Human rights in the Philippines, the power of ice cream, B Corp status for Bulb and Virgin's big carbon reduction

Shell, BP and Chevron face human rights case in Philippines

In an unprecedented move, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) has sent a 60 page document to 47 companies operating in the oil, coal, cement and mining sectors, including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil, accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and self determination.”

The complaint argues that the 47 carbon majors should be held accountable for the impacts of their greenhouse gas emissions in the Philippines, which they claim have violated the human rights of millions of people, and demands that they explain how human rights violations resulting from climate change will be “eliminated, remedied and prevented”.

Although all 47 firms will be ordered to attend public hearings, the CHR can only force the 10 with offices in the Philippines to appear.

Veolia uses ice-cream to power UK homes

Resource management company Veolia has joined forces with the world’s third largest ice cream manufacture R&R Ice Cream and Iona Capital to turn ice cream waste into energy.

R&R Ice Cream is the UK’s largest producer of own-label ice cream as well as brands such as Oreo Ice Cream and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate sticks.

The process will use the sludge left over from ice cream production, consisting of sugar, fat and protein, and transform it into biomethane, a biogas. This will then be fed to the National Grid to heat UK homes, thanks to a nearby anaerobic digestion facility.

Veolia explains that the transformation process resembles that of the human body burning calories. “Different flavours amount to different levels of energy; it transpires that chocolate ice cream provides 10% more energy than vanilla, and 20% more energy than strawberry,”the company said.

Ice cream can be turned into power
 

UK renewable energy supplier Bulb achieves B Corp status

Renewable energy supplier Bulb has become the first UK provider to gain the B Corporation status. The certification puts equal emphasis on a company's employees, suppliers, communities and the wider environment as well as shareholders, legally requiring certified B Corporations to consider the impact of their decisions on all stakeholders.

According to the 100% renewable energy firm, it was awarded the status after meeting "rigorous"standards of environmental and social responsibility, and providing a high standard of accountability and transparency.

Bulb, which claims to be the UK's first low-cost renewable energy supplier, joins 93 domestic companies to have already achieved B Corp status, as well as 1,600 businesses across 42 countries.

Other B Corporations include UK carbon offsetting firm ClimateCare, clothing manufacturer Patagonia and ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s.

Energy firm Bulb met rigorous standards
 

Virgin achieves ‘biggest carbon reduction’

Telecoms giant Virgin Media has recorded its "biggest ever" annual carbon reduction, with emissions falling by 6.1% between 2014 and 2015, despite significant business growth.

The emissions reduction was achieved through a wide-ranging programme of energy efficiency projects and a major reduction in lorry journeys.

The telco provider reduced journeys by more than 800,000, which equates to a reduction of over 2.3 million miles and is 300,000 journeys more than the original target for 2015. The company said this was as a result of better route planning, increased fault diagnosis and an increase in ‘QuickStart’, which enables customers to self-install their services.

These efficiency projects have enabled Virgin to increase the amount of data on its network by 45% while reducing the CO2e per terabyte of data by 35%.

  
Virgin implemented energy-efficiency programmes
 
Human rights  emissions  B corp  climate change  renewable energy  carbon reduction 

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