News you might have missed: 15 June 2009
Looking to catch up on all the headlines now that the work week’s back in swing? Here’s Greenbang’s daily roundup of cleantech news and developments:
- England’s first large-scale development to be built to Level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, has been given the green light to move ahead. Barratt Developments Plc and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) have received planning permission to build 195 zero carbon homes as part of the Hanham Hall “eco village” in South Gloucestershire;
- New proposals to help deliver ambitious zero waste targets were recently highlighted in the Scottish Parliament;
- More than £200 million of contracts will be placed with businesses in Scotland for the development of the Clyde wind farm, Scottish officials announced;
- This summer, scientists from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University are joining a group of artists on an expedition to the Andes in Peru. The expedition, part of the Cape Farewell project, will visit shrinking glaciers, cloud forests, lower forests, areas of deforestation and the Amazon;
- The June UN Climate Change Talks in Bonn (PDF) concluded Friday with progress on draft negotiating texts, reflecting governments’ proposals on how to step up international climate change action;
- US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has announced an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance that advances the construction of the first commercial-scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the US in Mattoon, Illinois. The project had previously died an ignominious death under the Bush administration;
- Figures out today show that consumers are helping to boost the car industry under the Government’s scrappage scheme. Over 60,000 orders have now been taken by manufacturers since the subsidy of £2,000 was announced in the Budget to scrap vehicles of 10-years-old or more.
