Last week we held our Energy Saving Recommended Members’ Briefing at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium. Our Energy Saving Recommended Scheme accredits products that have met strict criteria on energy efficiency. This year we’re going to reinvigorate and refresh the Energy Saving Recommended scheme, placing greater organizational emphasis on the programme. The scheme will become quicker, slicker and more in keeping with the commercial timeframes of its membership, which is a who’s who of all of the key players in energy saving or energy efficient products across manufacturing and retail.

Attendees at the event included our Chairman Edward Hyams, and our Strategy Director Marian Spain. Dan Norris MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was very supportive of the Energy Saving Trust and the Energy Saving Recommended scheme.
 
Also in attendance were Jill Armstrong, Director of Lucid People Research, Bob Gordon, Environmental Policy Executive at the British Retail Consortium, and Irwin Lee, Vice President and Managing Director, UK and Ireland at Procter & Gamble.
 
We had an exhibition of the Energy Saving Trust’s services including Employee Engagement, our Advice network, Knowledge Services, Green Fleet Reviews, Housing and Low Carbon Technology.

Delegates were in attendance from: LG, Comet, Sainsbury’s, Knauf Insulation, B&Q as well as new corporate members of the Energy Saving Trust, Baxi.

Pictured above and below is Dan Norris MP - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Rural Affairs and Environment), DEFRA, and myself. Below is our 'lightbulb challenge' which consists of two booths, one containing an energy saving bulb and one containing an incandescent bulb. The challenge is to guess which one is which!

Applications opened this week for our Fleet Hero Awards 2009 and this year there are even more chances to get involved. The Fleet Hero Awards is the leading event for sustainable fleet management where we showcase this year’s greatest achievements in fleet management.

This year we have introduced several new categories. Firstly we have introduced separate awards for public and private sector, to reflect the different challenges faced by each, and we have also introduced innovation awards for Car and Van Manufacturing as well as innovation in Fleet Services and Systems. So this means even more people/companies can find an award category to suit what they do.

“Becoming a Fleet Hero is an honour in itself, and something of which our employees are rightly proud. But it’s great for our PR too and we’ve been able to promote our achievements to a wider audience.”
Harvey Leonard
Marketing & Communications Manager, Government Car & Despatch Agency
Winner smarter driving award (2008)

Apply here: www.guardian.co.uk/fleetheroes2009

The Prime Minister and Ed Miliband today launched their ‘Road to Copenhagen’ pamphlet which clearly outlines why we need to take action on climate change internationally, and the importance of striking the right deal in Copenhagen. The pamphlet is a great idea as whilst everyone is now pretty familiar with the issue of climate change they might not be so familiar with the ins and outs of what we all need to do about it.

And that’s where we come in. We need to make the issue of climate change is relevant to people’s lives wherever they live in the UK. The ‘Road to Copenhagen’ document outlines the key role that home energy efficiency plays in the Government’s overall climate change goals.

We undertook some consumer research recently to find out the reasons why people might not be taking action. Many people worry about who to turn to for advice and are not sure who to trust. They feel there are multiple sources for advice and help. And that’s why we’re working hard to reach people in their communities right across the UK to make sure they know why we need to reduce our impact on climate change and how we can all do it!

For more info and to read the pamphlet click here

We work in parternship with WRAP - the Waste and Resources Action Programme - to deliver our new advice services on reducing waste.

Guest blog from Dr. Liz Goodwin, CEO, WRAP

As we celebrate the 5th year of Recycle Week this year, it’s interesting to compare how closely the increase in success and popularity of this week mirrors the growing commitment from consumers. Over the past five years, since the launch of the Recycle Now campaign, we’ve increased our recycling rates from 17% to 34%, nine out of ten homes now have recycling collections and the range of materials we can recycle locally has increased, so it’s never been easier to recycle and waste less.

Recycling is also helping to make a real difference to the economy. The value of materials that households in England send for recycling has reached £1.1 billion since 2003 as we continue to recycle more – an average annual growth of 30%. This is really good news and shows that recycling really is working.

This year’s theme for Recycle Week is, ‘Let’s Waste Less’ and the week’s activities are designed around all the many, small things we can each do to reduce our waste which, when taken together, makes a big difference. From recycling more of our everyday items like glass and plastic bottles to reducing our food waste, re-using carrier bags or trying out new things like home composting, there’s a lot we can do to help cut back on the amount of waste we send to landfill.

This year, we’re particularly pleased to have so many supporters on board; the Energy Saving Trust, Coca Cola, Asda, Tesco, Oxfam just to name a few. It just goes to show how making better use of our resources is important for all of us and Recycle Week is a great way for different organisations to come together and show support. Why not find out what is happening in your area and make a pledge to ‘waste less’ during Recycle Week. Simply go to www.recyclenow.com and find out more.

On a recent visit to our Northern Ireland office I went on a tour of Woodbrook, the first housing development of its kind in Northern Ireland. The newly built village was constructed and exclusively developed by the Carvill Group, and is based in Brokerstown Village.

The houses include the latest energy saving technologies such as central biomass boilers fuelled by wood chip which in turn provides heat and hot water to the dwellings. It has a pre-payment metering solution allowing residents to pre-pay for heating, hot water and electricity. 

The village is set amongst green surroundings, close to the city of Lisburn. With modern design and a community oriented layout it is already attracting lots of interest.

Pictured left is Alan Little of the Carvill group and myself.

I had to do a double take when I saw this headline in the Daily Mail today, as it sounds like the sort of headline you’d see on April Fools day! But it isn’t a wind-up – apparently shoppers’ cars will soon be able to power supermarket tills! A revolutionary new Sainsbury’s eco-store will use the weight of cars driving over road plates to power a generator that creates enough electricity to run checkouts. Plates fitted below the road create kinetic energy when they are pushed down by cars driving over them. The plates are able to produce 30kw of green energy an hour - more than enough to power the store's checkouts. Imagine the possibilities of this type of technology! Train stations, motorways, and maybe even busy city streets could harness energy!

Click here to read the article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193070/Shoppers-cars-soon-able-power-supermarkets.html

In Wales we have been busy launching our latest policy document, ‘Low Carbon Citizens’. The Welsh Assembly Government has committed to a 3% per annum reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2011 and we have identified the total potential savings from a wide range of activities, providing information for policymakers on where the biggest savings potentials are. It also sets out:

• How the Energy Saving Trust is working towards helping everyone in Wales reduce their carbon footprint.
• Extra things we would like to do with the support of the Assembly Government.
• Policies and programmes that we believe the Assembly Government should put in place to help achieve these savings.
• Areas where UK Government policy is needed to help support change in Wales.

The document highlighted the significant carbon savings available from solid wall insulation, inefficient boiler replacement, sustainable driving and renewable energy generation. By far the biggest potential savings come from community-scale energy generation, but not surprisingly, these are going to be the hardest savings to achieve!

The launch in Cardiff was very well attended, with over 50 key stakeholders, including the Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, the Director of her department and the Sustainable Development Commissioner for Wales. The North Wales event was  smaller, but our audience included included a Climate Change Commissioner, and demonstrated our commitment to Wales wide working.  The report is available at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/wales  as well as www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/lowcarboncitizenswales. For more information please contact Dilys Howells, Strategy Manager – Wales.

The Energy Saving Trust won the Best Practice Award for the Promotion of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles last week at the International Symposium in Norway.  This was in recognition of programmes promoting low carbon vehicles and the Energy Saving Trust’s progress in hybrid and electric car development.

The feeling amongst the 1500 delegates and speakers was that electric vehicle and hybrid technology has finally reached the point where it is viable for consumers and larger scale demonstrations showed how  countries could gear up to mass market introduction.  All very exciting news!

It was also encouraging to see that the UK's ultra low carbon consumer incentive of £2,000-£5,000, announced by the Government to start in 2011, was in a similar time frame and level as the Spain, Belgium and the US.  So hopefully the other countries will not be too far behind.