Watchdog hands green report cards

An environmental watchdog group has issued a report card, giving Dell props for executing a programme under which customers can easily return old gear for recycling by the manufacturer, writes PC World.

Apple, which often crows about its 'green cred', received only a C+ for its device take-back and recycling programme.

The report card, produced by the Electronics Take-Back Coalition, scores each electronics maker on how many recycling drop-off centres it has (even in states where the law doesn't require them), on the volume of recyclable devices currently being taken in, and on the way the manufacturer goes about recycling returned devices.

Demand for energy efficiency technology is set to soar as UK firms face the impacts of government changes to carbon legislation, according to a leading green technology company, says Click Green.

The government's changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency scheme, announced in the recent Comprehensive Spending Review, mean that the scheme will be redesigned.

The result is that the participants' cost for each carbon emission will not be reimbursed to top performers. Instead, all monies will go straight to the Treasury, generating £1 billion a year.

A kind of family feud has erupted in San Benito County's rich slice of Central California farmland over plans to build a massive solar power facility in a valley shared by 20 ranchers and organic farmers and some of the rarest creatures in the US, states LA Times.

Both sides of the dispute insist they are fighting for the same things - protecting the environment and growing the local economy.

County officials - some of them farmers themselves - believe Solargen Energy's proposed 400MW solar farm on 5 000 acres just south of San Francisco Bay will be a key part of a new future based, in part, on green technology.