September 30, 2013
IPCC climate report: built environment has major role to play in cutting carbon
The built environment has one of the biggest roles to play in tackling global warming, said the UK Green Building Council following the publication of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report which confirms that there is at least 95 per cent certainty that human activities are its principal cause. The Summary of the Report for Policy Makers; prepared by 259 climate experts from 39 countries, warns atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years, while CO2 concentrations have increased by 40 per cent since pre-industrial times. It advises that containing these changes will require “substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions”. More →
September 27, 2013
What’s wrong with adopting a more positive approach to work and workplaces?
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Workplace, Workplace design
[embedplusvideo height=”160″ width=”220″ standard=”https://www.youtube.com/v/u6XAPnuFjJc?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=u6XAPnuFjJc&width=220&height=160&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep2086″ /]
Has there ever been a UK government more interested in the workplace than this one? Most of it has been about cutting costs of course, so the majority of announcements emanating from the Cabinet Office have been about procurement, design and environmental performance. David Cameron even at one point announced that he wanted to measure people’s happiness. The questions needed to work out how happy we are proposed by the Office for National Statistics as a result would have had a very familiar feel for anybody who has ever completed a workplace satisfaction survey even if they miss the most blindingly obvious point that when you’re skint and in mortal fear of losing your job, most other things about work lose their lustre.
More →