Electric Ireland and Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) have released full anonymised data sets from the recent Smart Metering trials for electricity customers.

GreenBusiness.ie (GB) and Green Hospitality (GHP) have announced their planned programme of FREE regional workshops which are designed to assist Irish businesses in improving their environmental performance through reducing the costs of Waste, Water & Energy.

Engineers Week 2012 - this year themed ‘Connecting our lives’ - is ‘landing’ in Ireland on Monday, February 27 2012 and will run until Sunday, March 4.

The Repak Yearbook is included in the Repak Diary, which is sent to members at the start of each year.

Dairy farmers who, up to now, have compared their farm against the neighbour's farm in terms of litres of milk, fertility and EBI, will soon have a new measurement to work off.

Dublin City University is to head an international research effort to revolutionise the way science is taught in schools.

On Wednesday 25 April 2012, Ireland's most important gathering of the sustainable building industry will take place at the Better Building Conference 2012.

This is the final Report for the STRIVE-funded project: 2008-WRM-MS-6-S Summary: STRIVE Report 84 - Abigail O’Callaghan-Platt and Tadhg Coakley.

The Environment & Green Technologies Department of Enterprise Ireland has announced the launch of its new green public procurement website.

It may have just seen £4bn wiped off its value following worse than expected results over the Christmas period, but supermarket giant Tesco has one cause to celebrate after the company opened its first 'zero-carbon store' in Ireland.

A report outlining proposals for the setting up of a State company to manage water supplies is expected to be published by the Government this week.

Ryanair last week said it is to levy its customers €0.25 per one way ticket to cover the EU’s new carbon tax or Emissions Trading System Tax (ETS).

The Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) has said that the estimated total insured cost of last October's floods is now €127m.

Students from across Ireland found out that Geology 'Rocks' at the Geological Survey of Ireland’s fully interactive 'Geological Sciences' stand at the recent BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

Farmers have warned that toxic waste remains at the massive Aughinish Alumina plant in west Limerick could end up as tomorrow’s Haulbowline toxic dump unless action is taken now.

In the North, price controls set to be imposed on Phoenix Natural Gas could save large business customers tens of thousands of pounds.

The Oireachtas committee on the environment is to consider asking the Comptroller and Auditor General to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the long-term provision of water services.

University of Ulster engineers and pupils at a Portadown primary school have teamed up in a search for greener, more sustainable new fuels that could prove vital to future energy requirements.

An Bord Pleanála is due to decide soon on controversial plans to replace five individual shop buildings on the corner of Henry Street and O’Connell Street, in Dublin city centre, with a single retail unit suitable for a chain store.

Clare County Council last week became the first local authority to agree to put in place a ban on fracking in its county development plan.

Residents in Dublin city will have to pay upfront from Monday 16 January to ensure their bins are collected as a private company takes over the service.

A Dublin city business body has called on a Government department to reconsider its funding for an annual anti-litter survey, claiming the findings are “deeply misleading”.

A new streamlined planning complaints procedure has been launched by Northern Ireland's Environment Minister, Alex Attwood.

Prof Mark Ferguson has been appointed as the next director general of Science Foundation Ireland.

The Department of Archaeology, UCC ihas announced the publication of a major research project carried out in collaboration with the National Roads Authority.

The endangered Irish red squirrel is under renewed threat as the first case of squirrel pox virus has been discovered in a red squirrel in the Republic.

They once flourished in every Irish river and stream - but now there are fears that otters will become an endangered species in their former stronghold due to loss of habitat, poaching and competition from non-indigenous species.

Northern Ireland Regional Development Minister, Danny Kennedy has launched the formal consultation phase for the new A6 dual carriageway, between Londonderry and Dungiven.

Inappropriately sited or poorly maintained septic tanks have been responsible for serious pollution of drinking water, national heritage body An Taisce has said.

The sale of a stake in Northern Ireland Electricity's parent company ESB - planned for some time in 2012 - should boost the firm's independence from government, a top ratings agency has said.

Dublin local authorities are continuing to charge development levies in relation to the Metro North rail line, even though the project has been postponed indefinitely by Government.

It's the proof of what sunworshippers have long suspected - most months in 2011 were warmer than average, but the mercury levels failed to rise significantly during those all important summer months.

Cavan-headquartered building materials group, Kingspan is considering sizing up a €300 million-plus acquisition in Germany, in a bid to expand in the country which accounts for nearly 10% of its annual revenues.

Northern Ireland Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, visited Smiley Monroe Ltd in Lisburn, a family owned firm employing 90 people.

Limerick start-up company ALR Innovations plans to dominate the European market with its LCD screen-recycling technology within two years - after that, it will move on to the rest of the world, starting with Japan and Korea.

The interception by the Forest Service of imported firewood with live bark beetle larvae was described as a serious wake-up call for the sector.

Ground-breaking research into the use of renewable gas at UCC’s Environmental Research Institute (ERI) has received a €0.25m boost for 2012.

The popular Annual SEFS Public Lecture Series began its 2012 programme on Wednesday, January 11th with a lecture by Professor William Reville.

The three millionth dublinbikes journey was taken on Thursday 22nd December last.

Interest free loans should be offered to rural dwellers who face costly septic tank upgrades in order to comply with new Government measures, according to Irish Rural Link.

Adnap Holdings, the waste management business that includes Panda Waste, made a pretax profit of €1.23 million in 2010, according to its accounts.

Bolstering its effort to provide data center managers complete visibility over IT and facility operations, Schneider Electric is acquiring Viridity's EnergyCenter 2.0 platform.

The latest issue of the GPP News Alert - December 2011 - is now available online.

Danish wind turbine maker Vestas will cut 2,335 jobs in an effort to restore profitability after rising costs wiped out its 2011 earnings.

The Carbon Trust has launched an online service designed to boost employee engagement with the green agenda, arguing that embracing environmental best practices could potentially save large UK businesses and public sector bodies £500m a year through energy and waste reductions alone.

IT departments are largely failing to make use of software that has been shown to slash corporate energy use, despite evidence that automated power management systems can deliver average annual savings of $36 per PC.

Britain's network of 18th century canals could once again play a major industrial role, in a revival driven by the demand for green energy.

The mayor of London has launched a major new anti-idling campaign designed to tackle air pollution, urging drivers to switch off their engines when stationary for more than a minute.

The UK government has given the go-ahead to a controversial high-speed rail link from London to major cities in the north of England in what Transport Secretary Justine Greening described as "the largest transport infrastructure investment in the UK for a generation".

European governments could simultaneously reduce income tax, increase innovation and cut pollution by introducing well-targeted environmental taxes and recycling the revenues back into the economy.

Kraft Foods is a huge company with an equally large environmental footprint.

The European Commission has adopted a Green Paper and launched a public consultation on the future of LED-based lighting.

Maersk is testing a range of algae-based biofuel blends aboard a container ship headed to India as part of a project with the US Navy.

About 64 million people visit McDonald's every day - that's a stunning number - and they'll see changes in the year ahead, some driven by a renewed sustainability push at the $24bn fast-food giant.

The JRC has published the third edition of its Technology Map of the European Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan.

This brochure explains how the European Union is working to minimise the negative impacts of waste, while maximising the benefits of good waste management and the role individuals, households, businesses and local and national governments have to play.

A melting Arctic is prompting questions about climate change, geopolitics and security among other topics, yet one question receiving more attention lately is steeped in nautical mythology - fabled Arctic shipping passages.

Two weeks after the EU's highest court ruled that all airlines must pay for the carbon emissions produced during flights in and out of the bloc, two airlines are moving to pass the expense to customers and Chinese airlines are flatly refusing to comply.

A ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) giving the green light to charges on airlines for carbon emissions on long haul flights to and from Europe from January 1st last has sparked a furious row between the EU and the US.

China's largest airlines are set to flout EU law by refusing to pay for the emissions impact of flights in and out of Europe.

RWE Power is set to expand a multi-million Euro project designed to turn carbon dioxide into biomass, marking a major step forward for its 'clean coal' programme.

The European Commission has awarded 27 data centres of technology giant IBM for energy efficiency, based on the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct for Data Centres.

A renewable energy firm has stated that its wind turbines generated almost a fifth more electricity last year than in 2010.

Wales' environment minister has urged homeowners and businesses to recycle more than half of the country's waste in 2012, building on its position as the country with the highest recycling rates in the UK.

M&S has become the first major retailer to roll out ground-breaking new packaging which, it claims, will extend the life of fruit stored in the fridge by up to two days, helping to cut domestic food waste.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Science Gallery will hold an hour-long free public event this coming Thursday evening (12 January) in the Science Gallery.

Trim has been announced as the cleanest town in Ireland at a ceremony in Dublin, pipping Swords and Killarney in the 2011 survey of litter levels in 53 towns and cities by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL).

A decrease in both gas and electricity prices drove the latest Bord Gáis Energy Index (BGEI) 1pc lower for the month of December.