Liu Xiao spends her weeks visiting sludge and organic waste treatment plants across China. The travel can be tiring but as a technical and policy adviser on waste management she must help implement President
Egypt is to review its food subsidy system as it seeks ways to tackle rising inflation, which reached 14.2 per cent in March. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, finance minister, told the Financial Times that the government would look to raise additional revenues through new taxes or increasing existing taxes. However, he said corporate taxes, which were reduced in recent years as part of wider economic reforms, would not be altered, adding that no tariffs that impacted "on profit and production" would be increased.
Record global food prices will be on the agenda of the Group of Eight heads of state summit in July for the first time in almost 30 years, amid mounting concerns about the social, political and economic impact of the food crisis. The International Monetary Fund on Monday gave its starkest warning about the impact of rising commodities, saying food and oil prices "risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy'. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister, said in a letter to his G8 colleagues that soaring food prices were posing "imminent and serious' global challenges.
Some US fund firms are green only in patches. They oppose nearly all shareholder resolutions to take action on climate change, despite aggressive investment in climate-related business activities. Morgan Stanley and State Street Global Advisors were singled out for criticism of their "inconsistent behaviour" by Ceres, a grouping of investors with an environmental purpose.
There are plenty of hotels scattered around the world that are anxious to shout their green credentials. Alas, for the business traveller there are painfully few to choose from. When faced with business in Rotterdam or Beijing, green choices are extremely limited. The travel press bombards us with information on eco-friendly hotels and spas, but the chances of finding one in a business centre, rather than on the edge of a rain forest or in some exotic, palm-fringed resort, are almost nil.
Responsible travel is not as recent a concept as some might think. Eco-tourism first emerged in the 1970s in response to such developments as the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and poaching in Africa. From those origins of low impact, conservation-driven responsible holidaymaking, a sizeable industry has been generated that touches every type of traveller.
Royal Dutch Shell has sought to calm concerns about diminishing oil reserves and access to new supplies, arguing that its existing resource base will provide 55 years of production at current production levels. "We still have a lot of legacy [positions] from the past,'' said Jeroen van der Veer, Shell's chief executive, in an interview with the Financial Times.
Rick Wagoner, General Motors' president and chief executive, has dismissed United Nations research that links biofuel production to rising food prices as "shockingly misinformed". The blunt assessment by the head of the world's largest car company reinvigorates intense debate about ostensible social costs and environmental benefits of biofuels, a burgeoning industry some analysts say crowds out food production. "If you look at what's causing higher [bio]fuel prices, the cost of corn is a very small part of that," Mr Wagoner said at the Auto China show in Beijing yesterday.
China's carmakers are embracing next-generation cleaner-car technology, motivated more by profit and pragmatism than any special love for the planet. Rising manufacturers like Chery Automobile and Geely are developing or launching hybrid, electric and other alternative-energy vehicles, betting that China can follow its successes in mobile phones and digital technology by becoming a leader in greener cars.
High food prices are today a serious humanitarian concern. They are also a source of macroeconomic instability affecting budgets, trade balances and, of course, incomes almost everywhere in the world.
Green Works is attempting to save the world through office furniture. Its formula for social betterment might start with a nondescript conference table. On reaching the end of its useful life with a FTSE 100 company, Green Works will take it, save it from the landfill and help the environment. The company will then sell it at a discount to any number of charities, materially aiding their operations, or will dismantle it and recycle its components.
