QMS & EMS London

More than three-quarters of the EU's important natural habitats are classified as "unfavourable", with many species threatened with extinction, according to the European commission. The findings came in the commission's mid-term review of the EU biodiversity strategy , which aims to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystem services by 2020. Much more needs to be done on the ground to translate policy into action, the commission said. It wants biodiversity to be integrated into policies on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, regional development and trade.

Scotland’s oldest university is aiming to be energy self-sufficient by 2016. A paper mill had been operating in the village of Guardbridge outside St Andrews in Fife for more than 130 years when it closed in 2008. One reason for its demise was the rising cost of energy, ironic considering its imminent transformation to a biomass plant constructed primarily to slash energy bills at St Andrews University. The 6MW biomass plant is a key part of St Andrews’ ambitions to become the first university in the UK to be carbon-neutral for energy by 2016. A 12MW wind farm being built just outside the town will also help the university realise its ambition. Together, the projects should reduce the institution’s carbon emissions by 29,000 tonnes a year.

Managing supply chains effectively is key to any successful business. This is particularly true in today’s world of global supply chains and in which civil society, the media and non-governmental organisations demand more transparency. Sustainable supply chain management incorporates the tender process to ensure that proper criteria are included, as well as measures to protect profit, such as business continuity, and brand and reputation management.

Businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to implement and manage sustainability policies, research by the trade body for facilities managers has revealed. The annual British Institute for Facilities Management (BIFM) survey found that respondents’ confidence in their ability to implement and manage their environmental and sustainability policies had declined from 60% last year to 40% this year, the steepest year-on-year decrease in the nine years BIFM has been conducting the survey.

Sustainability is now firmly on the global business agenda, but transformational change will only happen if efforts are scaled up, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) has concluded. Since its launch in 2000, membership of the corporate sustainability initiative has grown from 44 businesses to 8,041 businesses and 4,449 non-business participants. To assess progress, the UNGC commissioned consultants DNV GL to analyse the impact of the initiative over the past 15 years. The study found that a number of companies around the world have made important strides in operating more responsibly and innovating for a more sustainable future. However, Dr Henrik O. Madsen, group president and chief executive at DNV GL, warned: “It’s not sufficient that business alone is mobilising. We must offer arenas for collaboration, including for policymakers, science professionals and society at large.” 

The number of businesses and investors embracing sustainable capitalism is growing rapidly, according to former US vice-president Al Gore and business partner David Blood. Gore and Blood co-founded investment management company Generation Investment in 2004. Launching a white paper last May, they stressed how the business case for sustainable capitalism is stronger now than ever. 

Despite the evolution of sustainable development or sustainability to include social and economic components, it is disappointing to find that many businesses and other organisations still tend to perceive it in solely environmental terms. Too many organisations do not consider sustainability in terms of opportunity. Successful entrepreneurs tend to have an opportunistic mind-set. But if sustainable development (SD) is perceived as being outside this and restricted to a risk control activity, leaders are unlikely to be significantly engaged and it will lack positive strategic management. What is required in such circumstances is a culture change. The problem is best described as a failure to find a means for developing and operating a strategy for SD in the management of organisations.

A smartphone uses nearly 13,000 litres of water and 18 square metres of land, the study found, with two fifths due to pollution during manufacturing and assembly. A pair of leather boots requires 14,500 litres of water, but this rises to 25,000 litres where leather tanneries dump untreated chemicals into the environment, according to the report. A 100g bar of chocolate uses 2.5m² of land and 1,400 litres of water, while a t-shirt requires four litres of water and just over 4m² of land, the research revealed.

Oceans need urgent protection to stem the erosion of their resources, which are worth around $24 trillion, WWF warned last week. In a report produced with the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and the Boston Consulting Group, the charity highlighted the value of oceans, which includes direct outputs from fishing and aquaculture, tourism, education, trade and transport as well as other benefits, such as carbon sequestration. According to WWF, goods and services from oceans are worth US$2.5 trillion a year, ranking it just below the UK in terms of economic value. Neglecting this asset could in some ways be likened to not investing in a fund that yielded a 10% return, it says.

Worldwide investment in renewables surged 17% to $270 billion in 2014, bringing the total invested in renewable energy to $2 trillion over the past 10 years, according to UNEP. The UN environment programme’s latest annual report, Global trends in renewable energy investment, says record investments in offshore wind projects across Europe, combined with major expansion of solar installations in China and Japan contributed most to the increased capacity in 2014 and helped reverse a two-year decline in investment.

The EU should make better use of the ecodesign Directive to improve resource efficiency, according to campaigning NGO, the European Environment Bureau (EEB). The directive is expected to deliver over 40% of the EU’s energy efficiency target by 2020 by setting limits on the amount of power that electrical and electronic equipment can consume, says the EEB. 

Pit your wits against colleagues on important environmental developments in 2014.

The Going Green Working Group – part of the British Psychological Society – recently conducted a survey of sustainability professionals. It found that an emerging issue, one that is highly challenging both now and in the future, is the integration of sustainability into core business. Psychology focuses on factors that influence an individual’s behaviour, either the individual alone or as part of a group. It is individual change that can achieve social, economic and environmental sustainability, ultimately embedding these into the core strategy of organisations.

The global economy is heading towards a perfect storm of pressure on all fronts, according to a report on the environment and sustainability skills deficit recently published by IEMA. Only 13% of companies are fully confident that they have the skills to successfully compete in a sustainable economy.

Long-term thinking and integration is key when it come sustainability and making business strategies more resilient, a report from consultants Corporate Citizenship argues. The report – Creating Resilient Strategies – addresses the current strategy debate and considers if strategies are sufficiently far-sighted and robust enough to cope with a fast changing operating context. There are three versions of the report, each focussing on a different region – Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe.

British businesses will save billions of pounds on their energy bills by implementing energy efficiency measures recommended by the audits required under the new energy savings opportunity scheme (ESOS), according to the Carbon Trust.

Too many companies continue to rely on rigid, archaic management models. Recent analysis from Gallup shows that six elements can help drive a company’s transformation to a high-performance culture. Business growth in the Arab Gulf offers a good example. In recent years, the Corporation Council for the Arab States in the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), has seen an ever-expanding footprint from companies around the world—a result of the inherent demand and growing mobility of the marketplace and the economic slowdown in North America and Europe. To investigate how managers create high-performance cultures in the GCC region, Gallup studied 3,477 managers from companies in the oil and gas, banking and finance, property development, tourism, automotive, and telecommunications sectors.

Restaurants and supermarkets could save millions of dollars by hanging on to bug zapper bulbs instead of tossing them every year as they normally do, a new University of Florida study has found. What’s more, the benefits could extend to the environment by keeping some of the bulbs’ mercury out of the waste stream.

8. NEXT STEPS Now what? Given all of the information in this guide, it might be hard to figure out exactly what to do, or do differently, on the proverbial Monday morning. Developing your skill in sustainable design will take some time, but there are plenty of ways to put these tools and techniques into practice immediately.

7. COMMUNICATING THE RESULTS Product development is a process that touches many parts of an organization and its various partners and customers. Sustainable design can generate innovative and attractive solutions, but they may never see the light of day unless the features and benefits can be communicated effectively. This section outlines some ways to communicate the value of sustainable solutions to several of the major stakeholders involved with most products.