Louise Haigh says taxpayer money must benefit local communities amid backlash from environmental groups
Ministers will scrap the requirement for companies to prove their green and progressive values before they are awarded government contracts, and instead ask firms to prove they will help young people back into work.
As part of a government push to reduce the number of people not in education, employment or training (Neets) in the UK and boost regional growth, public sector buyers will double the consideration they give to whether companies will get more people into jobs, rather than if they can show they are improving social and environmental wellbeing. Government procurement contracts account for about £90bn of taxpayers’ money spent each year.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/04/2026 - 16:30
08/04/2026 - 05:00
Summer is not what it once was. We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys
Far beyond the fires raging across Europe and North America, the smoke, dangerous to breathe, hangs in the air, dimming the view, changing the very color of sunlight into something grimly unsettling.
An estimated 20,000 are said to have died in the extreme heat in Europe earlier this year, and heat is climate change’s quiet killer, compared with the dramatic violence of death by fire or flood. In eastern Washington, 600 homes have just burned down, and in both Europe and North America, firefighters have died in the effort to contain the climate-fueled firestorms.
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08/04/2026 - 04:00
Britain exported 139,000 tonnes of rubbish to Turkey last year, leaving smallholders and poor districts of Adana to cope with the debris, microplastics and toxic smoke
UK plastic ‘waste colonialism’ found to be polluting Turkey’s farming heartland
Plastic debris clings to the reeds in a waterway metres from where Ayhan*, a farmer in Adana, southern Turkey, is harvesting aubergines. “We get pollution from all sides here,” he says, referring to the plastic recycling zone upstream, as well as a nearby textile plant that he suspects is making the water acidic. “The plastics are all there, by the bank, and the fumes come this way.”
Between May 2021 and July 2024, 13 British companies sent 545 shipments of household and supermarket plastic waste, totalling 52,000 tonnes, to the Kemal Deniz recycling zone, under a mile from Ayhan’s aubergine fields, according to data analysed for the Guardian by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international NGO.
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08/04/2026 - 04:00
A Guardian investigation finds irrigation canals polluted with microplastics in Turkey, a major destination for UK waste
• ‘Nobody cares’: Turkish farmers bear the burden of UK’s plastic waste problem
High levels of microplastics and other plastic contamination have been discovered in a waterway close to a major recycling hub in Turkey supplied with plastic waste by British companies.
The polluted waterway, which floods into agricultural fields after heavy rain, feeds into a larger canal used for irrigating crops on the Çukurova plain, in the city of Adana, in the south of the country. It is one of the largest and most fertile agricultural basins in Turkey.
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08/04/2026 - 00:46
Most of the zoo’s 16 lions have struggled to cope with high humidity this summer
Three lions from a Tokyo zoo have died from suspected heatstroke and others are undergoing treatment, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, as the big cats struggle in Japan’s high levels of humidity.
Japan sweltered through its hottest summer on record last year and parts of the country have hit 40C in recent weeks, qualifying for the new “cruelly hot day” designation.
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08/04/2026 - 00:45
Large tabby cat that wiped out dozens of rare pāteke, or brown teal, has been killed after eluding trappers with its ‘very erratic’ behaviour
A notorious feral cat given the name “Nine Lives” because it eluded trappers for three years has been caught and killed in New Zealand, ending its devastating rampage against one of the country’s rare duck populations.
The cat, a large grey tabby, is estimated to have killed dozens of New Zealand’s rarest mainland duck – or 1% of its population – plus a host of kiwi chicks, native geckos and other native wildlife during the three years it was known to be roaming the Purerua peninsula, near the top of the North Island.
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08/04/2026 - 00:45
In today’s newsletter: A small chorus of right-leaning critics are trying to convince politicians that climate action is deeply unpopular, downplaying its seriousness in the process
Good morning. Half of England and all of Wales are officially in drought, wildfires have burned through parts of the Cairngorms, Suffolk and the Isle of Wight, and reservoirs are running low. Farmers have warned that there could soon be food shortages, and the Royal Horticultural Society is considering moving its hydrangeas to cope with the heat. Many people are now asking a question rarely associated with British summertime: when will it rain?
The Guardian has been covering how the climate crisis is supercharging wildfires in Europe, the impossible choices firefighters face about which places to save, the number of people who have died in England due to heat, and the air conditioning haves and have-nots. Had you been reading another newspaper, you may have come away with a very different impression of this extreme weather.
UK news | Rapists, child sexual abusers and groomers will be excluded from early release plans to ease critical prison overcrowding in a major intervention by Andy Burnham.
UK politics | Nigel Farage has made his clearest admission that he was in talks to return to lead Reform UK months before the 2024 general election, casting fresh doubt on previous claims that he was not involved in politics when he received a £5m gift.
Spain | A growing chorus of voices has accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta, with the leader of the Spanish enclave describing last week’s border crossings as an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity that was seen as being “if not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco”.
Middle East | New talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of US strikes on the country, Donald Trump said on Monday.
Environment | A plastic manufacturer in the north of England is facing potential legal action over emissions of benzene, a carcinogenic chemical with no safe level, the Guardian can reveal.
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08/04/2026 - 00:00
Exclusive: Environment Agency is considering whether to prosecute Huntsman Polyurethanes over emissions of carcinogenic benzene
A plastic manufacturer in the north of England is facing potential legal action over emissions of benzene, a carcinogenic chemical with no safe level, the Guardian can reveal.
The Environment Agency (EA) is considering taking legal action against Huntsman Polyurethanes in Teesside for a potential breach of licence, which is a criminal offence.
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08/03/2026 - 20:25
Residents and farmers say contractors have tapped border aquifers that threaten water supply for those nearby
Construction crews building a border wall in New Mexico were ordered to stop drilling new wells after ranchers said that pumping groundwater to produce concrete could threaten their livestock amid a severe drought.
The order comes as crews across the southern border race to complete one of Donald Trump’s key domestic priorities – barriers that span four states and received over $46bn in federal funding. Controversies have sprouted up in Texas and California, and border-town residents and environmentalists have reported a wide variety of issues with construction.
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08/03/2026 - 12:04
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