UK households own three-and-a-half times as many home appliances and gadgets as 20 years ago, according to a new report from the Energy Saving Trust and our love of electrical gadgets could see the UK miss its carbon emission reduction targets for domestic appliance electricity use by as much as seven million tonnes. The Trust runs a UK-wide labelling programme which tests appliances on strict criteria and rewards the most energy efficient models. read more...

Transition Town Totnes won a 2011 Ashden Award for its achievement in enabling behaviour change to save energy in Totnes, through the Transition Together programme. Individuals may find it hard to know where to start when it comes to saving energy, sustainable transport or local food production. Transition Together (T-Tog) tackles this by bringing together groups of neighbours who study a workbook over a period of months, and take action to reduce their use of energy, water and oil-powered transport, while also producing local food and installing solar PV to generate electricity. read more...

Councillors have been criticised after going against the advice of their own planners and refusing an application for a wind turbine. Hugh Pode was seeking to erect a small-scale wind turbine on land at Riley Bank Farm, his home near Frodsham, Cheshire. A detailed application and supporting evidence was prepared by planning consultant Christopher Monckton aided by renewable energy company Eco Environments. read more...

Two of the eco-innovations due to be showcased at Grand Designs Live in Birmingham next month are from Nottingham Trent University. The products designed and built by a furniture and product design graduate and a decorative arts senior lecturer from the university have led to their creators being selected by Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud as two of his ten ‘green heroes’ to be showcased at the event. read more...

New research from RICS reveals the UK is in the top three countries in the world in working towards zero carbon emissions in the built environment, however, the report reveals that there are still a number of areas to be improved on. The RICS Global Zero Carbon Capacity Index (or ZC2 Index)* has for the past three years assessed 34 individual countries on a number of factors, looking at how they are progressing towards a zero carbon built environment. read more...

The waste and recycling industry has been warned that its current economic model could crash as it did in 2008, and that it needs to look to energy-generation to secure its future, a strategy condemned by some resource-efficiency experts as conflicting with the zero waste principle by creating a market for waste. Yet this was the message from WRAP chief executive Liz Goodwin at the Recycling & Waste Management (RWM) Exhibition last week. read more...

Last week the House of Commons debated the Energy Bill again before its move for the final time back to the Lords. MPs were unable to obtain any guarantees of how valuable the Green Deal assistance will be for residents wishing to improve their homes. Most of the debate focussed on the Green Deal, the “pay as you save” scheme for retrofitting energy efficiency measures to every one of the 28 million homes in the country. read more...

A British-based entrepreneur, who has just tied up a deal with the Queen to provide hydroelectric "green" energy to Windsor Castle, cannot find a bank willing to lend the money to build the necessary turbines in the UK. David Dechambeau, who runs Southeast Power Engineering, has been forced to bring in screw turbines from the Netherlands to be placed in the river Thames at Romney Weir. The turbines cost £700,000 and weigh 40 tonnes. read more...