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British retailers could save up to ten tonnes of carbon each year if they were to shut their doors, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge suggested shops are wasting a significant amount of energy generating heat, which then escapes through open doors.

It was estimated that shops could slash their energy bills by up to 50 percent if they were to close their doors during the winter months.

The ten tonnes of carbon is equivalent to that produced by three flights between London and Hong Kong.

Commenting on the findings, Jeannie Dawkins, director of the Close the Doors Campaign, which commissioned the research, said: “It’s time for retailers to acknowledge the massive contribution they are making to energy waste and carbon emissions if they heat the street.”

The findings are based on the emissions of the independent Cambridge Toy shop and the branch of Ryman stationary shop in the city.

Foreign secretary William Hague and Professor Sir David King, a former government chief scientific adviser and director of Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford, have both pledged support for the Close the Doors campaign.

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Pictures have been released of the five vacuum cleaners made out of plastic recovered from the world’s oceans as part of the ‘Vac from the sea’ project.

The world’s annual consumption of plastic is estimated to be around 100 million tonnes, much of this ends up as waste in the world’s oceans where it is thought to contribute to the deaths of more than a million sea birds, turtles and other forms of marine wildlife each year.

In July consumer goods company Electrolux launched its ‘Vac from the sea’ project in order to draw attention to the issue of plastic debris in the ocean. The aim of the project was to build five unique vacuum cleaners from plastic salvaged from the world’s major oceans.

Though these vacuum cleaners are not commercially available in a November 4 press release Electrolux stated that the company hope the production of these vacuum cleaners will ‘raise awareness around ocean plastic waste and inspire consumers to do more recycling.’

The vacuum cleaners are each themed around the ocean from which the plastic was recovered, Electrolux will begin on a world tour of the products within the next few months and are considering auctioning one vacuum cleaner and contributing the revenue to research into cleaning solutions for the world’s oceans. 

Other multi-national companies such as pen producer Bic have launched a range of products made from recycled plastics in a bid to draw consumer attention to the importance of recycling plastics.

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Previous assumptions that rainforests could become extinct due to global warming have been challenged in a new study.

Conducted by The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and published in the journal Science, the report looked at plant remains embedded in rocks during a period called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, where carbon levels increased.

During this period world temperatures were increased by three to five degrees C for a period of around 200,000 years.

The researchers found that the forests could actually have been considered to thrive in these conditions, with new plants evolving much faster than existing species, leading to an increase in biodiversity.

Carlos Jaramillo said that evidence suggests plants are already capable of coping with increases in both temperatures and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

”What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased,” the Guardian quoted the expert as saying.

The findings perhaps contradict those of a study published in the same journal earlier this year, which suggested droughts in the southern hemisphere have decreased the ability of the world’s forests to absorb CO2.

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The Scottish government has released its strategy for a low carbon economy, in which it predicts the creation of up to 60,000 green jobs by 2020.

John Swinney, cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable growth, said Scotland has a number of competitive advantages which will allow it to become a leader in the global low carbon market.

A key focus of the strategy will be to use public resources to support low carbon industries and create new partnerships with both private sector and international organisations.

This includes the rechanneling of support and match funding from the private sector, which could potentially create £60 million for the low carbon economy.

Plans are also in place to hold an annual Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference, which will focus on investment in both resource and energy efficiency in 2011.

Mr Swinney said: “Moving to a low carbon economy is an economic and environmental imperative – it is Scotland’s biggest opportunity this century.”

This is the latest in a series of policy announcements about the low carbon economy from the Scottish government, which earlier this month created a £70 million renewable energy infrastructure fund.

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Multinational companies such as Starbucks, Kraft and Nestlé do more for developing-world coffee farmers than the Fairtrade Foundation, according to a critical report from a free-market thinktank. Describing Fairtrade as costly, opaque and substantially unproven, the 130-page report commissioned by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) says: “Fairtrade requirements [on farmers] may well reflect the subjective views of western consumers and not the real needs of poor producers.”

The report specifically attacks the Fairtrade Foundation’s refusal to accept child labour and genetically modified technology, suggesting these strictures represent “the whims of western consumers” rather than the needs of farmers. Consistent with the IEA’s broader free-market agenda, the paper claims that open, subsidy-free international trade is the best way of advancing the interests of the world’s poorest regions.

“Fairtrade rhetoric is often seen as an unreasonable smear campaign against high-end marketeers and retailers who resist the Fairtrade model,” says the report by Dundee University lecturer Sushil Mohan. “In 2000 activist groups … launched an attack on Starbucks for exploiting farmers. Yet, given its size, Starbucks is likely to have done far more than Fairtrade to improve the lot of coffee growers in the countries from which it purchases.”

In response, the Fairtrade Foundation said the report was a “flawed, partial analysis”. It added: “It is wrong to suggest Fairtrade does not offer a long-term strategy for development. “In Mali, Fairtrade cotton farmers are earning 50% more than conventional farmers. Some 95% of the children of Mali’s Fairtrade organic farmers go to school because farming communities receive more money. This is more than double the national average in the fourth most deprived nation on earth.”

The IEA’s scathing attack comes after the Fairtrade movement enjoyed one of its most successful periods last year, breaking into the mainstream chocolate market for the first time by signing up the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk brand. The group also won a pledge from Starbucks in the UK to only use Fairtrade coffee for its espresso-based drinks. Fairtrade-certified farming co-operatives receive a “social premium” of between 5% and 10% over the open-market price for their crops, as well as a minimum price guarantee should volatile commodity markets drop below a certain level.

However, the IEA argues that western shoppers looking to make ethical choices may well be duped over how much of the additional price paid for Fairtrade goods at the checkout actually reaches Fairtrade farmers. It points to speculation that retailers and food groups may be preying on consumers’ better nature in order to add their own mark-ups on Fairtrade goods.

The report is not the first time the IEA has attacked the Fairtrade movement and the opposition has been led by Philip Booth, the thinktank’s editorial and programme director. A prominent Catholic, Booth has objected to church literature pushing Fairtrade products. “I have been told [via the Catholic diocese of Arundel website] that not to buy Fairtrade products is a sin worse than theft, that not buying Fairtrade products is making a deliberate choice to take from the poor,” he said.

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If you are reading this article over breakfast, the chances are you have recently stepped into the shower, lathered up your hair and torso, rinsed off, towelled and blow-dried, before dousing your armpits with deodorant, and wafting on a fog of perfume or aftershave.

Then again, maybe not. The New York Times has just reported on a new trend towards what’s sometimes known as soap-dodging. Among those who have cut down on daily showers, baths or hair-washing were a woman who swipes a sliced lemon under her armpits instead of deodorant, another who uses baby wipes to freshen up after her lunchtime runs, and a salesman who shampoos only once a month and gave up anti-perspirant for three years.

Think this is only happening in the US? Think again. There are plenty of signs that this carefree attitude to cleanliness is popular in the UK too – and in some cases growing. Last year, a poll for tissue manufacturer SCA found that 41% of British men and 33% of women don’t shower every day, with 12% of people only having a proper wash once or twice a week. (These figures place us behind Australia, Mexico and France in the personal hygiene stakes.) Around the same time, research by Mintel found that more than half of British teenagers don’t wash every day – with many opting for a quick spray of deodorant to mask any stink.

Over the last few years there have been regular suggestions that daily hair-washing, or even any hair-washing at all, is quite unnecessary, with the commentator Matthew Parris admitting he hadn’t shampooed his hair for a decade, and broadcaster Andrew Marr reporting himself perfectly happy with the results when he followed suit for a short while. Many people clearly agree that a regular hair-wash is a hassle. In 2008, Boots reported a 45% rise in sales of dry shampoo ( a product that can be sprayed on hair between showers), while the Batiste brand has recently seen its sales double.

There are, of course, environmental benefits. In a bid to reduce his carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy, 51, limits his showers to about twice a week. “The rest of the time I have a sink wash,” he says. “I believe that I’m as clean as everyone else.” It has helped him to get his water consumption down to around 20 litres a day – well below the 100 to 150 average in the UK.

As McCarthy points out, it’s only recently that we have expected people to bathe or shower every day. “When I was a kid,” he says, “the normal thing was to bathe once a week.” Head much further back into history, and we find Elizabeth I bathing once a month, and James I apparently only ever washing his fingers. In 1951, almost two-fifths of UK homes were without a bath, and in 1965, only half of British women wore deodorant.

Now we have begun to fetishise extreme cleanliness, to create the kind of culture where, as McCarthy says, it’s not entirely unusual for people staying in hotels to churn through 1,000 litres of water a day – showering in the morning, after a sauna, after the swimming pool, before dinner, before bed. The international market for soaps of all kinds is now $24bn a year. And some dermatologists fear that this intense, regular washing is stripping our skin of germs that could actually be beneficial to us, that help our skin stay healthy, balanced and fresh.

It might be worth us all occasionally missing a shower or two, then, so long as we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. While being environmentally friendly is good, smelling like a bin is not.

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The UN biodiversity meeting in Japan has agreed a 10-year plan aimed at preserving nature.

Targets for protecting areas of land and sea were weaker than conservation scientists wanted, as was the overall target for slowing biodiversity loss. Most developing countries were pleased with measures aimed at ensuring they get a share in profits from products made from plants and other organisms.

Nations have two years to draw up plans for funding the plan. “This agreement reaffirms the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our economy and our society,” said Jim Leape, director-general of WWF International.

“Governments have sent a strong message that protecting the health of the planet has a place in international politics, and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth.” The meeting settled on targets of protecting 17% of the world’s land surface, and 10% of the oceans, by 2020.

These are regarded as too small by many conservation scientists, who point out that about 13% of the land is already protected – while the existing target for oceans is already 10%. Many poorer countries say they do not have the resources to implement such targets.

“The forest and the other biological resources we have serve the general interests of the global environment,” said Johansen Voker from Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency. “So we expect assistance to be able to effectively conserve our environment for the common good of the world community.”

Developed nations agreed to establish mechanisms for raising finance to help them – which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2020. They are required to have a plan to raise such sums in place by 2012, when Brazil will host the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The sums might appear astronomical – particularly when you recall that governments are already committed to raising $100bn (£125bn) per year for climate change by 2020 – but French Ecology Minister Chantal Jouanno said it was not impossible. “If you think that to solve the problem of biodiversity only public funds can be sufficient, it’s just a dream, because the amounts necessary are so huge,” she told BBC News.

“It needs to be private funds too – and not only voluntary private funds but… binding funds [from business].

“You are making profits from the use of biodiversity; so it’s logical and it’s legitimate that those profits return to biodiversity.” The trickiest issue – the agreement on sharing profits from the development of products drawing on genetic resources in developing countries, known as Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) – was resolved after developed nations, led by the EU, made some crucial concessions.

In particular, they agreed that the measures should cover anything made from this genetic material, technically known as “derivatives”. They had previouslty argued for a much narrower scope.

Conservation groups warned that the agreement as it stands does not guarantee the erosion of species and ecosystems will be stopped. “Participants may be leaving Nagoya, but they still need to be working to save life on this planet from Monday morning,” said Jane Smart, head of the species programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“We need to harness the energy of this meeting, where we’ve seen huge and significant commitments in terms of reinvigorated political will as well as real money from the likes of Japan, and in terms of pledges to increase protected areas from the likes of Guinea Bissau.” Japan looks set to emerge with credit, having steered the tough negotiations through its final hours.

“What the Japanese government really wants to do here is to get agreement so they can be proud of the Nagoya CBD,” said Wakao Hanaoka, oceans campaigner with Greenpeace Japan. “What is really needed, since the Japanese government has just started its role of chairing the CBC until 2012, is to keep doing what they have promised to international society.” This meant, he suggested, taking effective conservation in the marine environment – including backing cuts in fisheries for threatened but lucrative fish such as bluefin tuna.

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One billion extra tonnes of carbon has been emitted because of opposition to nuclear power generation, experts have claimed.

Speaking to producers of a Channel 4 documentary, campaigners claimed that environmental advocates are in danger of repeating the mistakes of the past by continuing to oppose nuclear power, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Campaigner Mark Lynas said that nuclear opposition has already added to the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, because the objection to the technology in the 1970s and 80s led to the construction of highly-polluting coal power plants.

”In hindsight that was obviously a mistake, but it is one that today’s environmental lobby groups seem determined to repeat,” he is quoted by the news provider as saying.

But, Ben Stewart from Greenpeace, said a real debate on the issue is needed.

“With the threat of climate change we look at all options but in our opinion [nuclear power and GM] do not stack up,” he is quoted as saying.

A KPMG report released earlier this year suggested that investment in nuclear power is needed if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets.

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Future warming could have “profound implications” for the stability of freshwater ecosystems, a study warns.

Researchers said warmer water affected the distribution and size of plankton – tiny organisms that form the basis of food chains in aquatic systems.

The team warmed plankton-containing vessels by 4C (7F) – the temperature by which some of the world’s rivers and lakes could warm over the next century.

The findings appear in the journal Global Change Biology.

“Our study provides almost the first direct experimental evidence that – in the short-term – if a [freshwater] ecosystem warms up, it has profound implications for the size structure of plankton communities,” said lead author Gabriel Yvon-Durocher from Queen Mary, University of London.

“Essentially, what we observed within the phytoplankton (microscopic plants) community was that it switched from a system that was dominated by larger autotrophs (plants that photosynthesise) to a system that was dominated by smaller autotrophs with a lower standing biomass.”

Dr Yvon-Durocher added that a greater abundance, but lower overall biomass, of smaller phytoplankton had “very important implications for the stability of plankton food webs”.

“This meant that the distribution of biomass between plants and animals changed from a… situation where you had a large amount of plants and a smaller amount of animal consumers to an ‘inverted pyramid’ where you have a smaller quantity of plant biomass and a larger amount of animal biomass,” he told BBC News.

“Systems that tend to have larger consumer biomass relative to the resource biomass tend to be less stable over time.”

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Drivers are focussing on buying more economical cars rather than learning more fuel-efficient driving techniques.

Nigel Underdown, Energy Saving Trust’s head of transport advice, explained that many motorists are yet to understand “how big an impact their driving style has on the final outcome”.

“Smarter driving relies primarily on better anticipation – reading the road and traffic conditions to avoid harsh acceleration and harsh braking,” he explained.

Maintaining a steady speed and changing to a higher gear at low revs was also said to be important. Mr Underdown explained that on average adopting this style could help drivers improve by as much as 15 per cent.

The Energy Saving Trust is currently holding its national energy saving week, with each day focussing on a different aspect of conserving power.

Tuesday October 26th will educate members of the public about insulation, followed by a day dedicated to generating energy and one dealing with energy saving products, before attention turns to energy-efficient transport on Friday October 29th.

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