THE FACT THE GOVERNMENT has failed to meet a sustainability target is not surprising (page 8). This is a government that has gone from “the greenest ever” to red-faced. Who can forget the Chancellor’s attack on environmental measures in October: “We’re not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business.” [...]
White lies do not green companies make In the past month I have received press releases highlighting one company’s ambition to cut its 122 million tonne carbon footprint, another’s success in slashing 2.5 million tonnes from its green bottom line and one that has zero transport emissions thanks to a policy of providing all staff [...]
I spend quite a bit of time in this job chasing PR’s – or public relations executives as they like to be known (they also probably spend quite a bit of their time chasing people like me, but that’s beside the point). Some of this chasing can be fruitful, some of it less so, [...]
Welcome to our new magazine It’s no secret that sustainability in the food industry has to be a long-term commercial goal. However, in the current era, it is sometimes difficult to square sustainable ambition with commercial reality. With Grocery Footprint our objective is to untangle the environmental, social and economic issues that affect the [...]
I took a walk down memory lane this month, paying a visit to my old university campus. While there were new veterinary buildings, extra student digs and a plush coffee area (café-couture wasn’t big in the 90s), much of the campus I still recognised – even my old room (ah, halcyon days). It was surreal [...]
Which would you choose: a voluntary initiative with you all working together to achieve change; or tighter regulation that forces change? It’s a tough call. This Government has certainly nailed its (two) colours to the ‘voluntary’ mast. And the Responsibility Deal is a case a point. The RD has been established to “tap into [...]
Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart. But that means methane. Which isn’t so good for the environment. Now, your limited flatulence may not be causing climate change on the scale that burping cows apparently are, but nonetheless the synergies between what we put in our mouth [...]
In the run-up to the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in 2009, Gordon Brown said that we had 50 days to save the world. Suffice to say, amidst this sensationalism very little was achieved at the conference itself. So, here we are nearly 400 days on and to my certain knowledge the world is still [...]
Sustainability is no longer the debate indulged by the ‘big boys’. It is a hardhitting commercial reality affecting the entire supply chain. The candour from members of the Footprint Forum, contributors, partners and our readers, never ceases to amaze me. It is these people, from all stages of the supply chain, who are ahead of [...]
Rory Sutherland, in a July column about climate change in The Spectator, concluded “Perhaps right-wing people can learn to like environmentalism the way left-wing people learn to like Wagner – by separating the outcome from the motivation”. Whilst I don’t necessarily subscribe to the premise that any specific area of the political spectrum underwrites environmentalism, [...]
