Green Blogging

An interesting article in the Guardian on 1 January shows how business is gearing up to develop green technology.  The article describes a ‘groundbreaking partnership’ between 25 businesses  including GE (the world’s biggest company, according to Forbes). HSBC, French energy firm EDF, Thames Water, Marks & Spencer and waste management firm Biffa.

The partnership will be developing methods of using green technology to develop projects that will overhaul household energy, water, transport and waste provision to drastically cut carbon emissions. It is anticipated that their work will create tens of thousands of jobs and push Britain into ‘the vanguard of environmental technology’.  One project, in collaboration with Imperial College and University College London, is to “retrofit” hundreds of thousands of homes, using the latest clean technology to transform energy and water efficiency.

A new institute is planned, which will open a research centre this year in Dagenham, east London, as part of a 24-hectare sustainable technology business park. This is going to focus on green technology breakthroughs that can be cheaply “scaled up” to industrial proportions. Hopefully part of the funding can come from investment from pension funds.

A huge building programme on the Thames Gateway – a 40-mile ribbon of land either side of the Thames in east London, where tens of thousands of new homes are planned – is planned to be the organisation’s worldwide showcase. Two major housing developments in north Kent are likely to be pilots for the new plan.

No mention of any of this development coming to Norfolk, but hopefully this will be on the cards at some stage.