Archive for March, 2007
George’s latest rant
George Monbiot’s off on one again in the Guardian here:
Her (Ruth Kelly) planning statement on climate change, published the same day, banned local authorities from setting higher energy efficiency standards for homes than national building regulations require.
The PPS supplement in question is here. Consultation is now over, but the ACE (not that ACE, but this [...]
Mystic Mel…
Some cosmic vibes must have been passing my way when I posted this (8 March). An email landed in the inbox this week to let me know that on the 7 March:
SummitSkills completed Stage 1 of its Sector Skills Agreement ‘Horizon’ project last week with a prestigious and creative conference that informed delegates of progress to [...]
Top 10 firms web presence
Can you answer the following questions for your company’s website?
How well marketed, and popular the website is
How well designed and built the website is
How accessible the website is, particularly to those with disabilities
How satisfying the website is likely to be
Silktide have a nifty little tool called sitescore which will give score on all the above, [...]
Carbon Reduction Label
Carbon Trust have launched a carbon reduction label:
that demonstrates a commitment from companies to reduce the carbon footprint of their products.
Walkers, Boots and Innocent* have signed up. The work Innocent have been doing is really interesting. The carbon footprints of various products:
Innocent mango and passion fruit smoothie - 294 grams
Apple - 37.5 grams
american cheeseburger - [...]
The logic of green buildings
A very positive pro-green building article here from Eric Corey Freed, a San Franciscan architect.
For centuries, people understood how to use natural materials, thermal mass, insulation, and solar orientation to create comfortable shelter. One generation of “cheap” energy use has lost that ability. Tomorrow the sun will rise in the east and set in the [...]
Is Aubrey Meyer part of the Myspace generation?
I had every intention of blogging about David Miliband, 41* and his youtube appearance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY3F9TT2jDs
But it turned out to be quite dull. What did get me a bit more interested was the fact that an Aubrey Meyer had commented on the video:
“The Bill seeks -60% cut by 2050. This is too little too late [...]
Myspace for engineers
via ENR (a US publication - how come the UK press hasn’t seemed to have picked this up?) a story about a ‘Myspace for engineers’, called i-spark. Looking at it, it seems more like ‘Linked-In for engineers’ to me (see my Linked-In profile on my sidebar).
i-spark has a mentor/mentee type membership which might be useful, [...]
Sunday Times Top 100 Companies
It’s that time of the year again - some companies rate it of more use than IIP accreditation for staff recruitment and retention - the Sunday Times Best 100 companies to work for.
The pick of the industry below:
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More on Train to Gain and the LSC
via Paul Miller’s delicious links, I found some scathing insights into the Train to Gain programme here on the BBC. Shame I missed this before I wrote this post.
Sir Digby Jones, skills envoy for the government and ex-CBI bod, criticises government funding and other various quangos likening the process to British Leyland:
“you put a [...]
Summit Skills - Train to Gain
I don’t seem to have mentioned Summit Skills before although it’s been on my radar for a few months.
Back in August Summit Skills were working on a sector skills agreement for building services. More details here. 5 stages have been identified for the project:
What skills do we have now and need in the future?
What [...]
