Save water or else!

The warning comes from sustainability experts Envirowise and follows research which found that 70% of sustainability specialists consider the threat of dwindling water supplies to be equal to the impact of carbon emissions, while 54% believe the world will run out of water before it runs out of fuel.

It is predicted that UK groundwater will begin to decrease by 2025, with the overall amount of water available in English and Welsh rivers reducing by 15% by 2050. Some areas in the South East already have less available water per person than Spain and Morocco.

Even businesses based in regions with higher water availability could feel the effect through their supply chains, while many companies could face changes to licenses granted to allow water abstraction as a result of the Water Act 2003.

Envirowise water specialist Claire Sweeney said: “Water is set to become one of the most dramatically affected resources as the impact of climate change takes hold, but many businesses are not aware of the steps they can take to mitigate against this risk.

“Food and drink companies should explore practical steps including water saving devices and water recovery and reuse technology such as membrane filtration systems, which enable a large proportion of wastewater to be reused for processes such as heating, cooling and cleaning. This can result in major cost savings through lower mains water and disposal charges, as well as an enhanced environmental reputation with customers and investors.

“Taking such action now could not only pay enormous dividends in future years, it can also lead to short-term benefits. In fact, recent Envirowise research revealed that UK companies could be missing out on combined savings of up to £10 million per day by failing to make changes in this area.”

From: http://www.feastnet.net/NewsViews/tabid/197/newsid840/427/Default.aspx

East of England businesses are sitting on untapped cost savings of about 1.2 million per day

Local businesses are collectively missing out on combined cost savings of as much as £1.2 million per day by ignoring the potential of water efficiency, say sustainable business experts Envirowise.

In a recent survey 70% of East of England businesses said they are not currently measuring or monitoring their water consumption at all and a huge 93% do not have any water reduction targets in place.

However, these businesses could reduce their water bills by as much as a third if they were to take steps to manage their water use more effectively, says Simon Best, Envirowise Regional Manager for the East of England:

“With more than 1 billion cubic metres of water being used across the region every year, there is significant potential for businesses to save money and reduce their environmental impact by taking action on water efficiency,” advises Simon. “That is why we are encouraging local organisations to join Rippleffect, a national initiative offering online advice and support to cut water waste and costs.”

Businesses signing up to Rippleffect - www.envirowise.gov.uk/rippleffect - before 14 September will receive free support from Envirowise to better understand their water use, identify simple water saving steps and then measure the cost savings they have made.

“The Rippleffect programme is delivered in three online modules over a six-month period, helping businesses to benchmark their water use and set targets for improvement,” continues Simon.

“We were surprised to see that more than half of the businesses surveyed in the region did not believe it was possible to reduce their water bill at all by improving water efficiency. This is clearly a missed opportunity and one that offers valuable cost saving potential, as well as reputational benefits for companies taking action and demonstrating a commitment to the environment too.”

More than 500 UK businesses registered for the Rippleffect in 2008. New features for 2009 include:

• Access to sector-specific modules for hotel & catering, meat & poultry processing and fruit & vegetable processing
• Access to water efficiency advice in areas such as rainwater harvesting, vehicle washing and boiler & cooling tower operation.

Participants could also receive a certificate in recognition of their achievements.

East of England businesses interested in taking part in Rippleffect should visit www.envirowise.gov.uk/rippleffect or call the Envirowise Advice Line on 0800 585 794.

From: http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/uk/Press-Office/Press-Releases/East-of-England/East-of-England-businesses-are-sitting-on-untapped-cost-savings-of-almost-12-million-per-day.html

Low-carbon: making it a high priority for East of England businesses

A programme from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) will help businesses across the region to make bottom line savings by introducing ‘quick wins’ such as the re-use of materials and checking water leaks.

A £2.1 million business support scheme, Resource Efficiency East (REE), will provide small and medium-sized businesses with free advice on making financial savings through more efficient management of water, energy and materials.

The agency has granted £1.5 million to REE, with £600,000 from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) which is managed in the region by EEDA.

Kate Haigh, Senior Executive on Sustainable Development at EEDA said:

“A typical business can save £1,000 a year for every employee by introducing ‘quick wins’ such as the re-use of waste materials and regular checking for water leaks.

“Not only does resource efficiency make excellent financial sense, but it also has knock-on environmental benefits, reducing the use of our natural resources and carbon emissions.

“It is also good for business as customers are placing a greater emphasis on suppliers to reduce their environmental impact and prove their green credentials, as well as offering value for money.” 

Specialist advisors from the REE team will work with businesses to offer commercially-orientated advice on how to implement appropriate changes.  An on-site review can identify areas for resource savings by systematically examining the use of energy, water and materials. This will identify opportunities to reduce their use in key areas such as electricity consumption, power usage, heating and cooling, waste reduction and water conservation. Importantly, REE will also offer support on implementing the measures that can save businesses money.

Simon Chiva, of REE, said that businesses accounted for 18% of the region’s CO2 emissions: “The Resource Efficiency East project can help businesses use resources more effectively and efficiently, driving down costs and improving profitability. By encouraging businesses to reduce resource use and save money, we can also have a positive impact on reducing the region’s carbon emissions.”

For more information visit www.resourceefficiencyeast.org.uk

Other information about improving and growing your business through resource efficiency can be found on the environment line of EEDA’s Business Map - www.bizmapeast.co.uk.

Taken from: http://www.eeda.org.uk/4202.asp

What’s the carbon footprint of your product?

Businesses can from today assess the carbon footprint of their goods and services and play a greater part in fighting climate change, thanks to a new standard launched by BSI British Standards, the Carbon Trust and Defra.

The standard - called PAS 2050 - is a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire life cycle - from sourcing raw materials, through to manufacture, distribution, use and disposal.

The aim of the new standard is to help businesses move beyond managing the emissions their own processes create and to look at the opportunities for reducing emissions in the design, making and supplying of products.  This will then help businesses make goods or services which are less carbon intensive and ultimately develop new products with lower carbon footprints.

Brown Says Downturn Won’t Hit Green Plans

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday the global economic downturn would not affect a government drive to reduce the country’s carbon emissions. However, an industry executive cast doubt on the ability of the UK’s existing power transmission network to cope with planned increases in wind power output. Brown told a wind energy conference in London ministers were committed to meeting a target to produce 15 percent of the UK’s energy supply from renewable sources, such as wind and wave power, by 2020. “You may have heard some people say that these difficult economic times should or will reduce the government’s commitment to building a low carbon economy. They should not and will not,” Brown said in a recorded statement shown by video to delegates at the British Wind Energy Association’s (BWEA) conference. Doubts have been expressed about the UK’s ability to meet its renewable energy targets, with investors warning that companies need more financial incentives to develop wind farms. A report in Britain’s Observer newspaper at the weekend said delays in gaining planning approval for farms, long delivery times, escalating costs, and technical problems were all threatening to derail government plans. But BWEA Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said in a news conference on Tuesday the industry was confident it would be able to meet the targets. “It’s an area where there is tremendous positivism and confidence,” she said. However, the UK’s power transmission grid system is not capable of dealing with the output from planned new wind farms, said Keith Anderson, director of the renewables division of Scottish Power, part of Iberdrola SA. The grid is between 30 to 40 years old and needs immediate modernisation and investment, Anderson said at the news conference. A proposed upgrade of the main Beauly-Denny transmission line in Scotland, which would allow a significant increase in renewable energy capacity in the far north of the United Kingdom if it gets the go-ahead, was likely to take 10 to 12 years to carry out, he added. “We need more upgrades of that size and scale,” he said. “We cannot afford for that process to keep taking 12 years. If you start the process now for the offshore and marine sector, you’ll already be in 2020. It needs to happen now. “Scotland contributes a huge proportion of the onshore target to the overall target and if you don’t start building the transmission lines, you block some of that development and reduce its potential.” BRITAIN OVERTAKES DENMARK The United Kingdom would achieve three gigawatts of installed wind energy production capacity this week, up from one gigawatt in 2005, with the completed construction of Centrica Plc’s Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms near Skegness in eastern England, the UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change said in a statement. Earlier Tuesday, Centrica said it had gained approval for another 250 megawatt project off the Lincolnshire coast and was exploring the possibility of constructing two further wind farms totalling 1,000 MW. Britain had now overtaken Denmark as the world’s largest producer of energy from offshore wind, with 597 megawatts of capacity fully built, the government said. Offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom now have the potential to power the equivalent of about 300,000 UK homes, it said. “What this means is the creation of an unprecedented 100-billion-pounds market for renewable energy sources in just over a decade,” Brown told the conference. “That will create huge new business opportunities - and around 160,000 jobs.” Reporting by Phil Waller; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, David Cowell and Simon Jessop, Reuters.

Cambridge scientists get water management prize

Cambridge University engineers have been given an award for the best paper on water engineering by the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Dr Dick Fenner and two former students were awarded the RA Carr prize for a paper which could help sewage firms establish the state of their networks from a small sample of pipes.

Their paper ‘A case-based reasoning approach for managing sewerage-asses’ was published in the Institution Proceedings Water Management Journal in March 2007.

It examines statistical, deterministic and heuristic approaches to modelling sewer performance and condition and suggests a case-based reasoning approach.

The method involves using known information, including the link between physical characteristics and performance and problems on a few pipes, to infer performance of similar pipes.

Validation tests, which showed that good knowledge on the performance on a few pipes could be used to infer information for other pipes, were carried out with data from two water companies.

EA: Can’t protect all coastline

Parts of the coastline are so badly eroded that they are not worth protecting, the new head of the Environment Agency has said.

Sea defences will have to prioritise certain areas to protect and others will have to be left to the sea said Lord Smith of Finsbury.

He noted that parts of north-east Norfolk and Suffolk are in imminent danger of collapse.

Echoing concerns from the World Bank, Lord Smith noted that coastlines were particularly at risk from rising seas and said there were difficult choices to be made.

He told the Independent: "This is the most difficult issue we are going to face as an agency," he said.

"We know the sea is eating away at the coast in quite a number of places, primarily - but not totally exclusively - on the east and south coasts."

He added that it is not going to be possible to protect every stretch of the coast.

But coastal campaigners have complained that he is being too hasty.

Graham Henderson, chairman of Suffolk Coast Against Retreat told Suffolk & Essex Online: "We do not believe there is sufficient knowledge with regard to climate change and the predicted sea level rises. We want 20 years of maintaining what we have on the coastline of Suffolk and East Anglia and the whole of the UK until more knowledge has been gained."

Developer gets thumbs up for zero carbon buildings

A developer has been selected for a zero-carbon neighbourhood project in the centre of Peterborough.

The East of England Development Agency, English Partnerships, Peterborough City Council and Opportunity Peterborough selected the pPod consortium to carry out phase one of the South Bank project.

The mixed-use development will include 344 new homes, all of which comply with the highest standards of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Under the code, which came into force in May and rates buildings from one to six stars, buildings are assessed for sustainability, energy and water use.

A biomass combined heat and power plant will provide energy for the community.

Steve Carr, director of policy at English Partnerships, said: "The Peterborough pPod homes not only respond to climate change, they will also be more spacious and have lower energy bills.

"This isn’t just about eco-living – it is about making new housing schemes a much better deal for owners and tenants by creating comfortable and cost-efficient homes for a range of incomes."