Greenpeace UK Blog

Green gadgets - The search continues

jossc — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:46:29 +0000

E-waste: as much as 4,000 tonnes is being dumped every hour

Our second greener products survey, "Green Electronics: the search continues", released today, assesses the progress made in 2008 by consumer electronics companies on their commitments to green their products. Fifteen major electronics brands submitted 50 of their most environmentally friendly new products - mobile and smart phones, televisions, computer monitors, notebook and desktop computers, and game consoles for evaluation. The survey assesses the products on their use of hazardous chemicals, energy efficiency, overall product lifecycle (recyclability and upgradeability) and other factors such as the promotion of environmental friendliness and innovation.

It's key finding is that while improvements have been made, no product scored high enough across all areas to deserve the accolade of being truly 'green'. Unfortunately if you are in the market for new electronics your choice is still limited to products that are green in one area but not in another. To show what is possible right now if all current green innovations were combined we took the top scores of each product category to make a composite score for the industry. These 'best practice' scores, ranging as high as 8.6, demonstrate that there is environmental know-how available now to produce electronics that are significantly greener than anything on the shelves today.

Every clown has a silver lining...

jossc — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:15:38 +0000

Marine reserves not only protect the ocean life within them - they help to sustain surrounding ecosystems and animals that pass through them - like whales

Ok, this might take some believing, but apparently outgoing US President George W Bush just made a major contribution to protecting the oceans.

Yesterday the man better known for threatening our entire planet's future by dragging his feet on climate change and paying less attention to environmental conservation than any US president in history, announced plans for three 'national monuments' to be created in the Pacific. A total of 505,775 square kilometres [195,280 square miles], containing some of the most ecologically-rich areas of the world's oceans, will be protected - creating the largest marine reserves in the world.

The three sites, two focused on the Line Islands of the Central Pacific and the other on the Marianas Islands to the west, boast a rich array of marine life including sharks, rare whales, birds and many other top predators along with unique corals and intricate deep sea ecosystems. Nearly 60 percent of the total area protected will be subject to prohibitions on fishing and other extractive activities.

On hearing the news, our resident office wit Marge quipped that Bush must have assumed that the new 'marine reserves' were extra support troops for a new military push in Iraq, rather than protected areas of the ocean. However, that would probably be misunderestimating him, as he actually has a bit of history in this area, having authorised the protection of a large area of the Hawaiian Islands in 2006. In fact, unbelievably enough, by the time he leaves office in just under two weeks time Bush will have protected more ocean than any person in history. Proof positive that every clown has a silver lining, I guess...

Of course protecting sea life from dredging, fossil-fuel extraction and fishing is a very good thing, but what the oceans need protection from just as much, if not more so, is climate change. Something 'W' has been spectacularly bad at even acknowledging, let alone doing anything about. Climate change will have catastrophic impacts on our oceans including mass coral death due to rising sea temperatures and loss of species from ocean acidification.

While marine reserves cannot stop climate change, what they can do is reduce the amount of environmental stress on marine ecosystems - giving them a better chance to adapt to the changes brought about by global warming. But for this approach to work we'll need far more of them - in order for our oceans to stand a chance against rising global temperatures and ongoing overfishing we'll need to set aside as much as 40 percent of our oceans as marine reserves.

Which puts President Bush's contribution back into perspective - so far the total amount of ocean that will be fully protected by the Bush administration amounts to less than one percent of what scientists recommend.

So is there a lesson for us here? Perhaps that, in the game of environmental sin and sainthood, nobody is beyond redemption. Other world leaders who might be feeling guilty for not doing enough environmentally may also be looking for ways to atone for their sins. Perhaps if they all took this one leaf out Bush's book, we'd be a lot further along in reaching our goal - to save our seas - before it's too late.

Take Action

Please sign our petition to the United Nations for a global network of marine reserves protecting 40 percent of the world's oceans - it will only take you 30 seconds!

Waiting for Apple to meet 'computer detox' promise

jossc — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:40:35 +0000

Apple's detox promise: close but not quite there yet

Mac fans in our office (and there are more than a few) were getting excited yesterday - we were expecting an announcement from MacWorld 2009 in San Francisco, confirming that Apple would as promised be removing all toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from its entire new product range.

Confidence was high that this was going to happen because we've had the word from the man himself - Apple CEO Steve Jobs - from as far back as May 2007 that toxic PVC and BFRs in Mac computers would be history by the end of 2008. His enthusiam for the subject, of course, initially stemmed from the success of our Green my Apple campaign, which generated huge support and discussion from Mac addicts worldwide.

In October last year he reiterated this promise:

"Last year we announced the unprecedented goal of eliminating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from Apple products by the end of 2008. I’m proud to report that all of Apple's new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal." Steve Jobs, October 2008

However, the only new product Apple has announced so far at this year's Macworld was a new MacBook Pro with reduced amounts of PVC and BFRs. Which is good, but not what Apple had promised for 2009 and no substantial further progress than the MacBooks announced in October.

Let's just take a minute to remember why this matters. Toxic chemicals in electronics are a cause of serious environmental pollution, putting workers at risk of exposure during both the production and disposal processes. Greenpeace investigations into the e-waste yards of India, Ghana and China over the past few years have uncovered numerous examples of poorly protected workers being exposed to toxic pollution. Removing PVC and BFRs would make Apple computers safer and easier to recycle, as well as allowing much higher recycling rates to be achieved.

It's five years since we started asking all the leading electronics companies to make these changes, yet none have so far complied. We've been producing a regularly updated green electronics guide to make it easy to see who's doing what. During that time other manufacturers, notably Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have removed PVC and BFRs from their mobile phones, but Apple was the first computer manufacturer to commit to a phase out of these toxic chemicals. They are definitely getting closer to achieving this goal; the MacBook is almost there, and once Apple removes these chemicals completely there will be no excuse for other companies not to remove them too.

Of course, glitches have a habit of occurring in the best laid plans, but let's hope Steve has made a resolution to sort this out and will be back soon to make the announcement himself.

Changing light bulbs doesn't please everyone

jamie — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:10:49 +0000

So we start to wave a fond farewell to the incandescent light - since its first demonstration in the 19th Century it has served us well, but the brutal march of progress has made it obsolete since the development of CFLs over 30 years ago. Even though the current depletion of 150W, 100W and 75W bulbs being reported in the press is only part of a voluntary agreement (no sensible efficiency standards here), there's a binding EU agreement (of sorts) on the way and the days of the filament bulb are numbered.

This rather quiet victory in the struggle for improved energy efficiency standards has not gone unnoticed by the more conservative sections of the media. The comments attached to the Daily Mail's story (they never fail to stir my blood) are, needless to say, fit to bursting over this intervention in the natural order of things. But is it any wonder when the paper itself explains that the phase-out is "part of a government campaign to force people into buying low-energy fluorescent bulbs".

Also complaining is Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian. I'm not quite sure what his gripe is, but it seems to be based on aesthetics: "...these pendulous pear-like fruits of the Industrial Revolution must die as ugly design extends its endless remit," he wails. Each to their own, I suppose, but artists have been using fluorescent lighting for years such as Dan Flavin and, more recently, Jason Bruges.

But never mind that. Have you seen the pretty pictures of the New Year's Eve ball in Times Square? It's stuffed full of LEDs which are even more efficient than the best CFLs currently on the market. They're a bit too expensive for mass consumption just now, but as the price comes down they'll become more common and who knows? Perhaps in years to come, the Mail will be moaning about the disappearance of our traditional CFLs.

The Climate Rush heads for Heathrow

jossc — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:21:50 +0000

With the government's long-delayed decision on a third runway at Heathrow rumoured to be imminent, the intrepid women and men of the Climate Rush will be making their suffragette-inspired opposition felt at the airport next week.

MPs return from their winter holiday on Monday 12 January, so that evening at 7pm the Climate Rushers will hit Heathrow Terminal 1 for a peaceful picnic. Terminal 1, for those not familiar with the airport, deals principally with domestic flights, the sort of short-haul journeys which could easily be made by other, less climate-wrecking forms of transport. And they are inviting all of us who are fed up with the obvious lack of action on this most serious of issues to join them.

The plan is to arrive in Edwardian dress (preferably hidden under a big coat until the event starts!), bringing picnic food so that we can all have our 'Dinner at Domestic Departures' - that's upstairs by the departure gates. At the stroke of seven, a string quartet will start to play and everyone will reveal their costumes and start the picnic.

More entertainment will be provided by a 100-strong artistic collective aiming to turn the airport - however briefly - into an 'artport' filled with performance pieces and installations. It will all be fun and non-confrontational - there'll be no chance of getting arrested as all we'll be doing is sitting down in a public space.

Top 10 reasons to stop Heathrow expansion

So, start hunting through your wardrobes for suitable attire - in the words of the original suffragettes it's now time for "deeds not words". If the third runway and mixed-mode gets the go-ahead it will be more evidence that our politicians and business leaders have no real interest in taking climate change seriously. They promise action yet always continue with business as usual. Right now it's more important than ever to remind our elected representatives that their primary function is to safeguard the nation's long-term interests, not to maximise short-term profits for multinational companies in the hope of getting a directorship once they leave office.

So come along and make it an evening to remember. More details on the Climate Rush and Artport Facebook groups.

And for everyone who lives closer to Manchester than Heathrow, there's a Northern Climate Rush taking place at Manchester Airport Terminal 3 (Domestic Departures) at exactly the same time - Monday 12 January at 7pm.

Wooden spoons all round for the nuclear industry

jamie — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:23:39 +0000

The papers have been filled with reviews of the year and we're barrelling into awards season, so it's only fitting that we have some awards of our own. My colleagues over on the very entertaining Nuclear Reactions have been staging their own award ceremony, "to recognise those who have help make the nuclear industry the over-subsidised and under-scrutinised joke it is today".

With tongues placed firmly in cheeks, nukeheads in Europe and elsewhere have been vying for the gongs in several categories:

Meanwhile, Carbon Commentary's Chris Goodall has been working out what the plunging value of sterling means for the prospects of new nuclear power stations:

If the Finnish construction [at the beleaugered Olkiluoto site] costs were replicated in the UK, and the euro/pound exchange rate had remained at around £1/€1.50, the cost of the project would imply a cost to generate electricity of over £50 per megawatt hour. This is more than the current wholesale price in the UK (although the wholesale price has been much higher than this figure for most of the last 12 months).

In the last days of 2008, the pound/euro exchange rate has hovered around 1.03. At the time of the 2007 consultation paper, the government used a figure of almost €1.50/£1. This change has added over 40% to the cost of constructing a new power station. Expressed in terms of UK pounds, the €5.2bn prospective cost of the Finnish power station now implies a price in UK£ of about £5bn rather than about £3.5bn. This raises the prospective cost of electricity generated by the nuclear power station to around £70 per megawatt hour, or over £20 more than the current wholesale price. To be clear, at today’s electricity prices and exchange rates the operator of a nuclear power station built for the same price as the Finnish plant would lose £20 per megawatt hour. No rational electricity company intent on making a profit would contemplate making an investment in a nuclear station if these conditions persist.

The UK government Climate Change Committee issued a long report in December 2008 on how Britain might reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% between 1990 and 2050. Nuclear forms an important part of these plans. Unsurprisingly, the Committee used a nuclear cost estimate of less than £50 per megawatt hour. The bad news from Finland is only slowly leaking out and, of course, the pound/euro rate changes sharply from day to day.

Palm oil tanker gets another visit from Greenpeace

jamie — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:27:05 +0000

Remember the palm oil tanker which the Esperanza prevented from docking in Indonesia last month? That same tanker - the Isola Corallo - arrived in European waters on Christmas Eve en route to Rotterdam, and was met by a group of Greenpeace activists who painted 'Forest Crime' along its hull.

I was on board the Esperanza during that first Indonesian action against the Corallo and it's brilliant to see this tanker - which is carrying 29,000 tonnes of palm oil belonging to Sinar Mas, Indonesia's largest producer - becoming the centre of attention once more here in Europe. It draws a thick line across the globe between the causes of deforestation in Indonesia and demand for products like palm oil on this side of the world.

Read the full story on the Greenpeace South East Asia website and find out more about the Indonesian end of the story in our latest podcast.

Palm oil companies talk while the rainforests burn

jamie — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:23:25 +0000

It's been a few weeks since the Esperanza's tour of Indonesia wrapped up with an exhausting but thrilling week of direct action focused on various palm oil tankers, and I've since left those humid equatorial climes to return to a chilly British winter. But even though the ship has moved on to other countries and campaigns, the palm oil campaign continues and in the past few weeks there have been some developments.

The most obvious has been annual meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Bali - this could have been the moment the industry got its act together and did something other than spin the usual load of greenwash over its involvement in the destruction of south east Asia's rainforests. Sadly, it was not to be. Although our ship painting/blockading actions drew a lot of attention, as did our earlier revelations about United Plantations and their 'sustainable' palm oil, no real progress was made.

A few small glimmers of hope did emerge. The most significant was a resolution put forward by Unilever which could ultimately lead to important forest and peatland areas being marked off limits for conversion into plantations. The resolution was accepted but before you get too excited, it will now go to a working group who will discuss and debate how this could be achieved. Meanwhile, palm oil producers like Sinar Mas are still hacking back the forests, day in day out.

Shortly after the RSPO meeting, campaigners from Greenpeace and other Indonesian organisations met again with representatives from major palm oil companies, including Sinar Mas, Musim Mas and Sime Derby, who seem to be feeling the heat from our campaign and wanted to talk about what it would take to bring it to an end.

Unfortunately, talking seems to be the only thing these companies are interested in so the campaigners presented a series of pre-conditions the companies would need to meet before there could be any further discussions. Most important of all was that they bring an immediate halt to their bulldozers in the field. The eventual response from them was that no, they wouldn't meet the conditions and they would much rather negotiate through the RSPO, thank you very much.

We don't need more talk, we need swift action to bring deforestation to an end and the only way to do that is with a moratorium. Once the bulldozers have stopped, everyone can haggle and debate as much as they like but for now, our campaign continues into 2009.

Happy new year.

Video: highlights from the BP 'Emerald Paintbrush' awards ceremony

jossc — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:13:41 +0000

Exciting footage just in from the London HQ of international energy giant BP. After discovering internal company documents which reveal that the company, which has been stying itself 'Beyond Petroleum', is actually still spending 93 per cent of its budget on oil and gas extraction, we sent a crack team of smartly dressed greenwash-busters to locate BP boss Tony Hayward and present him with our coveted Emerald Paintbrush award for this year's most outstandingly brazen piece of greenwash.

Find out how they got on below:

But remember folks, this is just the tip of the greenwash-berg. With so many companies desperate to trumpet their 'green' credentials, even if the reality is very different, there are bound to be many more potential award winners out there. So if you know of, or work for, one of them, be sure and drop us a line so we can consider them for furture Emerald Paintbrush presentations...

Will the real Ed Miliband please stand up?

jossc — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:51:38 +0000

Ed Miliband demonstrated the confusion at the of the heart of the government's energy and climate change strategies this morning when he refused to rule out new coal plants which don't capture and bury their emissions – just weeks after his own advisers warned there was no future for these power plants.

He attacked Conservative plans for the introduction of green standards for power stations that would rule out the dirtiest coal plants like E.ON's for Kingsnorth, as "knee jerk" and "not thought through". Apparently, he's happy to play party politics with coal and climate change, just days after he called for a people-powered movement on global warming. Hardly the way to inspire action on the most important issue of our time.

Mr Miliband told the Financial Times that he recognised that "in 20 years time we're not going to be building unabated coal-fired power stations". But he knows from his own advisors - Lord Turner and his Committee on Climate Change - that 20 years is far too late! The reality is that, according to the UN, global CO2 emissions must have peaked and begun to recede by 2015 at the latest. Lord Turner says this means the total decarbonisation of the power sector in the UK by 2030. Where do new dirty coal plants sit with that other government policy?

It is especially ironic that this comes from the same Ed Miliband who recently called for a Suffragette-style movement of people on climate change.

So what's it going to be - a serious attempt to tackle climate change or a new generation of climate-wrecking coal fired power plants? Because it can't be both. Greenpeace executive director John Sauven immediately called on Ed Miliband to clarify his position:

"At the moment it looks he's chosen the week just before Christmas to slip out a deeply concerning new position on the totemic climate change issue of this decade. If that is the case then he will have rejected the pleas of the world's leading climate scientists and his own advisor, Lord Turner, who declared just a few weeks ago that we can’t meet our climate targets by allowing new coal plants to pump out emissions for decades."

Face it Ed, it's make your mind up time. And you only have one chance to get it right.