January 2011

Thanks to all of you who sent emails to Philip Hammond and Ford over the past few months - you really made an impact.

Your pressure helped us take an important step towards kicking our oil addiction.

An interesting article was published recently in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, examining the costs of oil extraction in the Arctic. The region, increasingly seen by the oil industry as the Promised Land, could hold significant amounts of hydrocarbons.

Yesterday's headline in the FT shouted "MoD faces fresh crisis over funding". It turns out that the Ministry of Defence have checked over last October's defence review and found out that they actually need an extra £1 billion a year over the next four years to deliver it.

Update, 9 March 2011: both Princes and Asda have committed to removing tuna caught using fish aggregating devices in combination with purse seine nets from their supply chains by 2014. Read more >>

Princes sent out a message to almost 18,000 of you who emailed the company asking them to stop using fishing methods that kill sharks, turtles, dolphins and other fish in order to fill their cans with tuna.

I've taken the letter apart to explain what their response really means. The bottom line is they're still bottom of the tuna league.

The masters at Marvel comics would struggle to find bad guys worse than these.

Take two of the world’s biggest environmental villains – Russian Rosneft (special powers: oil leaks. 7,526 in 2009 alone) and British BP (special powers: oil spills. Gulf of Mexico, 2010).

It's been a good week for seafood sales. The Guardian reports that supermarkets have been doing brisk business in "sustainable seafood", particularly those featured in the various Big Fish Fight shows on Channel 4.

We've released a report today with partners from Platform and Oil Change International about oil investment and increasingly risky sources of oil. Download the report here (pdf).

Lorne Stockman, from Oil Change International, blogs about the issues covered in the report:

Is a key valuation metric used by analysts to assess oil companies pushing big oil towards riskier and riskier projects?

So, what's been going on since our tinned tuna league table was released on an expectant world at the weekend? Quite a bit as it happens and already you've helped us score another small but vital victory over the worst of the tuna companies, Princes.