When it comes to a company’s impact on climate change, does directors and officers insurance cover executives? While companies say yes, the insurance industry is saying no. We’re talking millions -- perhaps billions -- in legal liability here, so someone will end up holding the bag.
 

 Nestlé is investing nearly $350 million over the next decade to expand its reach into sustainable coffee farming, make its factories more efficient and reduce its packaging. Beyond the Cup: The Nescafe Plan is the company's global project that adds onto the nearly $200 million already spent on coffee project in previous years.

Since the first humans carried a torch to provide light, heat has been a by-product of producing light. Traditional electric lights give off more heat than light. But LEDs are twice as efficient as fluorescents at converting electricity to light, generate very little heat, are nearly maintenance free and provide a high quality of light. So what's standing in the way of their broad adoption?

Email articleComment on this article Some 75 per cent of CILT members believe that the government should aim to protect spending that supports economic growth in its comprehensive spending review.

A major international conference on the future of lorry charging to achieve a cleaner, smarter and more competitive Europe.

The fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of vans can be cut much more quickly and cheaply than the European Commission's research suggests. That's the message from two new reports published by T&E. The first study says that fitting less powerful and smaller engines has been an overlooked but quick and cheap option to reduce emissions. The second report suggests emissions can be cut even more by limiting a vehicle's maximum speed.

Another two independent scientific studies have cast further doubt on the EU’s policy of pushing for biofuels to make up 10% of the transport market by 2020. And in a special report, the Reuters news agency says the general picture that emerges from a series of Commission documents is that EU officials might have ‘deliberately skewed the findings of scientific studies to fit their policies’.

Europe’s road transport in 2050 will involve lower speed limits and very few internal combustion engines. That is the vision that emerges from a Commission consultation on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Europe’s transport sector.

Belgium has confirmed it intends to shepherd the revision of the Eurovignette directive through the EU’s legislative process by the end of the year.

The newly-founded Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC) has been granted interim observer status at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

EU legislation to improve air quality on land and at sea is to be delayed until 2013. The environment commissioner Janez Potočnik says the measures to revise the National Emissions Ceilings directive and other air quality legislation will be too expensive, and he has other priorities for the next couple of years, but his assessment has been strongly criticised by environmental and health groups.

Two new independent scientific studies launched today cast further doubt on the EU’s policy of promoting biomass as fuel for heat and power generation, and biofuels for transport, [1] according to BirdLife International, the European Environmental Bureau and Transport & Environment.   

The German government has announced it is to introduce a tax on international air tickets. The move would make it the fourth western European nation following France, Great Britain and Ireland to have an aviation ticket tax.

The Commission has published its guidance on the sustainability and certification of biofuels, which it hopes will stop the loss of credibility in the EU’s biofuels policy. But the new guidelines for the sustainability of biofuels production still do not take indirect land-use change into account, which experts and campaign groups say is the most crucial issue.

A new study from the International Transport Forum reports a drop in transport demand and emissions during the global economic downturn, but says the long-term global trend continues to show growing demand for transport.

President Obama has ordered the US environmental protection agency and department for transport to develop greenhouse gas standards for medium- and heavy-duty lorries.

A transatlantic coalition of environmental NGOs has been recognised as having sufficient expertise to be allowed to submit evidence to a court case in which three American airlines are claiming the EU’s decision to force aviation into the Emissions Trading Scheme is illegal.

A group of NGOs, including T&E, has sent an open letter to EU president Herman van Rompuy, on the eve of the European Council on 17-18 June, pointing out how investing in a green economy could help the EU overcome the economic crisis.

The European Commission’s communication on biofuel sustainability (1), published today, will do precious little to address the impacts on land and emissions from crop-derived fuels used in transport, according to BirdLife International, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and Transport & Environment. The four environmental groups remain deeply concerned about the Commission’s failure to address the critical issue of expansion of agricultural land into environmentally sensitive areas when food production is displaced by fuel crops, a process known as indirect land use change (ILUC).

In a letter sent to the European Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, T&E - together with a coalition of NGOs - has urged the Commission to stop postponing the adoption of legislation in the field of air pollution and has called for stricter national emission ceilings.