Since taking presidency, Barack Obama has both welcomed and promoted the fact that his presidential term might have to right a number of the Bush administration’s wrongs; already he has closed Guantanamo Bay, and looked to sanction a peaceful two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine question.

But a number of challenges that Obama faces will be domestic, and reports have today announced that the president intends to review the use of corn-based ethanol as a source for bio fuel production in the US.

Under Pressure

Barack Obama has stated that, when it comes to looking for a genuine programme for reform in his nation’s fuel consumption, he will look to science and not politics.

But the political animal is not one that will die easily, and President Obama has seen members of Congress, backed by a number of agricultural companies, place pressure on his administration to continue with corn-based ethanol in bio fuel research and production.

Reports today, however, are indicating that Obama will not back down on his intention to develop greener bio fuel, even if it is at the expense of major agricultural companies or influential congress members.

$1.8bn to be spent

Championed previously as a potential replacement for fossil fuels on a mass scale, bio fuel has come under scrutiny in its production; thought not to produce unnecessary carbon dioxide emissions; it has not been shown, by several studies, to create more carbon dioxide than some fossil fuels, during its conversion process.

Obama, then, has pledged to spend close to $2bn on developing a bio fuel that does not rely on food crops, leading to a projected decrease in carbon emissions.

As a measure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has suggested that advanced bio fuels should have to meet, as standard, a mark that is at least 50% cleaner than ordinary petrol.

This will take into consideration the carbon emissions produced from conversion of crops for the purposes of bio fuel production.

Principles over Politics

The move, which has met with some criticism, is a bold one, in light of current economic difficulties. Though current ethanol plants will not have to adhere to the criteria immediately, any newly developed plants certainly will, and this will put strong financial demands on the technological development of the industry.

In President Obama, though, the world at large might see a leader who is willing to give clean energy a genuine voice, speaking not just with words, but with deeds.

Source: The Guardian

Posted under Articles, Environmental News, House & Home, How To's & Guides

SWEDEN/UNITED KINGDOM/FRANCE/US

The Swedish furniture and home decoration giant IKEA recently unveiled a computerised car-sharing scheme in France; a special customised service from an established car-sharing service designed to get more customers to IKEA stores. It had been marketed as an IKEA concept car, a new way to drive sustainably in order to go shopping. Indeed, IKEA’s whole business model is a by-product of urban sprawl; we are ‘forced’ to take the car to indulge in home styling. True, often there is the offer of free travel by bus to and from the decentralised stores, but in reality well over 90% of the customers drive according to the company’s press release.

Relaying his views on the initiative, Fred Pearce who writes the excellent Green wash column in the Guardian, moves on to a second point concerning IKEA:

The car-sharing scheme is part of a rather haphazard green wash strategy that has been going on at IKEA for a while. Last week its website announced that ‘IKEA has signed up to WWF’s Earth Hour 2009.’ IKEA didn’t turn all its store lights out. It might have been bad for business. Instead it ‘turned all lighting in-store to minimum levels consistent while maintaining a safe working environment for co-workers and customers.’ Shouldn’t they do that all the time? Or, since only half of their UK stores stay open that late on a Saturday, they could have shut the rest, allowing all the lights to go out.*

Pearce’s simply points to the fact that, in some ways, WWF’s Earth Hour 2009 turned into a corporate event and offered a good opportunity for companies of all sizes to brandish the green flag but asking little by means of effort in return. It is probably true that anything as big as the WWF campaign but with such a low barrier of entry is abused as a means to acquire green goodwill. On the other hand, shutting off all lights in store while still open could create quite an interesting situation but not a very productive one. Still, the problematic of any symbiotic relationship is to understand if it is indeed a parasitical one. (View EcoSwitch’s article on Earth Hour here.)

Another thing that IKEA introduced on a massive scale was initially cheap and low-quality furniture for little money. Antiques in the future may not be all that easy to renovate. And now the company is criticised by the Environmental Investigation Agency for using timber from dubious sources to which it responded that ‘trying to trace this information to certify compliance all the way through the supply chain to the harvesting of each and every tree is unrealistic.’ It is understandable that a behemoth like IKEA would indeed face a large task to trace all timber it uses. But to say that it is unrealistic is, as Pearce comments, about money and not about technology or feasibility. The US will impose laws in July requiring traceability to make impossible the use of illegally logged timber. To actively oppose such legislation, as IKEA is claim to have been doing, make their other initiatives rather hollow or, in another wording, look like green wash.

What

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Article ‘IKEA – you can’t build a green reputation with a flat pack DIY manual’ by Fred Pearce in the Guardian on the 3rd of April 2009, read it here

Posted under Corporate, Environmental News, House & Home

In the UK, our homes produce 25% of carbon emissions and considerable resources are being directed towards establishing alternatives ways of living and building. Whether it be the creation of so-called eco-towns (which have themselves been the subject of opposition) or simply providing better insulation to our Victorian terraces, there are many ways of making improvements. The various government targets have given the building industry a number of challenges and in the current economic downturn, companies are having to balance their very survival with the aims and goals of ‘eco’ initiatives.

This week, a supplement in The Guardian, documents the struggles and the success stories of communities, councils and individuals as they aim to meet the goal of reducing their carbon footprints. One example is the Slateford Green development in Edinburgh, which has banned cars from the site and has only parking bays for residents with disabilities and visiting doctors. Despite being there for 10 years, many of the residents have struggled with this and estate agents have said it does not lift sales, but puts off potential buyers. Nationally, 71% of people drive to work everyday and 26% of households have more than 1 car, it is therefore quite a brave step to ban cars altogether. Of course without the infrastructure in place to offer alternatives means of transport, projects like Slateford Green are brave and forward thinking, but without councils connecting the dots, they are perhaps inconventiently out on a limb.

The Staiths Southbank development in Gateshead, similarly put restrictions on cars and the council was quick to act by offering a grant, as it saw the environmental benefits. And while the sales agent, Wimpey Homes, anticipated a loss of sales, buyers soon saw the advantages. This shows how we all form part of a long chain that will offer solutions to the collective problems we face. If consumers bend a little, so too will the agents, developers and councils – as a result, he futures we share may end up being brighter than forecasters suggest.

Posted under Building Services & Suppliers, Eco Build, Environmental News, House & Home

March 11th 2009 saw the introduction of EU legislation that will further restrict the use of animal-testing with regards to what Nature News describes as, the ‘acute toxic effects of beauty products’. Everything from lip gloss and nail polish, to shampoo and toothpaste falls under the Cosmetic Directive, initiated in 1976 with the aim of improving safety standards within the industry. In 2003 the Directive established two deadlines, March 11th in both 2009 and 2013, that would phase-out the use of animal-testing in not just the final products but the ingredients used in cosmetic products. As one would expect in a multi-million Euro industry, the legislation has been met with both praise and scepticism, as some cast doubt on the apparent sincerity the ban might suggest.

Possible inadequacies with the new laws have been highlighted by various opposition groups. One of the most significant being that local councils will be responsible for their enforcement and thus sufficient funds and resources would be limited and prosecution subsequently less likely. Dr Dan Lyons, of Uncaged, writes that corporations such as Procter & Gamble (whose brands include the likes of Ariel, Crest, Gillette  and Herbal Essences amongst many other cosmetic and non-cosmetic products) may also use their broad product range, to hide their use of animal testing; testing the same ingredients but under the non-cosmetic banners and thus falling outside the scope of the Directive.

With regards to the wider use of animal-testing for scientific and other experimental purposes (covered under Directive 86/609), the EU portal site, Europa suggests, there is a need to balance the

effects on industry competitiveness and research in the EU, administrative compliance cost and socio-economics on the one hand, and improvement in science and welfare of animals, the animal lives and individual animal suffering/distress on the other.

With the first of the two deadlines now passed for the Cosmetics Directive, it seems that the industry has, at least on paper, moved a step closer to an effective eradication of animal-testing within the cosmetics industry. All tests will not be officially banned until 2013 and in reality it seems likely that the kinds of economic concerns suggested above, may increase the chances of loopholes being stretched.

Follow the embedded links to find out more.

Posted under Companies, Corporate, House & Home, Lifestyle & Fashion

UNITED KINGDOM

Question: How could uninsulated and drafty brick buildings be perpetuated and made into a national style to make the British housing stock among the worst insulated in the developed world? Indeed, this is the source of some amazement as the British isles are not famed for incessant sunlight and dry winters. Scandinavians know winters are cold. In Poland houses keep the heat inside. To cut a long story short, a majority of buildings in the UK are simply not meeting the basic requirements that most countries in a similar situation actually do. This reflects on both economy and ecology on the level of the individual home. Sharp rises in energy prices have forced people to think hard about how to make some savings. The average heating bill is now £600. Granted, a row of Terraced houses is in a way the epitome of Agatha-Christie-reading-tea-and-biscuit cosiness. But one of these properties also represents around 3 metric tonnes of CO2-emissions each year, only in heating.

With all the talk of Green New Deals and financial bail-out plans containing billions ear-marked for green investment all around the world, we seem to have a case for the kind of rebooting of the housing sector that is required. Shrinking domestic heating bills is arguably one of the best ways to reduce carbon footprints and spending the fiscal stimulus on this is, at least on paper, a win-win situation. Bringing a country’s housing stock up to 21st-century standards is a hugely expensive task. And for a nation of romantic cottages, this overhaul would involve major changes to the way houses look. An early victim, single-glazed sash windows with wooden frames might be a thing of the past. Or will they? The intricacies of cost-benefit logics may play tricks on us yet. (Note: A personal nemesis of mine, all but one of the leaking sash-windows in our house has been resolutely boarded up this winter.)

Chris Goodall is a climate change columnist in the Guardian, blogger at Carbon Commentary and the author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet. From his column this Monday:

The UK needs an urgent, nationwide programme to drive down the costs and improve the standards of eco-refurbishments. The plan should be organised and run locally, with campaigns moving from street to street. As in Germany, state-owned banks should offer cheap and accessible finance for home improvements at interest rates close to zero. The banks may also need an element of outright compulsion. If householders have gone for several decades without insulating their cavity walls, even a 144-page government green paper isn’t going to persuade them to take action now.*

In the column from which the above paragraph is taken, Godall presents some of his own estimates of the cost of heat losses from a typical house, listing the source of heat loss and the yearly cost:

• Walls £264
• Windows £132
• Ventilation £132
• Roof £46
• Floor £53
• Doors £33

Godall goes on to say that even if draught and heat loss through windows and doors is ‘a good idea, the savings are relatively small and will be expensive to achieve. Buying double glazing might cost £5,000 for a house, while two external doors with really good insulation could set you back £500.’

So what will make the equation home+finance/home+environment work? A house might cut its gas bill by a third by doing one thing: insulate. Or rather make that two things: Loft and cavity wall insulation. This is a relatively high impact, low cost approach and a large detached property could, according to Godall, ‘potentially [be] recouping the cost in a year.’ Of course, this is because of the extreme expenditure would be cut down to only extraordinary.

What might be really troublesome on the other hand, once the funding and the will to get to the root of the problem have been mustered, there are the issues of heritage and aesthetics. Or perhaps the issue, Britain has a large conservationist grass-root movement that is drunk on post-card imagery and nostalgia. Godall, one last time:

The UK has large numbers of extremely poorly insulated older houses with solid walls, and the best way of insulating these properties may be to clad the external wall with a plastic cover which is then be rendered or painted. As well as being costly, this alters the external appearance of the house, and there would be enormous resistance to making our appallingly leaky Victorian brick houses look like modern Dutch apartment blocks. Unfortunately, a real war on carbon emissions requires us to make unpopular choices like this.*

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* Article ‘Deep domestic cuts are needed to bring our housing footprint down’ by Chris Godall in The Guardian on the 9th of March 2009, read it here.

Posted under Climate, Eco Build, Environmental News, House & Home

Another wet winter in the UK. Welcome to England. So what’s new why not use it. Flushing toilets with rainwater is just one logical line of thought that is not followed up.

During a heavy rainfall on a typical home in the UK, the surpringsly large figure of 700 gallons of water can drip from your home to the ground. This amount of water is enough to run 20 baths or 60 showers alone. Larger buildings with a larger spanning roof can result in even more water being wasted -or cleverly put to use. It can amount to as much as several thousand gallons at one time. But not only is it being wasted, this rainwater also enters the drains where it also encounters various toxic materials and other pollutants, causing further harm to the environment or overloading water treatment plants. And in the many parts of the world where water is becoming an ever more decreasing resource, it makes sense to look into the benefits that rain barrels can offer you as well as the environment.

For this reason, rain barrels serve an important purpose; to collect and store all the rainwater that would have been wasted, allowing you to put it to good use. Rain barrels can be as simple as large containers that the water from your roof and various other parts of your property can run into. In a good spell of rainfall these barrels can collect more than 200 gallons of water. It goes without saying that these barrels do fill up rather quickly and the water can then be used for things such as a source for watering your lawn or garden, or even washing your car or windows. This will not only reduce the amount of water being wasted. The options for rain barrels range from commercially available barrels to barrels made out of materials that can be found in and around the home, or in a garden store such as Homebase.

If you want the convenience and ease of built in connectors, or for linking up to other rain barrels, you may want to use commercially made barrels. Making these barrels out of materials found around the home can mean that your barrel is cheaper, but it can take some time to make and even more time to make it work. But regardless of which type of barrel you take to using, it is extremely important to place them wherever they will collect the maximum amount of rainwater. Certain smaller islands have no ground water and have relied on collected rainwater since they were inhabited in the first place.

Posted under Gardening & Outdoors, House & Home

UNITED KINGDOMA month from now, on the 3rd of March, ‘the world’s biggest event dedicated to sustainable design, construction and the built environment’ opens in Earls Court, London. Ecobuild 2009 will take place against a backdrop of defeatism, and a construction industry in shambles will try hard to have anything upbeat to put on display. Paul King, Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council answers that this way.

Even in tough times -and perhaps particularly in tough times- customers will demand more in terms of efficiency, quality and productivity. A built environment that is sustainable -economically, socially and environmentally- is the only one worth investing in now.

It goes without saying. But it seems, as things stand, that it needs to be repeated over and over again. The dissemination of information can in itself be an eco-activity and events like Ecobuild are helpful in that they provide arenas for the public, authorities and business to meet and learn. And pick up some promotional pens and key-rings. And eat candy. Nonetheless, chances are that visitors will leave the fair richer not only in logotype gifts but in both knowledge and optimism as well. The built environment and housing is under fire, more or less correctly if a bit simplified, for being a major culprit in our deep carbon footprint but also for having plunged the world into recession -with housing speculation and sub prime mortgages triggering the financial nightmare. Therefore, seeing the developments of a building industry that aims for a lower impact will probably be a source of hope.

Visiting Ecobuild and all its attractions, seminars and conference sessions and most related events, is free of charge. With over 800 exhibitors showcasing everything from building structures to SUDS, micro-renewables to natural materials, and insulation to living roofs, there is going to be a lot to do. For example, last years introduction of ZAP factory’s Zero carbon house* -which was built on site at the fair– will be followed up with another crowd-pleasing display. The most popular new initiative in 2008 was the Arena. This year it promises to be even more inspiring and entertaining; an eclectic mix of debates, interviews and keynotes that view the built environment from a series of different perspectives – politics, art, science, philosophy and more.

In September 2004, a small ‘green building’ conference alongside another event grew into Ecobuild. The fifth edition will attract more than 30,000 visitors who are offered more than 100 seminar and conference sessions. It has developed a strong following, amongst pioneering architects and designers as well becoming the hub of a community of suppliers of innovative sustainable construction products.

For more information on Ecobuild 2009, click here for the official website.

* Read more on ZAP factory here.

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Posted under Building Services & Suppliers, Environmental News, House & Home

On Hemp as a Natural Building Material

By Matt Muldoon

Hemp is an incredibly versatile construction material. A non-psychoactive member of the cannabis family, it has been cultivated around the world for at least 10,000 years. It grows voraciously, and requires no herbicides and little or no pesticides. The fibres of the plant have long been used for rope, textiles and paper, but now are also used for insulation, hempcrete, board and even roofing tiles.

Hempcrete is an exciting material that can be used as an alternative to concrete and a lot more besides. The fibres of the plant are mixed with lime to create a substance which hardens like concrete. Unlike concrete however, it is a good insulator and also breathable and very lightweight (500kg/m3). This means it can be used for walling, either cast around a wooden frame or in hempcrete blocks. It can also be used for floors, roofs and foundations.

A hempcrete building offers a healthy, pleasant environment. The hempcrete itself insulates effectively (if you’re interested: u-value for 300mm hempcrete = 0.25W/m2K.); and, as a breathable material it regulates humidity levels well, avoiding dampness and condensation problems. Since it is breathable, hempcrete would normally be finished with a lime render/plaster.

As an eco-material, hempcrete’s credentials are rock-solid, sequestering around 110kg of CO2 per m3. Hemp is a crop which can be cultivated throughout much of the habitable world, and lime production requires 80% less energy than cement production.

Hemp fibres can be used as insulation, offering a natural alternative to synthetic materials with a high embodied energy. And the fibres can also be sandwiched to make an alternative to fibreboard or wallboard.

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By Matt Muldoon of the Natural Building Company

On NBM – Introduction here

On Earth as a NBM here

On Straw as a NBM here

On Lime as a NBM here

On Turf as a NBM here

To check Matt Muldoon and his company out, click here.

Read our article on him and TNBC here.

Posted under Building Services & Suppliers, Eco Build, House & Home

On Lime as a Natural Building Material