Yanmar Compact Equipment has launched a trio of new construction equipment that includes a fully electric wheel loader, a mini-excavator, and a tracked carrier. The electric product launch falls in step with the Group’s commitment to the Yanmar Green Challenge 2050 – an initiative that outlines the company’s pledge to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of this century. SV17e The SV17e Mini-Excavator (1,955 kg operating weight) is powered by a 18.3 kWh battery, featuring two operating modes to optimise battery life and adapt to varying project demands.  Its nearly s ..read more

Air purifier reviewers HouseFresh have had a look into which countries have been showing the greatest interest in the technology, by tracking their Google searches. The researchers translated the phrase ‘air purifier’ into 136 different languages and used the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, to log the average monthly Google search volume in 2023 for every country. This process was repeated to retrieve 2023 data for each U.S. State. They then calculated how often air purifiers are searched for per 100k of the population, per month, which is the figure in the infographic below. Perhaps ironically, giv ..read more

UK100, together with Chris Skidmore, are asking incumbent or aspiring politicians in local authorities to commit to using their position to advance climate action by ignoring party divisions and misinformation. The initiative takes the form of a pledge titled ‘Taking the heat out of local climate action’ and is available to sign by anyone who is a leader or elected Mayor, Cabinet Member, councillor or candidate in the 2024 local elections. The pledge builds on UK100’s recent report, Zero In – Accelerating Local Climate Action, which highlights the vital role local authorities have to play in ..read more

The 2024 ‘State of the Air’ report published by the American Lung Association has revealed that 39% of Americans—131.2 million people—still live in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or PM2.5. 11.7 million more than in last year’s report. There are two primary reasons for this rise. Firstly: heat, drought and wildfires which drive up both ozone and PM levels (note however that the report covers data from 2020 to 2022, so last year’s extreme events do not impact the findings). Secondly the report evaluates those years based on the EPA’s 2024 National Ambient Air Quality Standard for annual ..read more

Over 20 air quality consultancies are currently beta testing a new Airly AI tool, which has been developed to accelerate air quality assessments for planning and development proposals. After two weeks of evaluation, the tool has been used extensively over 100 times, and Airly Product Lead Marta Steiner says: ‘The feedback has been very positive, 80% of all testing users reported very significant time saving, with data collection taking seconds – instead of hours or day.! and 70% of the Airly AI users said that the product exceeded their expectations.’ Developers and planning authorities utili ..read more

CoMoUK’s  eighth annual Bike Share Report reveals how the UK bike share sector continued to grow in 2023, with new schemes emerging in major cities such as Leeds. The report found that by the end of September 2023, there were 48 places in the UK where a bike share scheme operated, with the whole of London counting as just one of them. This number represents an increase of five on the previous year. For the first time last year, the number of e-bikes available for hire overtook the number of conventional ones with the 25,000 power-assisted bikes making up 59% of the total inventory. There ..read more

In the process of scrapping their carbon emissions targets, the Scottish Parliament offered up some consolation prizes in an effort to distract from what Friends of the Earth Scotland called ‘the worst environmental decision in the history of the Scottish parliament.’ In yesterday’s statement, delivered to the Scottish Parliament, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy Màiri McAllan announced a new package of climate action measures. In terms of transport, it was announced that through a collaboration between the public and private sector, approximately 24,000 new charge ..read more

Schools in South Wales, the South West and the Midlands are being offered funding in a new venture from National Grid as part of a five-year pledge to help schools in areas of high economic deprivation to reach net zero goals. As of today, schools in those areas can apply for grant funding of up to £25,000 per school. The schools will be reviewed against National Grid’s grant eligibility criteria, which includes location, free school meal eligibility, environmental impact, and financial savings. The £2.7m grant will enable Solar for Schools to raise additional funding to enable about £10m ..read more

Funded by the Transforming Cities fund, and in preparation for the return of e-scooters, Nottingham City Council is installing 275 racks for e-bikes and e-scooters to help improve parking. The scooters disappeared from the city’s streets when former operator Superpedestrian closed down its UK operation in December. So far 140 racks have been installed, with the rest being introduced by June 2024. Locations for the racks have been prioritised based on areas where: There is high usage of the e-bikes and e-scooters The current parking arrangements aren’t working and there is anti-social behavio ..read more

The 2024 Offshore Wind Industrial Growth Plan: Expanding the Horizons of the UK’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain points the way towards tripling offshore wind manufacturing capacity over the next ten years. The plan is a collective effort from RenewableUK, the Offshore Wind Industry Council, The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland. In the Foreword to the plan, offshore wind is described as one of the UK’s great success stories of the century, but one that the rest of the World has noticed and their haste to catch up is inevitably leading to supply chain issues. The UK has nearly 100GW of offsh ..read more