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Public consultations are an essential part of policy development. They provide the Department with necessary feedback on proposals for legislative change or other new initiatives, thus informing the Government's decision making process.

The Government will introduce more realistic requirements for on-site carbon reductions,endorsing the Zero Carbon Hub's expert recommendations on the appropriate levels of on-site reductions as the starting point for future consultation, along with their advice to move to an approach based on the carbon reductions that are achieved in real life, rather than those predicted by models.

This will be complemented by cost-effective options for off-site carbon reductions, relative to the Government's pricing of carbon, and Government will work with industry through consultation on how to take this forward.

Did you know that if you are federal contractor and are on the General Services Administration, or GSA, schedule, you will be asked to report on your sustainability efforts?” That’s the question posed by Anca Novacovici, founder and president of Eco-Coach, an environmental sustainability consulting business, in a recent Huffington Post blog. Not surprisingly for a post titled “Federal Contractors Missing the Boat,” her answer is in the negative. She writes, “Many contractors are unaware of the federal reporting requests around sustainability.”

The report, prepared by a task force comprising Marine Scotland, environmental regulators, renewable developers and The Crown Estate, was welcomed by Alex Salmond as he co-chaired the first 2012 meeting of the Scottish Energy Advisory Board (SEAB).

However Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson has said the blueprint is yet more bad news for Scotland’s coastal communities and businesses.

The task force recommendations include: creating a national database of survey data, with information from DECC, The Crown Estate and, at the appropriate time, developers - to reduce duplication and minimise cost and time introducing common standards in data collection and assessment to ensure developers can use methodologies consistently and with confidence using mandatory multilateral consultation to engage other sea users (fisheries, shipping, recreational users, communities, etc) at the earliest opportunity, before applications increasing resources in Marine Scotland (on cost-recovery basis) to provide required environment specialists for efficient scoping and application processes prioritising early work to identify potential sites for new test facilities, including deep water offshore wind technologies

A new report by Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm focused on global clean technology markets , predicts that by 2020 fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) lighting technologies will become the standard lighting types in the Unites and will account for over three quarters of the market by 2020.