France is growing ambitious on Green issues

On October 25th, the Grenelle Environment Forum, a political meeting held in Paris, emphasized France’s growing awareness and ambitions on environmental concerns. France wishes to set the standard and lead the way on matters of sustainable development. The Grenelle is said to be a beginning, but considerable steps taken seem to be encouraging, such as following, to name a few:
    •The “carbon cost” of any major public project will now be studied, with a warning that projects with excessive environmental costs will be rejected altogether.
    •From now on, non-ecological projects will have to prove they cannot be carried out any other way.
    •Waste management is to be enhanced, with focus on design, packaging and recycling.
    •Energy requirements are to be reduced (by 20% by 2020)
    •95% of energy production is to be without carbon emissions by 2020
    •Transportation is to be rethought to minimize cars, encourage pubic transport, bicycles, fast trains, etc.
    •All new buildings built in France should comply with the so-called "low-consumption" standards by 2012. By 2020, all new buildings should be energy positive and produce more energy than they consume.

Regarding electronics and household appliances, measures will also be taken to counteract the exponential increase in energy budgets. One of those is to phase out appliances that consume the most energy (through their prohibition), as soon as alternatives become available at a reasonable price. This rule will start being applied by 2010 with the banning of incandescent light bulbs and single-glazed windows, for example. Energy efficiency labeling of electronic appliances is also to be generalized.

The current taxation system is also said to be rethought. One of the ideas is to make sure that when a clean product is available, it will be less expensive than a polluting alternative. The creation of a lower VAT rate on all ecological products that protect the climate and biodiversity is being considered to those effects.

Although the Grenelle Environment Forum was seen as merely a political show by some, with other political parties remaining  dubitative overall, it seems fair to point out the increasing importance of environmental concerns in general. With time, both businesses and households will have to evolve and follow the Green trend. Businesses will have to re-think their environmental policies, focus on sustainable development issues to abide by the new laws to be established in the near future. Environmental matters will clearly also have to be considered in general procurement decisions.

These initial steps are encouraging and mark the growing awareness and ambition of environmental concerns across Europe.