Personal finance journalist Lewis sold 9m shares at £2.80, reducing his stake in the website from 3.1% to 1.5%

Martin Lewis, the personal finance journalist, has made £25.2m after selling a large portion of his shares in the price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com.

Related: Moneysupermarket.com founder pulls out of £95m share sale

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

A foundation is piloting a label to guarantee clothes are child labour free, but when auditing failed to prevent tragedies like Rana Plaza, campaigners doubt its ability to create change

Children are ubiquitous in the fashion supply chain: from the cotton farms of Uzbekistan, to the mills of India and the tanneries and factories of Bangladesh. Children are employed to produce and sell clothing because they can be paid less and exploited more than adults, and children work because poverty drives them to need to support themselves and their families.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development”. Worldwide, it denies 168 million children the right to education, leisure, and a healthy life.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Oil and gas explorer fails to find financial backing to plug £132m funding gap caused by Brent crude’s international price nosedive

Plummeting oil prices and internal boardroom upheaval have forced the London-listed Afren exploration company into administration.

Crisis management consultants from AlixPartners were brought in after Afren failed to find financial backers to meet a growing cash crisis at the firm, which produces oil in Nigeria and the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Move by Virgin Media owner could suggest it thinks a bid for the UK broadcaster is increasingly likely

International cable operator Liberty Global has raised its stake in ITV to 9.9% but said it had no intention of taking over the UK’s biggest free-to-air commercial TV firm.

Liberty, the owner of pay-TV company Virgin Media, took a 6.4% stake in ITV a year ago, and in September said it had no plans to increase the holding.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Insurance company Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Group joins the Business Call to Action with a commitment to enhance resilience of small-scale farmers through its weather index insurance

Leading Japanese insurance company Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Group joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to enhance the resilience of 30,000 small-scale farmers in southeast Asia by 2025 through its weather index insurance. The first major insurance company to join the BCtA, the Group developed this innovative initiative to mitigate against climate change’s adverse impacts by offering financial services to low-income farmers.

BCtA is a global initiative that aims to support the private sector’s efforts to fight poverty through its core business. It is supported by several international organisations and hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Fund official confirms it will not sign up to any formal support programme unless eurozone creditors reach ‘explicit and concrete’ agreement

The International Monetary Fund will refuse to participate in a new bailout for Greece until there is an “explicit and concrete agreement” on debt relief from the country’s eurozone creditors, an IMF official has confirmed.

Without the IMF’s involvement, Greece’s eurozone partners will have to find more funds to meet Athens’ short-term financing needs, raising questions about whether the outline €86bn (£60bn) bailout thrashed out earlier this month will prove workable.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Authorities force back kayakers blocking the path of Royal Dutch Shell ship headed to Arctic oil drilling fields

Authorities have forced protesters in kayaks from a river in Portland, Oregon, where they were trying to stop a Royal Dutch Shell icebreaker from leaving dry dock and joining an Arctic oil drilling operation.

Police also tried to lower protesters who were dangling from a bridge into the water below. Sergeant Pete Simpson said safety was the main priority, and police and coast guard officers were joined by firefighters and a rope-rescue team.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

Thirteen protesters rappelled off the St Johns bridge in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday to protest the departure of the icebreaking ship Fennica, set to sail to the Arctic as part of the firm’s new drilling campaign

• Activists hang from bridge in Portland to block Shell’s Arctic vessel

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS

US car part maker Delphi Automotive pays £1.1bn for HellermannTyton as it seeks to capitalise on growing trend for vehicles that connect to the web

A US-listed car parts maker is paying £1.1bn to buy HellermannTyton, a British manufacturer of cable equipment, as it seeks to capitalise on the growing trend in intelligent vehicles.

Delphi Automotive said it expects HellermannTyton, which makes products for fastening, fixing, and protecting cables, to help it take advantage of increasing demand for vehicles that connect to the web and smart devices such as phones and tablets.

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Source: The Guardian Circular Economy RSS