Environmental pressure groups

The response from university scientists was also slow and generally ineffective, hampered by institutional structures and the absence of open-access databases on ecosystems and marine resources (Freire et al. 2006). However, international environmental pressure groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the International Fund for... 

P. Rawcliffe, Environmental Pressure Groups in Transition, Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK, 1998, p.53. 

Increasing need to include environmental factors when assessing risk Environmental pressure groups Stock exchange pressures Climate change and carbon dioxide indicator... 

Also, certain companies are concerned that disclosure of sensitive information such as toxic emissions could leave them open to attack by environmental pressure groups, or subject to legal proceedings. While there may be some truth in this, judging by regulatory moves in countries such as the USA with TRIs, it may only be a question of time before disclosure of such information will be mandatory. 

Standalone corporate environmental reports (CERs) started to appear in the late 1980s. The first companies to issue CERs were certainly admired in some quarters for being prepared to take the risk of coming under attack from the environmental pressure groups by exposing details of their environmental impacts in terms of emissions, etc. 

It is interesting to note the observations made by the ACCA with regard to NGOs and public sector bodies. Here, they report that the number producing CERs continues to be minimal. Also as yet, despite their many demands on industry to report environmental performance, the environmental pressure groups do not appear to have produced CERs. 

There is increasing demand for information on environmental activities of companies. Governments, environmental pressure groups, and more importantly, investors, insurance companies and clients are beginning to include environmental performance as part of their evaluation of company quality. 

The projections till 2050 [3] show a decline in the use of oil and gas after 2030, compensated by a large contribution from coal, biomass and renewables. It is expected that by 2050 the global coal industry be two and a half times as large as in 2000. But intensive coal use by USA, China and India in the next decades could face restrictions due to environmental pressure groups, which are very active in developed countries and protest s pockets started to be visible in China, the main user of coal in the world and, consequently, the major emissor of CO2. 

Another harmful mineral is asbestos, causing painful and fatal diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma. Many domestic items such as textured ceiling, ovens, electrical heating equipment in the past contained asbestos. After campaigning by environmental pressure groups, asbestos lagging in power stations and electric sub-stations has been gradually eliminated in the UK. 

Hydro microgeneration. It is very difficult in this country to obtain permission from the Waterways Commission to extract water from rivers, even though once the water has passed through the turbine it is put back into the river. Environmental pressure groups are opposed to any disturbance of any waterway because of the environmental impact on the river s ecosystem. 

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