Last night, I attended the launch of the REC's Youth Employment Taskforce reportsummarising the urgent steps that government needs to take to facilitate job creation for young people.

The evening kicked off with a few homes truths from CEO Kevin Green. For starters, more than 20% of 16 to 24 year olds are not working, that's a startling 1 million people. Not only is this costing the UK economy £4.7 billion, it is also damaging their future job prospects.

 Baroness Margaret Prosser, chair of the Taskforce and vice chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) put it like this, "When times are tough, people employ experience rather than taking a risk and employing potential."

 Both speakers made it clear that it's not about getting the stick out, but turning rhetoric into reality and policy into practice. Everyone has a role to play which is why this taskforce brought together leading employers, recruiters and welfare providers as well as organisations such as the CIPD, CBI, TUC and EEF to feed into the recommendations for government.

 As a bit of an aside, a big shout out to a couple of lovely ladies that I got talking to at the event. It's refreshing to talk to people who are so passionate about their jobs - and I can see why. Remploy helps people experiencing complex barriers in the workplace and Prospectus is a not-for-profit recruitment agency that specialises in finding work for homeless people.

 The clear message that I went away with from yesterday's gathering is that there's a real need for concrete action from business, government and education if we are to avoid a lost generation.

Susie L

The issue of climate change is a tricky one. As a bit of an eco-warrior I do what I can. I use public transport, I recycle and I never fail to take a canvas bag with me when I head out the door to Tesco. The scale of the problem is so huge though that beyond these measly steps, I can't help feeling a bit helpless.

Is strong leadership from the government what's needed to turn Britain green? Undoubtedly, but according to the panel at this week's frontline event on climate change it seems the media has an equal role to play in making Britain go green.

Arranged by Frontline, 'Climate change: is the Coalition up to the challenge of the next five years?' was an interesting insight into the issue of climate change, the challenges that the 'Cammy-Leg' coalition face and the media's role in bringing a sense of balance to the argument.

Sounds easy right? Not so according to Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent at the Financial Times who seized the opportunity to discuss the challenges she faces in 'fairly' reporting on climate change. For every positive story about a wind-farm development going up, there's a story elsewhere on scientists getting their climate change figures wrong. For every article on Britain over-achieving on its emissions reduction targets there's a story on us missing the renewables target by a mile.

While climate change efforts can't be viewed through rose-tinted glasses all the time, would it be completely out of order for them to sit on the more 'optimistic' side of the fence?

Harvey used the example of the Daily Mail's 'illuminating' yet somewhat alarmist front page over the phasing out of iridescent light bulbs as a case in point.

If the media makes such a panic over something as simple as a lightbulb, how are we ever going to get the British public behind much bigger projects like wind turbine farms and tidal projects?

For me, this is far too important an issue to cloud the water with negative and at times, outrageous stories. Mark Maslin, director of the Environment Institute at University College London cited one story he'd seen where the heat from polar bears' breath was to blame for the melting caps. Is this kind of reporting really going to help get the public behind climate change measures or is it 'fair reporting' gone mad? Pass the rose-tinted glasses I say. 

Helen Ablett

On 2^nd February, a group of individuals united by a mutual interest in the environment met at a pub in Angel to talk about corporate carbon. We organised the Carbon Conversation event on behalf of our client Cisco, intending to present the findings of a research project, carried out in association with key a influencer target, news site Greenbang.

The venue (The Duke of Cambridge) was chosen because it is an organic pub accredited by the Soil Association and powered by solar and wind energy, and it proved to be the perfect location (the organic London Beer went down very well!).

                                The new home for the UK's leading environmental thinkers

Organising the event, Octopus secured speakers from The Carbon Trust, British Gas and Greenbang, alongside Cisco, each of whom had just five minutes to talk about their area of interest in corporate carbon (following the ignite presentation rules of 20 slides, 15 seconds each, 5 minutes in total).

The event attracted well over our target 25 attendees, including environmental and technology media, prolific sustainability twitterers and bloggers, CSR consultants and executives from companies in the corporate carbon-reduction space. Attendees were secured from our team's Twitter activity, as well as traditional invites, and the event was organised through EventBrite.

In fact, the event was such a success that you should watch this space for a quarterly appearance of The Carbon Conversation.