Those of us interested in ethical investment think primarily of ethical funds, but we may soon be able to ‘invest’ ethically on a small scale as well, when doing our weekly shopping at the supermarket. 

Tesco has opened the world’s first ethical supermarket with a zero carbon footprint in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, and the operation of the store has no carbon impact on the environment over the year. 

The store generates its own power onsite from renewable fuels, including vegetable oil, and the traditional steel and plastic frontage is replaced by a sustainably-sourced timber frame. 

Other zero carbon features include: 

• Roof lights and sun-pipes that allow maximum use of natural sunlight on the sales floors
•  Energy-efficient heating and air conditioning systems
• No harmful refrigerants in food and building cooling/heating systems
•  The UK’s first LED-lit car park 
• Solar-powered street lighting and crossing beacons 
• Low-energy bakery ovens

 While the Ramsey store is a unique pilot project, Tesco will build on its design and has the expressed intention of becoming a zero carbon business by 2050. Tesco will incorporate aspects of the Ramsey prototype into future new builds, so that by 2020 each new store will produce 50% less carbon than a store built in 2006.

Are you interested in investing your cash in ethical funds, which aim to support only companies that make a positive contribution to the environment? Find out more about ethical investments and our investment portfolios here.

Loans are most readily available to existing current account customers and this ‘lender reluctance’ is the latest symptom of how banks continue to tighten up on loan availability in the current unfavourable climate.

Those loans that are available are more expensive, with the average on the 10 most competitive loans, based on a borrowing of £5,000, now at 10.78%, up from 9.24% at the start of the year.

While the British Bankers’ Association reported a fall in loan borrowing of 28% this year, moneysupermarket noted that online searches for loans were up by 20%.

“Whilst more people are looking for a loan, fewer are getting one,” said moneysupermarket in its report.

“It is quite clear that the fall in this kind of lending is almost entirely down to a lack of supply. We have also seen the average rates for personal loans increase across the board, so consumers who are lucky enough to be accepted for a loan have to pay more too,” said moneysupermarket’s head of loans, Tim Moss.

“The financial crisis may have eased, but this hasn’t filtered through to the personal loan market yet.  We have seen the banks go from choosy to almost locking down completely.”

In shopping for loans, consumers should note that the loan rate, or APR, quoted by a lender may not be the rate available to all applicants. It is therefore crucial that borrowers look closely at the terms and conditions of any loan offer they receive.

*Source: moneysupermarket.com

The new ‘eco-tax’ would aim to vastly reduce the amount of plastic in circulation, by imposing a charge on the use of plastic carrier bags in shops and supermarkets. 

Despite a fall of a quarter in the use of plastic bags over the past 2 years, 10bn bags are still distributed each year in supermarkets, according to the website AbolishPlasticBags. 

On November 25^th, the London Councils’ ‘Ban the Bag’ campaign withdrew its London Shopping Bag Bill from parliament in return for the new government undertaking. A government action would be more effective than the local London initiative, because it will be nationwide. 

Wales has already taken its own tax initiative on plastic bags with a 15p per bag charge to be introduced in early 2011. 

Ireland was first to ‘bin the bags’ back in 2002, when a 22c charge on supermarket bags cut consumption by 94% in just a few weeks. 

The UK government has pledged to introduce a formal tax if voluntary initiatives by retailers fail to vastly reduce the amount of packaging in circulation.

Reducing plastic use is viewed as a major contribution to environmental renewal, as plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade. 

Retailers such as Tesco are already encouraging the re-use of bags by selling their ‘Bag for Life’ heavy duty plastic bags for 10p, and promising to replace them free of charge when they are worn out. 

In the US, local plastic bag taxes are already working well in San Francisco, with Washington planning to introduce a 5c tax in January.

The British Banker’s Association (BBA), which monitors the mortgage lending activity of all the main high street banks, has revealed that latest mortgage lending statistics for October show that the number of new mortgages approved almost doubled compared to the (admittedly stagnant) levels of the previous-year period.

October 2009 saw the main banks approve 42,238 home loans, up 97.7% on the previous October. The average value of the mortgages approved was £142,000.

It was a very different story in the remortgaging market, however, with 20,685 remortgages approved in October 2009, down 61.8% on the previous year.

Net mortgage lending was up 4.6% in October from the previous year, rising by £3.1bn, the same as in September.

The figures are in harmony with other surveys which indicate that the UK’s all-time-low interest rates are effectively stabilising the housing market, and favouring first time buyers, following the sharp declines that were noted in 2008.

Looking at the markets for bank loans and unsecured lending, the BBA noted that unsecured borrowing is still subdued but that savings with banks were up 4.5% in October over the previous year, indicating that consumers continue to exercise caution and build up deposits.