surveys small business owners on their perceptions of current conditions and future expectations relating to financial situation, revenues, cash flow, capital spending, number of jobs and credit availability.
The UK is home to ten of Europe’s most polluting power stations according to a report from the WWF – Dirty Thirty: Ranking the most polluting power stations in Europe.
The report looked at power stations in the UK, Germany, Poland, Greece as well as Portugal and Italy.
The UK power stations included in the report are owned by Scottish Power, EDF, Scottish and Southern, E.ON, AES, British Energy and RWE.
Environmental charity, Global Action Plan, and international solutions provider, Logicalis, have partnered and formed the Environmental IT Leadership Team. The team will be an independent expert user group that focuses on exploring and publishing best practice sustainable IT strategies. The group will also question political, industry, technology and expert witnesses and it will commission independent research. The organisations that have signed up so far are the British Medical Association, Sony UK, John Lewis Partnership, E.ON UK, CQS, the University of Cumbria and Lloyds TSB.
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