Manchester City Council has released its Sustainable Procurement Policy and takes another step towards transistion. In brief the new document gives preference to goods, services and products that are better for the environment, for society and for the local economy. Preferences are given to small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and community and voluntary sector (CVSs) businesses and those which are magority owned by groups protected by legislation such as disabled, women and older people. For greater detail please read the SPP Statement of Intent.
New Documents July 1, 2009
Hello,
I’ve just added some more documents to the SNAG library. Including the Rethinking Capital (forum for the future), Green New Deal (NEF-ish), Road to Copenhagen (DECC & Defra) plus Manchester City Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Report 08/09.
Happy reading.
New Words for the your Dictionary June 19, 2009
Afternoon,
Have made submissions to Urban Dictionary in order that the words SNAG and Snaggers be known by their right definition:
SNAG
acronym for a sustainable neighbourhoods action group – “He joined his local snag because developers wished to build a massive supermarket in his town, which would but his local independent business out of business.”
Snagger
A word describing someone in a group (or group of people) who take(s) action to ensure the progression of sustainability issues in their neighbourhood(s) up the agenda of a local authority -
“Campaigners from a local snag were once again protesting outside City Hall today. The snaggers were demanding city leaders grant greater access to quality organic food growing land in their neighbourhoods.”
Carbon Reduction Commitment June 12, 2009
Please see below conversation regarding CRC raised following SNAG notes from the last ESPB.
FAO Nick Skates,
Can you please tell me whether under the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, organisations who use above 6,000MWh of energy but procure this from 100% renewable suppliers such as Good Energy are still required to enter the scheme.
I would also like to draw your attention to http://www.cheatneutral.com/
Best Wishes, Tim
Dear Tim
Thanks for your email regarding electricity procured from “renewable suppliers”. The short answer to your question is that switching to a green tariff won’t exempt any organisations from participation in CRC.
Electricity supplied to participants via the grid will be treated equally using the grid average conversion factor, irrespective of the tariff structure adopted by the customer, meaning that green tariff electricity sourced via the national grid will not be treated differently from standard tariffs.
This is because all licensed electricity suppliers are obliged under the Renewables Obligation to source a specific and annually increasing percentage of the electricity they supply from renewable sources anyway.
This approach is consistent with that taken under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Agreements.
I trust this information will be useful.
(PS: I enjoyed the satirical link, many thanks for that)
Regards
Stewart Riley
CRC Team
Environment Agency
National Customer Contact Centre
Dear Stuart,
Enormous thanks for responding so promptly. I thought as much.
It is such a shame that Government refuses to support 100% renewable energy production in this way. It is also shameful that Government allows energy suppliers to profiteer from their packaging of “green tariffs” (a treacherous term which should be abolished) as the supply of green energy. It is a rather dangerous state of affairs when consumers are duped into believing that they’ve already made the switch to a lower carbon lifestyle; the reality is that they continue to fund and provide backing/consent to carbon intensive energy supply. Madness.
If CRC took into account sustainable energy procurement (i.e. 100% renewable) high level energy consumers could begin funding a formidable renewable energy infrastructure programme – simply by continuing to buy energy – with astronomical knock-on effects for the green economy and effectual employment for our engineers and scientists, not to mention climate change mitigation. This would be real carbon reduction commitment. The UK is rather uniquely placed geographically speaking, a position which has allowed to thrive agriculturally, socially and economically for thousands of years. I’m not sure why we fail to maximise this fortunate position now.
CRC as it stands seems scarily similar to short term economic gain at the expense of the environment – on a continental scale. However, I note with pleasure the crchelp@environment-agency.gov.uk address which I shall dredge for further info. Thank you for your help and time.
Best Wishes, Tim.
Watch this space….
Latest SNP Board Papers June 9, 2009
Hello All,
OK it’s that time of the month (well that time of every second month) again. There are quite a lot of papers this time round so maybe select the ones that are of most interest to you and comment on those rather than the whole lot perhaps? I think the most interesting are those in bold.
Agenda, Previous Minutes, SNP Forum Report, Housing Strategy Report, LAA Q4 Report, SNP Action Plan, Working Neighbourhoods Fund Report, SNP Risk Report and SNP Work Programme.
These documents will be available on line until the next Board Papers are published in approx. 2 months – at which point they’ll be available via e-mail only. Just ask…
Best Wishes, Tim.
Session 2 of the Environmental Advisory Panel met on 4th June to continue cross sectoral talks on the advancement of the Climate Change. It was a really useful, frank and open discussion with a presentation by Marc Hudson on the Call to Real Action. Discussion focused mainly on the direction in which the formulation of the Climate Change Action plan. It was understood that marketing was key in it’s delivery and that working groups should be set up with specialist from across the CVS, the public sector and private business. These groups would be tasked with the writing of topic specific sections of the plan.
