Sustainability stats: This week in numbers

With less than a month to go until the General Election, political parties have been setting out their stalls by releasing their election manifestos, grabbing most of the headlines this week.


However, while politicians from four of the main parties stressed the importance of tackling climate change merely weeks ago, mentions of climate change, or renewable energy, in the manifestos have been few and far between in.

Despite not being the apparent focus of our potential future leading parties’ focus, renewable energy capacity installation overtook that for fossil fuels for the first time in 2013.

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee has had climate change higher up its agenda than UK politicians this week by setting a cap of 7% on crop-based biofuels for transport.

Big businesses have also been outlining successes and failures in the constant strive for sustainability, with Dutch Royal Shell blaming business growth for its release of 76 million tonnes of direct greenhouse gas emissions in 2014. Drinks giant Diageo has set itself the target of improving water efficiency by 50%, while coffee outlet Costa has opened the first zero-energy cafe in the UK.

And finally Queensgate shopping centre in Pulborough has provided the example for all for retailer engagement, saving 4,253,000kWh of energy through its first-of-its-kind assessment scheme.

As ever, click the pic for the full story…

Lucinda Dann

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