Anna Shepard asks if companies are making empty promises.

"I have noticed a meteoric rise," writes Anna Shepard in the Guardian, "In the number of press releases that plop into my inbox from Companies Doing Something Green. And yet, when I read them closely, it generally emerges that said company is not doing pioneering pea-green thing, not quite yet, but planning to. In other words, it’s a promise."
And she's right - actions are far more exciting than intentions. That's why I love the fact M&S's plan aims for completion in only 5 years. The government, meanwhile, are looking at 43...

Meanwhile, in an attmept to speed things along, Ethicaldirectory are petitioning the Prime Minister to make Local Councils responsible to collect small businesses waste for re-cycling. To find out more, go here.

IPCC reports, green packaging, and too many gaseous cows.

Business

• GreenBusiness writes about Virgin Games' green datacentre.
• Green employees - a great insight on a recent Ipsos MORI survey from Marketing Green. Article.
• Dennis Salazar reflects on how the packaging industry may be impacted by the green trend. Article.

Politics

• The Lib Dems have spoken out against GM crops, after a Defra survey showed the majority of members of the public are against commercial planting of GM varieties.
• The Independent publishes comments from Paul Bettison, chairman of the Local Government Association's Environment Board, on recent figures showing that we recycle or compost 30% of our waste. Bettison says: "Britain is still the dustbin of Europe, throwing more waste into landfill than any other country in the EU. While these figures are a move in the right direction, there is an inescapable need to do more."
• London Councils has annouced its intention to reduce plastic bag usage in the capital, through either an outright ban or a tax on the offending articles. But what of that favourite landmark, the shredded bag billowing in the trees? Alas...
• The government has announced a carbon offsetting fund to cover flights made by the royal household and central government departments.
• The Observer reports that three out of four councils in the UK have no plan in place to reduce and monitor carbon emissions. Read more...
• Parliament gets greener - at a cost of £20 million. Slight inconsitency with it's lack of foresight on a national scale, methinks...

Science

• The IPCC's synthesis report will be released later this week. A draft already indicates that a decline in GHG emissions must begin before 2015, and that a third of our species are threatened with extinction if temperatures continue to rise.
• Leo Hickman writes in the Guardian about climate change and the folly of crying wolf...
• Taking meat off the menu could be a positive course of action, suggests a report from the Food Climate Research Network. A new report is to warn that the livestock industry generates 8 per cent of all UK greenhouse gas emissions - and that means not only meat products but also dairy. Vegans may have something after all...
• The founder of the Weather Channel calls global warming a scam... read more...

Flowers, calculators, and a dark dystopian disaster...

Consumers

• Charles Clover writes in the telegraph that our recycling figures are up this year, to 31% of all rubbish (in England). We're now recycling 29.1 million tonnes of the stuff a year!

Business

• Google has launched its own carbon calculator as part of it's igoogle service. It was only a matter of time, really. Has anyone created on of these for facebook yet???
• Shell has been rapped over the knuckles for it's excessively floral advertising, as the ASA upholds a complaint from Friends of the Earth over adverts released earlier this year.
• Have you greened your IT? Greenbang reports today that: 80 per cent of executives surveyed at US businesses told analyst firm IDC that ‘Green IT’ is growing in importance for their organisation. And 43 per cent said they consider a vendor’s ‘greenness’ when selecting their suppliers.

Politics

• The Green Party has branded Brown's vision for the future a "dark, dystopian disaster" in their response to the Queen's Speech.