Vince Zabielski is a Partner with law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. Vince Zabielski writes Last month, Labour’s Kier Starmer faced criticism from the Tories for cutting their green spending plan from £28bn per year to £4.7bn. What fate awaits the power sector under what will likely be a Labour government, and why is the question so important? To begin with, there is an upcoming imbalance in electricity supply and demand. Electricity supply in the UK is shrinking, while demand is increasing. Coal plants have largely been phased out and four out of five of the UK’s nuclear plants are sch ..read more

Environmental Services & Solutions Expo (ESS), an annual event for the environmental services industry, has announced the launch of a webinar aimed at addressing critical skills shortages in the environmental sector. With demand currently outstripping supply, the online event entitled ‘ESS 2050: Green Skills’ will focus on how employers can bridge the gap in green jobs across the nation. Taking place on Friday 26 April from 12:00-14:00, the webinar will feature presentations and discussions on government initiatives, apprenticeship schemes, regional differences, and collaborations between ..read more

Reconomy says its ‘Re-use’ loop is already trusted to manage over 96 million product returns a year for major fashion and homewares brands, demonstrating a 20% reduction in its customers’ carbon intensity since 2020. Circular economy specialist Reconomy has launched a tech-enabled, international service to help businesses comply with textile Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations. The service – called ReDress – will help businesses understand and deal with their global obligations and the legislative timescales of different EPR schemes as well as the financial impact and reporting ..read more

A group of researchers says they have shown that a transition to green wastewater-treatment approaches in the US, away from greywater treatment, could save $15.6 billion and just under 30 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions over 40 years. The findings from Colorado State University were published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment in what’s described as a first-of-its-kind study. The work from the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering explores the potential economic tradeoffs of switching to green infrastructure and technology solutions that go beyond existing greywater ..read more

Aerospace is one of the sectors target by the CREDIT project. A Horizon Europe-funded project is attempting to build a digital platform that will facilitate remanufacturing and circularity. The project, CREDIT, has received funding to the tune of €5.6 Million from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. It is specifically targeting remanufacturing in white goods, automotive, telecommunications, and aerospace. Led by Idener, a Spanish engineering company, the project plans to construct a suite of remanufacturing-enabled digital services, including AI-based decision support systems, DLT-b ..read more

Energy-from-waste operator enfinium has announced (on 11 April) it is progressing plans to invest around £200 million in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at the Parc Adfer energy from waste facility in Deeside, North Wales. The project could capture up to 235,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, said the group. As over half of the waste processed at the facility is organic, installing CCS would enable the plant to take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it produces. The Welsh Government’s Carbon Budget makes clear that Wales needs carbon removal solutions to mitigate oth ..read more

The parts can operate from a battery power supply, a capability said to separate them from the EDM pack. The LIDoTT®, a multi-sensor monitoring system designed and developed by wastewater monitoring specialists, Detectronic, is the UK’s first battery-powered EDM monitor to gain MCERTS certification. This significant achievement demonstrates the LIDoTT’s monitoring performance against the strict standards set out for Event Duration Monitors, says the group. LIDoTT measures wastewater in sewers with millimetric accuracy. This makes it an essential level monitor for Event Duration Monitoring (EDM ..read more

It’s described as the first fully recyclable paper crisp packet by The British Crisp Co., which launched it on 28 March, providing an environmentally friendly and scalable alternative to the eight billion packets thrown away each year in the UK, which end up in landfill or are incinerated. Consumers can dispose of the new crisp packet in their normal kerbside recycling collection along with their other paper recyclable items. The new paper packet was developed in partnership with Evopak, a manufacturer of sustainable paper based flexible packaging. It uses an innovative polymer, Hydropol, ins ..read more

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has appointed a new ‘responsible body’. Ecological consultancy RSK Biocensus – and specifically its biodiversity net gain (BNG) team RSK Wilding – is one of the first organisations authorised to work with landowners and developers to secure areas of conservation and biodiversity. RSK Wilding Senior Legal Adviser Natalie Bryce said that a responsible body was a new position created by the Environment Act 2021 and allowed for contracts, known as conservation covenants, to be entered into. These are agreements on how an area of land ..read more

The BNH waterwheel under construction. Technology from servo gearbox specialist Apex Dynamics is driving the largest diameter electricity-generating waterwheel in Europe. Here, the firm details the background to the project, and some of its technical highlights. The groundbreaking new hydro project from family-owned self-drive plant hire company Buckland Newton Hire (BNH) saw Apex Dynamics UK supply the inline planetary gearbox used to control the waterwheel. It has provided the wheel with near-perfect alignment, high efficiency and minimal power loss through transmission to ensure as much ele ..read more