Eco Homes

We need to know more about what goes into plastics in the first place and better regulation of how recycled products are used

• Dr Charlotte Lloyd is a researcher in environmental chemistry at the University of Bristol

Sometimes it feels like we are simply drowning in plastic. Over the past five decades plastic products have found their way into almost every aspect of our daily lives. Global plastic production has reached a total of 8bn tonne – that’s 1 tonne for every person currently on the planet – with plastic pollution expected to triple by 2060.

Current best estimates are that only about 10% of plastic ever produced has been recycled. Despite this, the idea of circular economy in the plastics industry is often cited as the magic bullet: we will simply reuse the plastic we have already made and reduce the impact of plastic pollution. But new evidence points to the flaws in this plan. A report by Greenpeace has found that recycled plastic can be even more toxic, and is no fix for pollution.

Dr Charlotte Lloyd is a researcher and lecturer in environmental chemistry at the University of Bristol

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People are waking up to the benefits of using salary sacrifice schemes to buy greener vehicles

If you have been thinking about switching to an electric car but are worried about the cost, talk to Bill Hopkinson. Until four months ago, the sales and marketing director was driving more than 30,000 miles a year in a diesel BMW and spending about £800 a month on lease payments, fuel, insurance and maintenance.

Fast-forward to today, and he is now behind the wheel of a new, fully electric Audi Q4 e-tron. His total monthly expenditure on the car, including the use of public charging points, has fallen to £611 – meaning he is on course to save more than £2,200 a year, while, at the same time, slashing his carbon footprint.

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Call comes on eve of revised net zero strategy that allows drilling in North Sea and boosts ‘unproven’ carbon capture

Hundreds of the UK’s leading scientists have urged the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to halt the licensing of new oil and gas developments in the UK, ahead of his anticipated launch of a revised net zero and energy security strategy on Thursday.

The scientists, who include Chris Rapley, former head of the Science Museum and professor at UCL and Mark Maslin, professor of earth system science at UCL, warn that there must be no new developments of oil and gas, for the world to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

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Exclusive: Cross-party group recommends policies such as mortgage penalty for landlords of energy-inefficient homes

The UK will need to embrace innovative, community-based solutions to environmental and energy problems if it is to have any hope of meeting looming net-zero deadlines, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has recommended.

A report by the all-party group on a green new deal argues for a combination of robust, top-down policies on green issues including localised power generation, food and transport schemes. Recommendations include a mortgage penalty for landlords who let energy-inefficient homes, and also real community decision-making, notably on power schemes.

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It’s renewable, strong as steel, astonishingly fireproof – yet it’s easy and quiet to build with. Could timber construction be the future? We step inside the revolutionary new London workplace that everyone wants to touch

There is very little about most new “sustainable” office buildings that is true to the label. Through an alchemical process of validation and certification, great carbon-hungry shafts of concrete, steel and glass are magically deemed to be “zero carbon”, and adorned with the gold and platinum medals of trade associations that exist to promote their members’ interests. The inclusion of solar panels, heat pumps, low-flush toilets and numerous other bolt-on gizmos creates an impenetrable veil of green goodness that can hide a multitude of carbon sins.

Just as covering concrete with plants does not make it green, filling a high-energy, high-rise glass office tower with low-energy gadgets does not make it carbon-neutral. Claims of “net zero” almost always mean that someone else is picking up the carbon tab. Swathes of rainforest are acquired on the other side of the planet, often with damaging knock-on effects for the environment and local populations. A recent investigation found that more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets approved by the world’s largest provider are largely worthless – and could actually be making global heating worse.

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From Ukraine developments and China’s Covid surge to renewable energy and hope for the Amazon

A near-inevitable global recession sparked by a lengthening war in Europe’s frozen east; an energy crisis coupled with soaring inflation; Covid-19 finally running rampant in China – predictions for 2023 are grim. Still, there are reasons to be hopeful. That same energy crisis has spurred an unprecedented demand for renewables, which are expected to boom, while in Brazil, a new president has sworn to protect the Amazon. Repressive regimes, meanwhile, will be nervously looking at Iran, where hardline clerics are locked in a struggle with a formidable pro-democracy uprising that threatens to overwhelm them next year.

Guardian correspondents across the globe have provided their take on what to watch out for in 2023:

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Rough, a 37-year-old Centrica facility off east Yorkshire, has been reopened to prop up the energy grid

“Do you hear that?” asks Chris O’Shea, putting a finger in the air and looking out over a tangle of pipes and workers in orange hi-vis overalls.

A deep whirr punctures the calm of the east Yorkshire coast, as a huge engine powers up and prepares to suck thousands of cubic metres of gas from deep beneath the North Sea.

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H&M, Sainsbury’s and Nestlé are among more than 300 companies urging governments to agree to the pledge at Cop15 in December

More than 300 businesses, including H&M, Sainsbury’s and Nestlé, have urged world leaders to make it mandatory for companies to assess and reveal their impact on nature by 2030.

Businesses and financial institutions in 56 countries – including the UK, Canada and China – are pushing for governments to agree to the disclosures at Cop15, the UN biodiversity conference being held in Montreal this December.

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Despite frequent claims in rightwing media, green levies make up fraction of bills and renewables are reducing costs

A wave of recent rightwing commentary has attempted to blame the gas crisis variously on Greta Thunberg, “the state”, “green regulations”, “net zero fanaticism” and “climate alarmism”.

David Frost, the Nigel Farage, Allison Pearson, Tim Newark, Iain Martin, Leo McKinstry and Steve Baker have all made similar claims, in outlets from the Daily Telegraph to the Daily Express and the Times, joined by editorials in the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Mail.

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Vladimir Putin’s cynical extortion makes as eloquent a case for the clean energy transition as any environmental idealist

When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, he gambled that it would be won quickly and that the west would acquiesce in a fait accompli. He underestimated Ukrainian resilience and European readiness to punish Kremlin aggression with sanctions. That forced Mr Putin into a longer game. Now he is betting that European reliance on Russian gas exports will corrode western solidarity, leading to a degrading of sanctions and restored tolerance of Moscow’s territorial aggressions.

To hasten that scenario, Russia has cut the flow of gas through the main east-west pipeline. The Kremlin’s message of strategic extortion is not subtle: go softer on the war and have a cosier winter; stay tough and freeze. European solidarity is just about holding. Earlier this week EU members agreed a deal to cut gas usage by 15% as part of a phased move away from reliance on Russian supplies. But the deal is diluted by opt-outs and exceptions for various countries. Hungary, the EU state that is cosiest with the Kremlin, has not signed up at all.

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