One year on and Easyjet have announced the progress of AVOID (Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector) system and calls upon the aviation industry to work together to avoid further disruption in European airspace from future volcanic activity.

The budget carrier will be fitting the new equipment to 20 of it’s fleet and it is hoped it will radically change air travel, giving Easyjet the ability to navigate around future ash clouds without incurring risk.

The AVOID system is effectively a weather radar for ash. The system comprises of infrared technology fitted to aircraft to supply images to pilots and an airline’s flight control centre. These images will enable pilots to see an ash cloud up to 100 km ahead of the aircraft and at altitudes between 5,000ft and 50,000ft. This will allow pilots to make adjustments to the plane’s flight path to avoid any ash and therefore greatly reducing any future disruption to air travel.

The next phase of the project is to further test the equipment by flying close to volcanic ash. The testing is expected to take place over the next few months. In addition to the larger roll out of the AVOID system, Easyjet plans to have the AVOID equipment certified and ready to fit to one of its aircraft in the event should another volcano erupt in Europe. EasyJet believes that if 100 aircraft (20 of which would be EasyJet aircraft) across Europe were to be fitted with AVOID equipment, this would provide comprehensive coverage of the continent.

As outlined in Deloitte’s paper “2010 FIFA World Cup. A Turning Point for South Africa,” South Africa is reaping the rewards of hosting the Cup, including infrastructure improvements, an economic boost, and an increase of national pride.

“South Africa has been likened to a mix of the developed and developing world,” said Lwazi Bam, Public Sector Industry Leader, Deloitte Southern Africa. “On the one hand, a strong technological and economic base put it on a par with the well-developed nations of the world. On the other, infrastructure shortfalls have contributed to keeping it from realizing its full economic potential. This major global event is a catalyst for much-needed infrastructure improvements.”

The need to move tens of thousands of fans, teams, and accompanying supportpersonnel rapidly from one place to another prioritized the strengthening of South Africa’s transportation system.  The country completed much of the
first section of its new high speed Gautrain passenger railway and added bus lines.  Highways were upgraded and the city of Durban was able to finish the country’s first new green field airport in five decades.  These infrastructure projects have increased employment opportunities and provided workers long-term skills and training.

One of the challenges in building the infrastructure for the event was generating power without an unduly adverse environmental impact. New stadium facilities include such environmentally-friendly features as natural ventilation and rain water capture systems.

In addition, host cities have undertaken large-scale tree-planting projects in an effort to soak up excess carbon dioxide.  As a coal-dependent economy, South African faces challenges; however, these steps move the country toward greener energy sources.

To ensure security, the minister of police has consulted with officials from more than 30 different countries whose nationals are in the country, resulting in an unprecedented level of international cooperation.

Seeking to balance a welcoming atmosphere with rigorous security standards, 40,000 police officers, 25 percent of the country’s total force, have been assigned to the Cup.  All of these activities have required a renewed spirit of cooperation between national and local agencies and departments.

Greg Pellegrino, Global Public Sector Industry Leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, said;

“South Africa has already realized many of the benefits hoped for by any national host of a major international sporting event. The event has provided a boost to national infrastructure improvements, increased employment during the global financial crisis, and provided a unifying rallying point for a still-developing nation. Moving the FIFA World Cup from a developed economy such as Germany, to an emerging economy such as South Africa, and to a continent that has never hosted the Cup, creates an important precedent for future hosts such as Brazil in 2014,”

The initial launch markets in Europe include the UK, along with Portugal, Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with all four countries offering government incentives to buyers of the eco friendly vehicle.

The price of purchasing the Nissan LEAF in the UK will be £23,350 after government incentives, putting the vehicle around the same area price wise as a similarly equipped diesel or hybrid vehicle.

The price before incentives is £28,350, and is subject to a recent UK government announcement that it would refund 25% of the purchase price of an all electric vehicle up to a ceiling of £5,000.

Further savings for UK customers will come in the form of zero vehicle excise duty and zero company car tax for five years. This is on top of the significant savings on fuel costs over a conventional engined vehicle, for average mileage motorists this would equate to just over £500 annually.

There are similar incentives available through all of the four initial European launch countries.

The Nissan LEAF is a compact, zero-emission five-passenger family car that comes fully equipped with features such as air conditioning, satellite navigation, a parking camera, a quick charge socket and innovative smart-phone connectivity.

Nissan has decided to launch in these countries first due to significant government incentives for electric cars, and the ongoing development of charging infrastructure for their successful adoption. By the end of next year, Nissan LEAF will be available in every major Western European country.

There is a great deal of enthusiasm, of the quixotic American kind that we are so familiar with, of going the environmental friendly mother earth way, and this enthusiasm is inspiring, or forcing, American companies that want to sell products to American consumers, to go green. In a way, like so many things American, the mass enthusiasm for something “good” is making the American corporate world – that lifeless and powerful entity – sit up and take notice, if only for a short time, if only to find a workaround.

However, until Americans find another cause to cheer for, these years of Gaia-love, to coin a term, are doing quite a lot of good to the environment. CEMEX is the proof of that.

CEMEX settled a lawsuit alleging air pollution at Victorville, the largest cement production plant in the USA. According to a Department of Justice release last year, “Under the terms of the settlement, CEMEX must meet new limits for these pollutants at the Victorville plant, one of the largest cement plants in the United States, including stringent new limits for nitrogen oxide that will reduce emissions by 1,890 tons per year, a nearly 40 percent reduction.”

Nitrogen oxide is one of the main pollutants from the cement industry. If CEMEX delivers on its promise to reduce Nitrogen oxide emission, that will be a tremendous good news to the people of Victorville, especially the children and the elderly, who are prone to suffer from respiratory problems if they inhale too much of nitrogen oxide.

Cemex is known to have installed a state of the art pollution control system at its manufacturing facility at Victorville. The move has cost it millions of dollars, noted a gleeful EPA, and it will help make the local environment much more habitable.

sustainable event management

Every year events of every possible description are held around the world. Be they community events, large conferences, business meetings, religious celebrations or enormous music concerts, festivals, expos and sporting events, they all have a massive impact on our environment.

It could be said the most environmentally friendly event is no event at all. But that’s no fun. Public parties always have been and always will be a part of the human story. Yet those who stage events have a social and environmental responsibility to reduce their impacts. If all event professionals kept sustainability at the core of their planning and decision making, then the cumulative outcome across the globe would be impressive. But where do you start?

Meegan Jones has spent the past twenty years organising events around the world, for the most recent three years she has worked in the UK as Sustainability Co-Ordinator for Festival Republic, the producer of Latitude, Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds Music and Arts Festivals.

She has also developed sustainability solutions at Peats Ridge Festival in Australia and worked on sustainability issues for Live Earth India and the London Marathon. Meegan is currently the global greening consultant for the next round of Live Earth events, is the events consultant for UK-based music industry climate impact organization Julie’s Bicycle and is on the working group for Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) events industry sector supplement. Meegan is also working with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on their new Music and Environment Initiative, to be launched in 2010.

There is no doubt that Meegan Jones is a leader in the field and in this new publication she gives a practical step by step guide through all the key aspects of how to understand and manage the impacts of events of any type and scale in most places in the world.

The product of tried-and-tested methods used across the event industry, coverage includes an overview of sustainable event management and detailed discussion of energy, zero emissions options, carbon management, transport, water, waste management and reduction, procurement and supply chains as well as communications and marketing.

Numerous examples and case studies from across the world are integrated throughout to illustrate key points including how to avoid common pitfalls. Festivals profiled and their systems revealed include the iconic and incredibly green Boom Festival in Portugal, desert-based Burning Man in Nevada USA, grandmother green event Glastonbury Festival, UK rock icons Reading & Leeds Festivals and the Danish over-achiever Roskilde Festival.

Case studies and examples also come from leading Australian events including Peats Ridge Festival, Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Meredith Music Festival, Falls Festival, Southbound and the iconic Woodford Folk Festival. From the USA green ground is covered by Boonaroo, Rothbury and Coachella festivals, along with the recent US Democratic Convention.

Readers are provided with checklists for action as well as additional tools for measuring performance and assessing key sustainability indicators. The book is coupled with a companion website that provides further materials, case studies, contacts for suppliers, discussion groups and more.

This is the indispensable one-stop guide for facility and event organizers, managers and professionals, and event management students who want to adjust their thinking and planning decisions towards sustainability and who need a powerful, easy to use collection of tools to deliver their events sustainably.

For more information or to purchase the book visit Sustainable Event Guide.

Darling said that the government would scrap taxes on electric company cars for the next five years and announced 100% first year capital allowances for businesses using electric vans.

Company cars account for around 1.1million of the vehicles on the UK roads, only around fifty of those are electric and the new proposals will encourage businesses to look at the options available.

Companies currently pay National Insurance contributions and employees pay income tax based on the cost of the car and the CO2 emissions, electric cars attract a 9% tax while fossil fuelled vehicles range from 10 to 35%.

Darling also announced extra funding for low carbon industries, pledging an investment of £160 million across a range of low carbon public and private projects through existing schemes — along with 90 million pounds earmarked for green European infrastructure schemes.

He also said the government would double its commitment to carbon capture and storage, by supporting four new projects with technology that captures CO2 and stores it underground.

Darling also outlined plans to introduce a scheme to replace 125,000 old and inefficient central heating boilers in homes across the UK with a cash back scheme similar in principle to the car scrappage scheme.

PREL have pledged their support to the commitment, that if the Conservative Party form a government next year, there will be no decrease in landfill tax in real terms for the next ten years.

PREL, whose zero-landfill Energy Park for Peterborough gained planning approval from the Government last month, welcomed the Shadow Chancellor’s announcement as an incentive to local authorities to increase recycling rates and work with green industrial partners to deliver sustainable solutions

Managing Director of PREL, Chris Williams said:

“We very much welcome any initiative that puts a low carbon future at the heart of our economic recovery. The commitment by George Osborne MP to maintain the level of taxation on landfill on or above the 2013 rate will ensure – if implemented – that local authorities are incentivised to look for alternative methods to deal with municipal waste. As the PREL Energy Park for Peterborough demonstrates, with the right combination of technologies, we now have the capability in the UK to put an end to landfill once and for all.”

For more information visit the PREL website.

PREL say its ‘energy park’ in Peterborough could revolutionise waste management by recycling mixed waste to produce re-usable glass, plastics and metals, while generating clean energy by burning recovered organic matter and eliminating waste.

Energy and Climate Change Minister David Kidney said;

“This plant will provide reliable, low carbon energy for years to come. The UK needs to generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and energy from biomass could contribute as much as a third of that.”

PREL is hoping that its 80 megawatt power plant and recycling project could be replicated across the country. It is estimated that the project will keep 600,ooo tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, while producing enough energy to power 60,000 homes.

PERL Managing Director Chris Williams said;

“Waste can be a valuable resource and using it in a sustainable way will play an essential role in making our future more green,”

Pledging For Change Ethical Business Advantage Award 2009

If you own an Ethical Business or know someone who does, this new competition offers the chance to win £5,000 worth of business image development from the brand image experts at Creatively Minded Design.

Pledging For Change is an ethical community interest company promoting networking in the spirit of harmony with the planet and together with sponsors The SME Brand News, Creatively Minded design, Passion for the Planet and YouCanOnline they want to help small ethical businesses grow.

The organisers are looking for entries from young or struggling ethical businesses which will really benefit from the transformation in image, online presence, marketing strategy and potential revenue this prize can open up.

Pledging for Change are looking for a business owner who is forward driven, ambitious and passionate about their ethical product or service, but someone who doesn’t have the budget for brand development or the knowledge to ensure they exploit their business image at every given opportunity both online and offline.

The Award also hopes to gather stories from ethical entrepreneurs that can be shared with like minded business people to help and advise them on building or starting their own businesses.

The winning business owner will receive a bespoke prize package designed to help their business grow, plus there will be continued support from those backing the award. The prize package will help the winner to re-establish a niche, create the right business image, build credibility, put forward a clear business message, a consistent brand image and engage in marketing and social media promotion activities.

The prize will include a website and training support. The prize is designed to help transform their business and give them a hand up towards a sustainable future.

To enter please join www.pledgingforchange.com (it is free to join) you can then sign up to the Business Image Advantage Group and complete the online entry form. Last date for submitting entries is Friday 11th December 2009. Winner to be announced in December 2009.

off shore wind farm at burbo bank uk

With the newly opened 30 turbine wind farm at Gunfleet off the Essex coast going into production this week the UK will be producing enough wind powered energy to serve all of London south of the Thames it has been claimed.

The UK will be producing four gigawatts of energy from wind powered turbines, putting Britain firmly on track to meet green energy targets which had been widely considered to be over ambitious.

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) CEO Maria McCafferty says;

“We are on track to hit the target of 10% of energy in the UK coming from renewables by 2010, and with the very large capacity offshore schemes coming in from 2015, we should get to the target of 30GW of wind by 2020.”

Harnessing power from the wind has long been considered to be a sensible and sustainable proposition for the UK, but it took fourteen years to install the first 1GW and a further four years to increase that to 4GW.

The UK will have 6GW production through wind farms by the end of 2010 and the BWEA says that with 2GW of other renewable energy capacity means that 10% of the country’s power will be produced by green energy.

Further more say the BWEA, If all the wind farms currently in construction or with planning are built according to plan, by 2012 there will be 12GW of installed wind capacity meaning the UK will be generating more electricity from wind than nuclear.