The question of the impact of human activity on the environment has increasingly become more important all over the world. Each of us clearly sees the changes around him, but how does it look like on a global basis? Many would be surprised to find out that according to the world-wide recognized EPI (Environmental Performance Index) developed in Yale University, Latvia ranks 8th – an extremely high rank and it is only one tenth of a percent down from the 7th rank!

The index takes into account forest and water resources, natural diversity, environmental impact on people and potential for sustainable development. But is it enough? The holding company Latvenergo, one of the most environment-friendly electrical power supply enterprises in Europe that celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, urges not to rest on our laurels and offers a long-term initiative United for Green Future! The aim of this initiative is to make Latvia one of the greenest countries in the world.  

Together We Can Do More

 Within the frames of this initiative Latvenergo has evaluated its activities and proposed the criteria that will help to reach the goals at the enterprise level. Latvenergo believes in the power of united actions and invites every person and every company in Latvia to join the initiative and to take an active part for greener and safer future.

Together we can prove that the actions of all people and companies in the name of the common goal can have a significant effect on improvement and long-term maintenance of environmental quality.

Vote for Green Latvia!

The most important criteria of environmental quality in Latvia have been determined in cooperation with well-known and recognized environmental experts. Since April 15th, everyone can express his/her opinion and vote for five criteria that should be chosen out of ten following:

- efficient use of electric power;
- decrease of thermal energy consumption;
- decline in quantity of waste;
- waste segregation;
- water saving;
- efficient paper consumption;
- use of environment-friendly household chemicals;
- decrease of fuel consumption;
- decline in cars exhaust volume;
- use of environment-friendly food.

The goal of this poll is to find out which environmental criteria are considered to be most actual and important in Latvia. The poll shall be carried out on the project web-site www.zalakairitdienai.lv, and in Latvenergo customer service centres all over Latvia, and it will end on 17th May.
 
Idea of Green Latvia in Everyday Life

The poll will find five criteria that will be acknowledged as the most important for environment improvement in Latvia at present. Realizing them in our everyday life, we will not only have an opportunity to achieve a tangible result in improvement and maintenance of environmental quality, but also to save considerable natural resources and decrease expenses for their use.

In order to facilitate the execution of these criteria, useful and practical advice will be given for each criterion. They will allow everyone to improve the impact on the chosen criteria, to take care of the environment and to make a significant contribution so that Latvia could be a safe and green home for all of us. We will be able to evaluate the result of our actions not only by numbers in a particular time frame, but we will also see them in the research made by Yale University and in the top 2009 of the greenest countries of the world whose publication is planned for the beginning of the year 2010.