Futuristic blueprints to help cut London’s carbon emissions were published todayby UK Power Networks, the company which keeps the city’s lights on.

London was the test bed for a range of cutting-edge trials - the results of which will help millions of people across the UK if the energy industry introduces them widely. For example new-style energy contracts which have been trialled are already set to save customers in London, the East and South East £43million over the next eight years, and the country could reduce the projected domestic electricity demand in 2020 by about 9% if people switch to more efficient household appliances.

In January last year, NAPIT predicted that 2014 would be the year of renewables and, with many positive predictions being made over the last 12 months, it seems this forecast was indeed accurate.

In November, a report stated that worldwide solar PV capacity could treble by 2020. This came at a time where the Solar Trade Association (STA) predicted that solar will become cheaper than gas by 2018. The positivity in the solar industry was evident throughout 2014 and solar PV installers can look forward to an even brighter year in 2015.

Today (January 20th), it’s been announced that UWTSD has won a First Class Award and has been ranked 8th out of 151 universities across the UK and 1st in Wales in the People & Planet University League 2015 – the UK's only comprehensive and independent green ranking of universities.

This is a huge improvement in terms of rankings for UWTSD, with the University seeing a dramatic rise from its 113th position in the 2013 League to 8th in 2015. UWTSD has also been ranked the top green University in Wales, moving from a 3rd Class Degree to a 1st Class Degree award.

ALS Environmental; one of the UK’s leading analytical service providers to the Waste Management sector, and Biffa Waste Services; the UK's leading provider of Waste Management Services, have today (Friday, 9th January 2015) agreed to extend their working relationship with an additional two year contract extension. The extension means that ALS Environmental will provide analytical services to Biffa Waste Services in a working relationship that spans over two decades.

The extension to the analytical services agreement will see ALS Environmental perform over 100,000 analytical tests a year on samples from in excess of 70 open and closed landfill sites. The analysis will be provided by ALS Environmentals Coventry laboratory, which is our centre of excellence for waste analysis.