Month: December 2024

Vattenfall expands circular targets on wind turbine components

Stuart Mitchell

In 2021, Vattenfall committed to an immediate landfill ban and set a goal to recycle 50 per cent of all wind turbine blades from its owned farms by 2025, with a target of 100 per cent by 2030. Building on this commitment, the company is now incorporating nacelle canopies and nose cones into its strategy, enforcing an immediate ban on landfilling these materials. The expanded target is already being integrated into existing wind farm decommissioning contracts. “Expanding our recycling target is a crucial step towards achieving a circular business by…

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Brixton Village’s Black Farmer receives £250k investment from fund for underrepresented entrepreneurs

Stuart Mitchell

On 5th November 2024, the Growth Impact Fund (GIF), a social impact investment fund developed by Big Issue Invest and UnLtd has made an investment of £250,000 in The Black Farmer – a farm shop opened in Brixton Village by celebrated entrepreneur Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones MBE last year.   With only 1% of UK farmers from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, Emmanuel-Jones founded The Black Farmer to challenge this exclusion and showcase that Black entrepreneurs can succeed in traditionally exclusive markets. He believes that black entrepreneurs can also belong in markets…

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Forests get a boost from new GCF policy on REDD+ results-based payments

Stuart Mitchell

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) recently adopted a landmark policy on REDD+ results-based payments, a major boon for forest finance. The decision was made at the 40th meeting of the GCF Board. REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) is based on the principle that developing countries which reduce their emissions from deforestation and forest degradation can receive financial compensation, known as results-based payments. This is a highly efficient way of financing emissions reductions, as payment is made for verified emissions reductions. In addition, REDD+ results-based payments deliver a…

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Innovative property-linked solution could accelerate the decarbonisation of UK buildings, according to groundbreaking report

Stuart Mitchell

The Green Finance Institute (GFI), in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group, has unveiled a groundbreaking report outlining the potential for an innovative green finance mechanism, Property Linked Finance (PLF), to channel billions of pounds worth of private investment into sustainable retrofit across the UK. The report sets out a series of guiding principles and key steps for how PLF should be designed and launched in England and Wales, including calling for enabling legislation from the government as well as the establishment of pilot programmes, initially in the…

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Charity values may not be so important to the ethics of turning down donations

Stuart Mitchell

Many fundraisers – and perhaps more non-fundraisers, such as senior leadership and trustees – might consider that not aligning with their charities’ values is an important consideration in deciding whether to refuse a donation from a ‘tainted’ source. However, new work from Rogare – The Fundraising Think Tank – produced in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and published in the new paper: Take it or Leave It: The Ethics of Gift Acceptance and Refusal– argues that values alignment may not be the best way to make the most…

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