The government has today launched a new ranking scheme designed to make it easier for car buyers to find the most environmentally friendly vehicles.

The rankings – which have been compiled alongside What Car? Magazine – are incorporated in an online tool that asks car buyers to input the category, transmission and fuel type of the car they are looking for and then automatically informs them the lowest CO2 emitting models in their class.

The tool, which features on the Department for Transport's Act on CO2 website is the latest initiative in its campaign to reduce car emissions and follows the release of guidelines on how best to drive to enhance fuel efficiency.

Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said that the new ranking system would help driver realise significant cost and emission savings. "By choosing the car with the most fuel efficient engine in its class, drivers could reduce their engine CO2 emissions by 24 per cent and potentially save a quarter on fuel costs," he said. "So the message is simple - the car you choose can help reduce your impact on the environment, and help save money."   

The rankings have been developed based on independent emissions data from the Vehicle Certification Agency - a fact which should reassure customers that the figures are accurate. Manufacturers have faced criticism in recent years that their fuel efficiency claims, particularly for so-called green hybrid engines, have been exaggerated.

An investigation last year from What Car? found that when driven in real world scenarios cars are on average 8 percent thirstier than their manufacturers' claims. The investigation found that the worst performer was the Toyota Prius, which managed 13.7 fewer miles per gallon than Toyota claimed, while eight out of the ten worst performers came from the supermini category of cars, which are meant to boast the best fuel efficiency and lowest CO2 emissions.

Steve Fowler, editor of What Car?, said that the new independent ranking was exactly what environmentally-conscious consumers needed in order to make an "informed choice" when purchasing a car.

"Car buyers are making increasingly difficult choices about the cars they buy and these rankings will help them to include environmental factors when making that vital decision," he said.

Posted by James Murray on July 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sustainability reports are fast becoming the norm for the world's leading brands, according to new research from CSR reporting group the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

The study from the UN-backed advisory group analysed last week's Top 100 Brands list from Business Week and research firm Interbrand and found that 43 of the leading 100 brands issue sustainability reports in line with GRI's best practices.

GRI's research also found that 80 percent of the top 15 brands report on their economic, environmental and social performance using its metrics, while all of the top five brands – Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, General Electric and Nokia – are signed up to GRI's guidelines.

The research also uncovered a correlation between financial performance and sustainability reporting with 64 percent of the top 100 global companies using the GRI Reporting Guidelines for their sustainability reports.

The organisation said that over a 1,000 companies have signed up to report in line with its best practice guidelines over the last five years as more and more firms realise the commercial benefit to be gained from accurate environmental reporting.

"The fact that a competitive advantage can be gained by reporting on relevant risks and opportunities associated with environmental, social, and economic factors related to sustainability is becoming a standard business concept," the group stated. "A company that communicates this kind of information based on its independent framework is one which will be able to assure its stakeholders that it is one step ahead of the rest."

Posted by James Murray on July 31, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

An all party group of MP's has today issued a stark warning to the government that it must significantly strengthen its proposed climate change bill if it is to have any hope of tackling global warming.

The report from the Environmental Audit Committee – Beyond Stern: from the Climate Change Programme Review to the Draft Climate Change Bill – praises the concept behind the bill, arguing that regular carbon emission targets overseen by an independent committee would help focus governments on long- and short-term emission reduction strategies and depoliticise climate change policy.

However, it also heavily criticises the draft bill, claiming that the government targets of a 26 to 32 percent emission reduction by 2020 and a 60 percent reduction by 2050 are "clearly incoherent" with the current scientific consensus on how to mitigate climate change.

EAC chairman Tim Yeo said, "the 2020 and 2050 targets need to be significantly strengthened, in accordance with the latest science of where we need to be to limit global warming to 2oC".

Some scientific reports have argued that a reduction in emissions of 90 percent by 2030 is what is actually required as after temperatures reach two degrees above pre-industrial levels natural emission feed back loops will kick in that will make climate change all but irreversible.

The report further criticises the decision to set a target range for emission cuts, recommending that the goal of a 26 to 32 percent reduction in emissions should be changed to at least 32 percent.

The Committee also calls upon the government to include emissions from international aviation and shipping in the bill and argues that it should limit the extent to which businesses are allowed to buy in carbon credits from other countries to contribute to their emission reductions.

Environmentalists have long argued that allowing businesses to buy such credits provides them with an easy means of hitting emission reduction targets without making significant changes to their own processes.

The report recommends that the government should tackle this problem by adopting a code of practice for reporting UK emissions that clearly distinguishes "between reductions achieved within the UK and reductions funded by the UK but taking place abroad".

Finally, the report calls for greater involvement from the Treasury in developing climate change policy. "The 2006 Climate Change Programme Review successfully involved the joined-up work of officials from several different departments and external bodies," it argues. "But one major failure was the exclusion of fiscal policy, which remained the preserve of the Treasury. In the future, there must be an integrated approach to climate change policy-making, which considers the use of taxes and incentives alongside other measures."

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn defended the bill in its current form, arguing that it is the first of its kind in the world and that the government is committed to tackling emissions from the airline industry by including it in the EU's emissions trading scheme. He added that the 60 percent target was "ambitious by any standard" and that the target would remain "under review in the light of emerging scientific evidence and other developments".

The EAC's recommendations are likely to receive a mixed response from the business community, with the call for much more stringent targets and a clamp down on the market in foreign carbon credits offset by the prospect of improved incentives from the Treasury and greater transparency in the government's climate change plans.

It has also been argued by some experts, such as the Cambridge Programme for Industry's Craig Bennett, that stricter emissions targets now would be preferable to a situation where firms make long-term investments based on emission reduction targets of 32 percent by 2020 or 60 percent by 2050 only to find that these cuts are insufficient and deeper cuts are needed.

Posted by James Murray on July 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the mop up operation from the second wave of "worst floods in living memory" to hit the UK in the last month gets underway, attention is already turning to the economic cost of the inundation experienced by swathes of Yorkshire and Central England.

Recent estimates from credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings claims that the floods will cost £3bn in insurance claims alone, a whopping £1.7bn more than the average annual claims for extreme weather.

Malcolm Tarling of the Association of British Insurers is slightly more upbeat estimating the floods will cost the industry £2bn, however he accepts that it is early days and with many properties still under water claims could continue to rise.

Of course, the true financial cost will be higher still. Many smaller businesses fail to take out insurance for revenue lost as a result of extreme weather, while local councils are still assessing the damage caused to public infrastructure. Meanwhile, on a more mundane level the huge summer sales to be found on the High Street this month are a direct result of the shops trying to get rid of vast amounts of excess stock that has been clogging up their shelves as a result of the miserable summer.

So are these costs a direct result of climate change and if so will business leaders now fully accept that we must urgently mitigate and adapt to global warming or else face economic and humanitarian catastrophe?

The answer, I'm afraid, is less than clear.

Convention dictates that no singular weather event can ever be attributed to climate change. This is technically correct as climate describes a trend, while weather describes a singular event. As climate change sceptics are prone to point out we had summer floods long before we had reports of man made global warming so there is no way of ever saying one flood has been caused by human activity.

This is right and proper, but it is a convention that is on increasingly shaky ground.

As a recent Guardian column from Mark Lawson pointed out, climate change has become the unacknowledged elephant in the news studio, looming over every weather report as forecaster after forecaster refuses to draw a direct link between extreme weather events, such as the latest floods, and global warming.

However, in the meantime scientific reports keep showing that one of the effects of global warming for the UK will be an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events and in particular an increase in rainfall. This is a predicted trend, but what is a trend if not a series of events? If we continue to report on each flood with the caveat that there is no way we can link it with climate change we could soon find ourselves facing life-threatening floods on a bi-annual basis while all the time insisting each individual flood has got nothing to do with carbon emissions.

I'm not suggesting we should start making scientifically inaccurate statements by linking each and every flood with climate change (this type of bad science would only play into the hands of climate change deniers), but the fact that we are experiencing an increased frequency of such events as a result of climate change needs to be expressed more forcefully still by broadcasters, politicians and business leaders.

Growing numbers of businesses are now realising that refusing to acknowledge the reality that climate change will mean more freak events will ultimately do them few favours.

"You have to be careful about drawing a link," accepts Craig Bennett, who works at the Cambridge Programme for Industry and facilitates its Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change. "But we keep seeing [extreme weather] records broken all the time and this is consistent with the latest climate models. Many of the company's in the group would see [these floods] as an indication of what is to come."

He also argues that many of the firms signed up to the Corporate Leaders Group are painfully aware that an increase in the incidence of such floods would bring with them massive economic costs. "Companies in our group like Thames and Anglia Water can lecture you for days on the threat climate change poses to their business in the form of both water scarcity and floods," he observes.

This understanding of the very real costs of climate change is what is driving the Corporate Leaders Group to lobby government to "take bolder steps" to both adapt to the threats posed by climate change and mitigate against the situation worsening by transitioning to a low carbon economy. "There is an understanding [across the group] that no one will be immune to the impacts of climate change and that is why we are calling on the government to take bold  measures," says Bennett.

However, if some environmentally enlightened business leaders accept the recent floods as a clear illustration of the costs of climate change others appear less inclined to do so.

A spokesman for the CBI said that drawing a conclusion about the cause of the floods was "one for the meterologists", before adding that the costs of the floods would be felt more at a local level and were unlikely to "throw the economy off course".

If you listened carefully enough you could almost detect the sound of heads being collectively stuck in the sand. It is true the economy has not been thrown off course this time - although that will be no consolation to the Gloucester Chamber of Commerce - but will that be the case when, as many climate scientists predict is inevitable, winter floods coincide with a high tide and rising sea levels? Or when we start dealing with major floods on an annual or bi-annual basis?

Organisations such as the CBI are still wont to oppose environmental legislation that they feel damages the competitiveness of the UK, which is fair enough, but perhaps it is time for the government to start pointing out that we won't be particularly competitive if we have to mop water from the streets of our major cities once or twice a year.

Almost everyone now accepts that a truly massive programme of climate change adaptation and mitigation is required, but there still seems to be a reluctance amongst many to pay for it.

There is an elegant and simple solution available if the government would only take the opportunity provided by these floods to reverse its opposition to green levies and hypothecated taxation. The Climate Change Bill is still in its draft stage so why not propose a levy on carbon, or simpler still an increase to the Climate Change Levy, where all the revenue raised will be invested in developing a low carbon infrastructure and climate proofing our economy through enhanced flood and drought protection? The ever prudent Mr Brown could even keep everyone onside by cutting corporation and income tax to make the whole thing revenue neutral if he so desired.

Unfortunately, with an election looming it is not going to happen, but those bold business leaders who understand that far more needs to be done to drive the transition to a low carbon economy should be lobbying hard for a system that would ensure those that contribute the most to climate change pay the most to sort it out, while those that cut their emissions enjoy lower costs than their irresponsible rivals.

Meanwhile, businesses that oppose green taxation on the grounds of increased cost should take a quick trip down to Gloucester and get a taste of the future by helping to clean up all the left over sewage.

Posted by James Murray on July 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of all the innovations undertaken in recent years by the IT industry in the name of environmental sustainability perhaps the strangest is the emergence of the world's first bamboo monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Available in the UK from gadget website Playengine, the TFT monitor, keyboard and mouse have all had their traditional plastic casings replaced with bamboo in a move designed to replace plastics that will sit in landfill sites for a millennia or so with a biodegradable alternative that will also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released during the products' manufacturing and lifecycle.

The monitor also claims to meet Energy Star standards, while its internal components are lead free and comply with the EU's safety and hazardous substance directives.

Furthermore, any concerns that the product may contribute to deforestation are unfounded, according to the manufacturers, as Bamboo is in fact a fast growing grass, which will replenish itself rapidly.

Meanwhile, no pandas were harmed in the manufacturing of the products as they are made using the Gramineae monocotyledonous plant - a hard variety of bamboo not eaten by the cuddly, but sadly frigid, creatures.

All of which sounds great for the environmentally-minded desktop user. But is this new take on desktop equipment really a revolutionary development, highlighting how a bit of lateral thinking at a product's design stage can wean us off of environmentally damaging plastics? Or is it just another example of a green product that sounds good in principle but is never going to out-perform its more toxic rivals?

BusinessGreen unplugged its plastic-cased monitor and fired up its new 15" Bamboo monitor review model to find out.

The first thing to note is that the new kit really does look smart. There is undoubtedly something more tactile and easy on the eye about wood than plastic and it is easy to imagine the monitor making an eye-catching addition to executive offices and posh reception desks.

However, closer inspection raises immediate questions about the bamboo-casing's durability. The manual claims that bamboo is tougher than other woods, stronger than steel and has been dried at high temperatures and treated to stop rotting and prevent woodworms and insect infestation. But on our review copy one of the joins on the back has sheared away, probably where the wood has dried and expanded, causing a gap where dust could get into the machine.

Playengine insists durability is not an issue and is currently seeing just one percent returns, on a "very successful" level of sales to consumers.

Once up and running it has to be said the monitor stacks up pretty well compared to my usual plastic-cased model.

The 1,024 x 768 native resolution may not the sharpest and the analogue as opposed to digital connection to the PC is also a step down from my usual monitor, but it is more than sufficient for most office work. Meanwhile a quick mid-afternoon check on the top of the monitor when my old model is usually running so hot you could almost fry an egg on it proves the manufacturer's claims that bamboo is good at disipating heat.

The main flaw is that the height and angle does not adjust as much as most plastic models and for my desk the leads weren't long enough. But it is worth noting that these are design issues rather than a problem inherent to the bamboo material – future models must surely feature more adjustable stands.

So are bamboo monitors a viable option for green-minded firms?

Well they are probably too expensive at the moment for many firms to justify. The 15" version we reviewed is normally priced at £199, while the 17" and 19" models costs £223 and £269 respectively. The mouse and keyboard are admittedly a bit cheaper at £18.99 and £21.99 respectively, but Playengine admits it needs to drive down the manufacturer's prices still further if it is to attract widespread corporate interest.

Concerns about durability, resolution and the difficulties in adjusting the monitor's height also reinforce the impression that bamboo monitors are an interesting novelty for consumers but not yet ready for the corporate market. The current incarnation will doubtless appeal to environmentally-minded and image-savvy corner office residents, but these basic design flaws need to be ironed out if it ever expects to break into the corporate mainstream.

However, the monitor's weaknesses are nothing that a better designed stand, higher-end screen, and more investment in build quality could not overcome. There is growing demand for IT kit that is easy to recycle and dispose of and bamboo casings could well prove a valuable part of the solution to the eWaste problem.

Posted by James Murray on July 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's a fair cop. I'll put my hands up. And I'll never trust another round robin email again – which, if we're honest, is a pretty good life lesson to learn.

Earlier this week, I was singing the praises of Blackle, the version of the Google search engine that employs a black backdrop in a vain attempt to save energy.

I say vain attempt, because on closer inspection it doesn't really work, or at least not with my flat screen monitor.

I know I should have checked this before posting, but in my defence it was the end of a long day, it all sounded very plausible, I didn't have a wattage meter handy and I was late for the pub.

It was alert reader Andy Smale who put me to shame by taking the effort to check out Blackle's claims, only to find that there was "no difference whatsoever in the power consumption between Google or Blackle" for both his monitor and base unit.

I did my own check this morning and he is right. My LCD monitor's power use hovers between 48.2 and 48.4W regardless of whether the screen is blacker than the night or whiter than the driven snow.

Some experts have argued that energy savings of two to three percent can be achieved on LCD monitors by moving to Blackle because extra power is required to activate the crystals in the LCD monitor when displaying white backgrounds. But my experience suggests that even this fractional energy saving could be a bit optimistic.

As a tech savvy colleague - who unfortunately wasn't around when I posted the original story - points out the vast majority of the energy used by LCD screens is consumed by the back light which will stay on regardless of the colour of the screen.

Where Blackle does score however is with CRT monitors. Another colleague's desk-hogging CRT monitor uses 105W when blasting out the Google home page, but its energy use drops to 87W when he switches to Blackle.

However, given CRT monitors are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps Blackle appears to be well intentioned, but ultimately pretty useless.

Screensavers on the other hand, they're definitely worth getting rid of.

Posted by James Murray on July 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (9)

A standard system of labeling showing the carbon emitted during a product's lifecycle moved a step closer this month as the first products featuring the Carbon Trust's new carbon label made their debut on the shelves.

All 13 flavours of Walkers crisps are to carry the label, which shows the quantity of carbon emitted during the product's life and a downward arrow designating the company's commitment to reducing its carbon emissions. Meanwhile, point of sale material showing the carbon footprint of a range of Botanics shampoos will be displayed at over 250 Boots stores.

Euan Murray, carbon footprinting general manager at the Carbon Trust, said that the roll out represented a significant step forward in a pilot scheme that has already attracted interest from more than 150 further companies.

"Having the carbon reduction label in the market enables us to test consumer understanding and refine how this information is communicated," he said. "The carbon footprinting of products and its communication via the label offers companies the opportunity tackle the indirect carbon emissions from products and help consumers understand the climate impacts of the purchasing decisions they make."

The scheme has been subject to some scepticism from scientists who argue that developing a methodology for accurately calculating the embedded carbon found in a wide range of different products will prove extremely difficult.

However, Tamara Sharpe, Botanics Brand Manager at Boots, insisted the experimental labeling scheme had already had a positive impact in helping the company reduce the carbon footprint of its Botanics range by 20 percent since it started to apply the methodology. "We're highlighting this to customers in store and giving them advice to help them reduce their carbon footprint further," she said.

The Carbon Trust said the methodology represented a starting point and it was currently working with DEFRA and the BSI British Standards to develop it into a single standard for measuring embedded carbon. It added that a broad two stage consultation period will now form the next phase of the methodology development.

Posted by James Murray on July 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is easy to criticise the environmental record of multinationals like Microsoft and McDonalds but, argues Lawrence Gosling, that shouldn't stop  us giving credit where it is due

The news that Microsoft has played a part in setting up a charity to recycle up to 400,000 PCs out to Africa is another example of a really practical response by business to the climate change debate.

Microsoft's founder Bill Gates has pledged to give a substantial amount of his personal fortune to tackle the AIDS epidemic, although cynics would say "so he should with his wealth".

Equally McDonalds announced recently that it was looking at reusing the cooking oil from its outlets to fuel its delivery of supplies.

I was sure the news would produce a stream of witty jokes, and it did slightly unnerve me as to what is in the cooking oil, when I heard this. But having taken my children to Maccy D's, as it is affectionately know in my house, I was a lot happier.

What's more, McDonalds is making a great deal of the way it is sourcing its food supplies and has produced an excellent booklet in its restaurants show casing its credentials.

It's not particularly trendy or common place to praise McDonalds or Microsoft, but from where I’m sitting they deserve it.

I've always struggled with the concept that McDonalds is to blame for world obesity or that Microsoft is the only villain in the world of PCs. I'm sure both companies can be rightly criticised for many things, but we seem to have reached a point where we need good guys and bad guys for every debate and these two companies fall into the bad guys category.

As a result when they are doing things which are truly positive, they do not get the credit they are due.

There is no direct bottom line benefit to either company from these moves. Certainly shipping 400,000 PCs out to Africa, and prior to that refurbishing them, and then when they wear out recycling them, will only bring cost to Microsoft.

McDonalds might save a bit of money on fuel as a result of recycling the cooking oil, but it is not going to be enough to make a real impact on its bottom line.

If we are to seriously make an impact on climate change as individuals and individuals within businesses we must embrace philanthropic ideas like this.

It's too easy to ignore the positives and exaggerate the negatives. Putting our heads in the sands is what created the climate change problems in the first place, let’s not repeat that mistake when someone does something positive.

Meanwhile, you can do your bit too with your old IT kit by donating it to www.digitalpipeline.org or www.computeraid.org.

Lawrence Gosling is the editorial director of Incisive Media.

Posted by James Murray on July 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm not usually a big fan of round robin emails, clogging up your in-box with inane trivia, dirty jokes, photos of cute animals, video clips of people falling over, or, worst of all, some guerrilla marketing message from a media company attempting to get down with the kids.

But that said, this dropped into my inbox today and it really is quite clever:

When your screen is white - an empty word page, or the Google page, your computer consumes 74 watts, and when its black it consumes only 59 watts. Mark Ontkush wrote an article about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to his calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved. In a response to this article Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but with a lower energy consumption, check it out.

www.blackle.com

Use this site as your search engine and do your bit for the planet

Plus… no adverts…

It will of course be a miracle if many people go to the hassle of making the screen their home page, the energy savings achieved for LCD screens are miniscule, and with the site actually being operated by an Australian media company, Heap Media, rather than Google itself it lacks the search parameter tabs of the real Google.

But when it comes to energy conservation every little helps and you can't help but admire the lateral thinking.

Posted by James Murray on July 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Despite all the hype green consumers remain a niche market, warns Joel Makower

A new market research study of Americans' green passions and buying habits is out this week, from the venerable Yankelovich. I've just seen a presentation on the findings, and it's at once fascinating and maddening. That is, fascinating if you want a glimpse into Americans' green turn-ons and turn-offs. Maddening if you are trying to figure out how to sell into this unruly market space.

First, the bottom line. "Given consumer attitudes today, green is best characterized as a niche opportunity in the consumer marketplace," says Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich. "It is a strong niche opportunity, but it is not a mainstream interest that is passionately held or strongly felt by the majority of consumers."

Or, perhaps more to the point: "The majority of consumers really don't care all that much about the environment. Green simply doesn't has not captured the public imagination."

Ouch.

After endless months of magazine covers, TV specials, Al Gore, Live Earth, and a gazillion other media stories and events, how can this be? After all the warnings about flooded coastlines, drowning polar bears, more Katrinas, and the increased threat of invasion of everything from infectious insects to rogue superweeds, why aren't people concerned? Has all this fallen on deaf ears?

Says Smith: "The fact is, the amount of media interest given to the environment far exceeds the amount of consumer interest. It's not that consumers aren't aware of the environment, but there's something missing in the way consumers are processing information given to them about the environment today."

Consider: 82 percent of Americans have neither read nor seen Al Gore's book or movie.

That will likely be news to the many environmental activists and professionals I hear from who proclaim that we've reached a "tipping point" or "inflection point" on the environment -- the notion that public sentiment is growing, and will soon lead companies and products to transform their ways of doing business. (This may be the real green business bubble I keep hearing about.)

The problem, explains Smith, is that green marketing realities fly in the face of conventional marketing wisdom. "People don't buy products. They buy solutions to problems," as Ted Levitt, a marketing guru at Harvard Business School, once famously put it. But since most consumers don't see the environment as a problem, green marketers must take an extra step, helping them not just to understand the problem, but to actually care about it.

Some of Yankelovich's findings are sobering, to say the least. For example, 37 percent of consumers feel "highly concerned" about environmental issues, but only 25 percent feel highly knowledgeable about environmental issues. And only 22 percent feel they can make a difference when it comes to the environment.

The Yankelovich study, like many others before it, offers a consumer segmentation model, dividing the marketplace into five groups (in declining order of commitment): Greenthusiasts (13 percent of the U.S. population, or more than 30 million consumers), Greenspeaks (15 percent), Greensteps (25 percent), Greenbits (19 percent) -- and the biggest group, Greenless (29 percent). As with other segmentation models, there is a rich lode of data and psychographics about each.

Yankelovich's segmentations are based both on attitudes and actual behaviors, which sets them apart from most others, which are based only on attitudes. This is where things get interesting. According to the research, green behaviors and attitudes often take divergent paths -- green attitudes don't always predict green behavior, and green behaviors often occur without accompanying attitudes. Example: Greenbits consumers say they are more inclined to pay more than Greenspeaks consumers for green products, but their behavior doesn't sync up -- they buy these products less frequently than the Greenspeak-ers.

All of which presents opportunities for green marketers to change attitudes as well as behaviors, if done so in a targeted fashion. For example, says Smith, if you're trying to change the behaviors of Greenless and Greenbits consumers, increasing their knowledge has nothing to do with it. "It is strictly a matter of making it personally relevant," he says. "This is the group that is most likely to think that the media are making things seem worse than they really are."

Making all of this even more challenging is something Yankelovich calls the Mushiness Index, a device developed by Daniel Yankelovich himself more than a quarter-century ago. It measures the firmness of opinion on a topic -- the degree to which consumers are comfortable and sure about how they think.

When it comes to the environment, opinions are pretty mushy, Yankelovich found. "The vast majority of people don't have very well-articulated views of the environment," says Yankelovich. "They can answer an overnight public opinion poll. But that's not an answer they can necessarily talk about in-depth or understand the costs and consequences about those things. Even something like global warming, where there's been a lot of talk, the distribution of opinion is not very firm."

There's a lot more good stuff here. You can watch a one-hour webinar on the Yankelovich study here (registration required).

The bottom line is that there is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy when it comes to green. That may seem like common sense, but such wisdom seems to elude most marketers, who still insist on pushing out marketing efforts that are variously too vague, too technical, or way too -- well, mushy.

Joel Makower is the founder and executive editor of Greenbiz.com

This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com

Posted by James Murray on July 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to Chad Norman who has been in touch with an interesting little story from the US where it appears the company behind major retail brands Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Work is not taking its environmental responsibilities as seriously as it claims.

Apparently the purveyor of frilly knickers and bath salts has told its retail managers to keep the door to their stores open at all times so that the cold air spilling out onto the steaming hot sidewalk will entice people into the stores – apparently the pictures of Gisele in her smalls are not proving sufficiently attractive to passers-by.

Of course, this energy profligate strategy is made somehow worse by the fact that Limited Brands Inc, the company that owns Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Work, has recently made a big play of its green credentials, investing in new sustainable catalogues and releasing an environmental stewardship document that includes a commitment to "conserve energy and preserve natural resources".

But as Norman points out "they need to know that leaving doors open in summer is wasting energy faster than their new lighting can save it". Moreover, this strategy sends out the signal that the company is putting the opportunity for a fraction more sales above its own environmental commitments.

An open shop door may not seem like the worst environmental sin, but with the problem being global on scale and with retail outlets estimated to use 275 kilowatt hours (kWh) per square metre, almost treble that of commercial offices, it is a major issue. 

It is also a year round problem, as a report in the Sunday Times last year showed, with many retail chains refusing to shut their doors whether they are running air conditioning or heaters.

Of course many chains do shut their doors and their business does not seem to suffer as a result. Which begs the question as to why all retailers cannot follow their lead?

After all, failure to do so is not only costing them money in the form of higher energy bills it is also going to cost them plenty in the form of bad PR as growing numbers of customers, such as Mr Norman, realise that these open doors are the clearest possible signal that a retailers' environmental commitments are only skin deep.

Posted by James Murray on July 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Perhaps HP is going to lead the shift towards thin client computing after all.

Barely 72 hours after I posted suggesting HP's claims that it was hugely committed to promoting green, energy efficient thin client computing looked a bit over-blown the company has gone and splashed out $214m to acquire thin client vendor Neoware. Perhaps the HP exec I had been talking to knew something I didn't.

Either way the deal represents a major addition to HP's growing portfolio of green products. Thin clients [pictured, the Neoware e90] have no moving parts and work by simply providing users with a connection to applications hosted on a server - as such they can use around 90 percent less energy than traditional desktop PCs, require far fewer resources during the production process and pose less of an eWaste problem.

It is no exaggeration to claim that when combined with a well managed datacentre to host end user applications thin clients are greener in every way when compared with traditional PCs.

Through the acquisition of Neoware HP now has a fairly complete thin client portfolio, combining Neoware's Linux-based thin client solutions and software with HP's Microsoft Windows XPe and Windows CE alternatives, as well as its virtualised client solutions, such as blade PCs, blade workstations, virtual desktop.

But what will be interesting to see is how HP balances its now reinforced thin client business with its existing desk top division.

The company was quick to announce that Neoware will be integrated into its Business Desktop Unit and insisted that thin clients represent an important "component" in an overall computing strategy, the implication being that it is an overall strategy that still very much includes PCs.

But the big question for customers, green businesses and not least HP is how big a component do thin clients represent?

Pure play thin client vendors have long maintained that the chunk of the PC market that they could eat in to is far, far larger than the PC vendors ever let on. They argue that confining thin clients to their traditional contact centre stronghold is short-sighted and that there are compelling cost, security, maintenance and environmental reasons for having virtually every knowledge worker - and that's most of us these days – using thin clients.

It will be a huge test of HP's new green credentials to see if it continues with Neoware's aggressive evangelising of thin client technology.

Will HP now tell all its major corporate accounts which are unnecessarily running over weight fat clients that the next time they want to refresh their PCs they should instead move to thin clients, as Neoware would surely have done, or will thin clients be forced to play second fiddle to the much larger desktop business?

If it goes with the former option and eulogises the benefits of thin clients regardless of the in-roads the technology may make into its PC business then we might just be seeing a major step in an industry-wide shift towards thin client computing that would almost certainly spark further consolidation in the market and may even mark the beginning of the end for increasingly environmentally unsustainable desktop PCs.

Alternatively, if it goes with the later option, ignores the growing maturity of software-as-a-service applications and continues to push PCs as the default solution for firms' desktop computing requirements then we will all know that HP is not as serious about the environment as it says it is.

Posted by James Murray on July 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The fledgling carbon offsetting industry received a major boost today after an influential group of MP's concluded the sector could play a "useful role" in reducing carbon emissions and urged the government to modify its proposed offsetting standard to ensure that a wider number of projects can attain the accreditation.

The report from the Environmental Audit Committee accepted that some offset projects remain "less than robust" and that greater regulation was required. But it also concluded that offset schemes were a valid mechanism for tackling climate change and that "encouragement and assistance must be given to individuals, organisations and companies to offset".

Moreover, the report supported calls from many of the UK's leading offset providers for the government to relax the criteria offset projects will have to meet to attain its proposed offsetting gold standard.

The first draft of the Defra standard, released earlier this year, proposed that only certified emission reductions (CERs) achieved through projects included in international carbon emission reduction programmes such as the UN's Clean Development Mechanism could attain the government's gold label.

However, at the time the standard was released only four offset providers met the criteria and many within the industry claimed that such stringent entry requirements meant that scientifically-legitimate verified or voluntary emission reductions generated through projects that are too small to gain UN accreditation would be unfairly excluded from attaining the standard.

The Environmental Audit Committee endorsed this line of argument arguing that Defra's code of practice could undermine legitimate projects and "seriously affect the growth of the Verified Emissions Reduction market".

The report also gave succour to forestry-based offset projects, many of which have been criticised by environmentalists for failing to deliver verifiable emission reductions. "It would be entirely wrong to consider this part of the market as either a cheap or a disreputable one," the report concluded. "Some of the most rigorous and environmentally beneficial of all projects come from the stewardship of tropical forests and the well-judged re-forestation or afforestation of land in the tropics."

The only section of the offset industry to face serious criticism from the committee was the airline sector, which it claimed had a "generally unsatisfactory attitude towards offsetting" and had an obligation to improve its various offsetting schemes.

The report provides a major fillip to offset providers who were last week left reeling by a major investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme which uncovered a series of offset projects that were not delivering advertised emission reductions and failed to pass the "additionality" tests that prove investment from offset providers is essential for the project to succeed.

But the Environmental Audit Committee insists such dubious projects are the exception rather than the rule and argues offsetting can provide "a vital component of commercial activity and corporate responsibility" as we transition towards a low carbon economy.

Environmentalists, however, criticised the committee's stance claiming it was guilty of overstating the benefits that can be accrued from offsetting. Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Mary Taylor insisted that there were still doubts over the benefits from many offset schemes, adding that they could also undermine businesses' commitment to making real reductions in their own carbon emissions. "We cannot afford to be distracted by measures that at best only have a small role to play in providing the solutions to global warming," she warned.

But the MPs' report countered the view that offset schemes could displace other emission reduction investments, arguing that there is little evidence to suggest buying offsets hampers individuals' other emission reduction efforts and suggesting that further research is required before concrete conclusions on any link are reached.

Posted by James Murray on July 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let battle commence.

Boris Johnson, the Tory MP that tabloid convention dictates we introduce as gaffe-prone, this month confirmed he is seeking to stand against Mayor Ken in next year's elections.

As incumbent, Ken Livingstone remains favourite to cling onto his post, but the instantly recognisable blonde bombshell from Henley is set to give him his sternest challenge yet and some bookies have Boris at 2/1 to replace Mayor Ken.

The prospect of a serious election campaign and the possibility of a new mayor will have London's green business leaders looking on with close interest.

Over the past few years Mayor Ken's stated desire to make London the greenest city in the world has been backed up by a raft of environmental initiatives, including a massive investment in buses, major sustainability advertising campaigns, new green advisory services, and of course the congestion charge. He has made the environment central to many of his policies and London's businesses are prepared for such initiatives to continue.

But what would become of Ken's grand green plans in the event of a Boris victory? Would London to continue on the path to sustainability or would Boris' mayoral priorities lie elsewhere. Besides a cast iron guarantee of bumblingly offensive remarks followed by hastily-constructed and less-than-contrite apologies would Mayor Johnson also continue, or indeed accelerate, London's green revolution?

On the face of it the prospects look pretty good.

Like many of Cameron's Tories Johnson's interest in the environment appears to be a relatively recent development, but he has whole-heartedly embraced his leader's new found love for all things green.

In one of his recent Telegraph columns, Johnson described himself as "a voortrekker of the Cameron movement", who breathes "the spirit of the solar-powered, bike-riding, glacier-friendly modernising tendency of which I am proud to be a part".

He may moonlight as a motoring journalist, but Boris' helmetless blonde bob is also regularly spotted whizzing to and from Westminster on his bike, and he has wedded himself too a number of green causes in recent years. He has been a vocal advocate of protecting the green belt from urban encroachment, he has been a strong supporter of nuclear energy, claiming it would reduce carbon emissions (though as Mayor Ken has pointed out he did not actually bother to attend Commons votes on nuclear power last year), and he recently took the government to task for suggesting it might ban the G-Wiz electric car on safety grounds.

In a heartfelt column Johnson lambasted the government and praised the G-Wiz to the heavens, insisting it was "the cleanest, greenest, sweetest four-wheeled self-propelled invention to hit the London streets since the first horseless carriage arrived at the end of the 19th century", and imploring the government to let the consumer decide if the car is safe enough for them on the grounds "you have only to take one look at the plucky little G-Wiz to see that is no less (and no more) dangerous than a bicycle".

However, if both Ken and Boris are likely to agree that reducing London's carbon emissions are critical to its future their mechanisms for achieving those reductions are likely to be as different as their political backgrounds.

He may be adept at playing the modern media game but Boris is a proper old school libertarian Tory. He believes fiercely in small government, low taxes and even lower levels of regulation, and even planetary crisis will not get him to change his ways. The reason Boris loves the G-Wiz so is because it is a prime example of how the market can drive the innovation required to deliver the low carbon economy. As he observes the car is "as green, and as hopeful for the future of capitalism, as a dollar bill".

As a result any green schemes from Mayor Boris are bound to be big on individual responsibility, innovation and perhaps even incentives, but extremely low on the kind of regulation and government intervention that Johnson regards as the worst kind of "nannying".

It is hard to imagine Boris dismantling the congestion charge, but equally this great libertarian is hardly likely to extend the scheme and force people who want to drive out of their cars. Similarly a mayor as laissez faire as Boris would balk at the prospect of more environmental fines and legislation, while his commitment to low taxes and small budgets may mean some of Ken's green quangos and task forces are scaled back.

In their stead Johnson would be likely to campaign heavily for investment in green technologies and for each individual to take responsibility to do their bit. It would be a pretty attractive message for those many businesses and voters who survey after survey show want to be green but don't want to face up to the regulations and costs that may be required to reduce their carbon footprints.

In contrast Ken will paint himself as the serious incumbent, experienced in the day-to-day management of this global city and willing to take the tough decisions on the environment, and other issues, that he feels are necessary for London's future. His investment in public transport and green initiatives will continue, as will Livingstone's desire to roll out more green legislation as he looks to reduce emissions by the fastest means possible.

Together Johnson and Livingstone embody the two opposing theories on how best to de-carbonise the economy and it will be enthralling to see which world view wins out in the end. Either way it promises to be the first major UK election where the environmental will sit centre stage and as such it promises to be one of the most important, entertaining and eventful political contests in over a decade.

Posted by James Murray on July 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

HP last week revealed it is ahead of schedule to achieve its target of reducing carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2010 with progress to improve the company's environmental sustainability being made across all its business units.

Speaking at a roundtable event, HP's managing director for UK and Ireland Steve Gill said that the company's most recent measurements showed it was "ahead of the game" to hit its emission reduction target of a 20 percent cut on 2005 levels by 2010.

Gill and his executive team also argued that the emission reductions were being achieved right across the company's operations, supply chain and product portfolio and that the progress made in the UK was representative of HP's reforms worldwide. "We have manufacturing, operations, sales and R&D all in the UK and Ireland so it provides a good microcosm of HP's operations globally," explained Gill.

Central to HP's emission reduction strategy, argued Gill, has been its plan to slash the number of datacentres it operates globally from 87 to six, which aims to reduce from from four to two percent of revenue the amount HP spends on IT; improve service levels; and build in environmental best practices that will deliver improvements of up to 40 percent in energy efficiency.

"Our IT challenges mimic those of our customers, so [a consolidation project of this scale] helps prove that a large company can do it," he added.

The datacentre consolidation programme has also provided HP with the perfect large-scale case study for its own power saving consultancy services and technologies, ranging from energy efficient systems, such as its recently launched C-class blade servers, to smart dynamic cooling infrastructure that the company claims can be targeted so precisely that cooling levels can be adjusted to meet the demands of individual applications.

Outside the datacentre the company insisted similar reforms were being undertaken to reduce the firm's carbon emissions. Kirsty McIntyre, HP's takeback compliance manager for the UK and Ireland, said that the company had achieved a significant reduction in emissions by changing the power management settings on all its employee's desktops and laptops at the start of the year, and had cut its footprint further following the recent consolidation of its Reading and Bracknell offices.

Meanwhile, Gill said that internal use of HP's Halo telepresence system had led to a reduction in corporate travel, slashing the number of flights taken in association with one project by half and resulting in the project reaching completion four months early.

However, perhaps the most significant reductions in carbon emissions delivered as a result of HP's new green drive have been achieved through the company's commitment to cutting the carbon footprint of its supply chain. As Gill explained 90 percent of HP's overall carbon footprint is generated not by the company itself but by its supply chain partners and as a result slashing its own emissions by 20 percent, while welcome, could soon be negated by any worsening in the performance of its partners.

As a result, Gill said the company was talking to all its major suppliers about them improving their environmental footprint and was issuing them with advice on green business best practices and how such investments can save them money.

Furthermore, the company has set itself a target of auditing the environmental and social impact of all "high risk" product materials, component and manufacturing suppliers' sites by the end of 2007. Gill added that HP was also ultimately willing to use its $52 billion worth of purchasing power to apply a bit of pressure on suppliers to meet its new supply chain standards, although he added that with so many firms now committed to improving their environmental sustainability "the conversation doesn’t often go that way".

Of course, it is excessive to suggest that in a few short months HP has miraculously transformed itself into a beacon of environmental sustainability.

During the roundtable each department head was asked to outline their environmental work over the last few months and while the talk of streamlined take back schemes, new green data centre services and workplace reforms were impressive other departments had less to bring to the table.

The imaging and printing group's new technology for ensuring retail branches can print out their own promotional material may take a few delivery vans off the roads, but it is hardly going to lead to a massive reduction in carbon emissions and it would have been better to hear a more convincing commitment to reducing paper consumption.

Similarly, the prediction from one HP exec that the company is likely to lead the industry in the shift towards low energy thin client devices would sound more plausible if HP was not a) the world's biggest PC vendor and b) coming off the back of an advertising campaign that proclaimed that "the computer is personal again", surely the antithesis of the whole thin client computing philosophy.

Equally it would be good to know exactly how heavily HP is leaning on its supply chain. Competitive necessity means vendors always keep details about their relationships with suppliers close to their chest, but it would be good to see greater disclosure about precisely how the company is imposing environmental best practices across the supply chain.

But those reservations aside, the scale of HP's green business ambition and the level of senior executive buy-in remains impressive, and the progress being made appears both genuine and gratifyingly speedy.

Several years ago a former colleague of mine attended an HP event in an airport hotel somewhere in Europe where the company outlined its somewhat ill-fated Adaptive Enterprise strategy. It all had something to do with "flexibility" and "responsiveness" and "adaptability" and other such buzz words, and after several sessions of listening to marketing fluff my former colleague approached an exec in HP's printing division who had just delivered a presentation on printing and the "Adaptive Enterprise".

"What," he asked, "has the Adaptive Enterprise got to do with printing?"

In a disarmingly candid response the exec admitted he wasn't exactly sure, he'd been told the Adaptive Enterprise message had to be tied into every presentation, and he'd crow-barred it in as he'd been told.

It was an exchange that seemed to embody the lack of clarity and direction behind HP's messaging and indeed Carly Fiorina's stint as HP top dog.

This little vignette came to mind as the various HP execs last week expounded on their green initiatives in a manner that could not be more different from HP's briefings just a few short years ago. Each exec spoke with a clear sense of urgency, commitment and clarity creating the impression that HP's green transformation is a big, serious, coherent project with high level support and corporate-wide buy-in – something the ephemeral Adaptive Enterprise strategy never really achieved.

HP's green progress may remain somewhat uneven and the company may be at the beginning of a very, very long journey, but overall the vendor so frequently joked of as the firm that would market sushi as cold dead fish is doing a pretty good job of getting its green message across.

Posted by James Murray on July 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Dinsdale of printer giant Brother explains how the company is preparing for a paperless future

BusinessGreen: How would you summarise Brother's environmental policy?
Mike Dinsdale: It would be crazy as a business that intends to have a future not to be addressing environmental issues. We also feel that as a Japanese company environmental sustainability is hardwired into our culture. We decided as early as 1992 to green the organisation and we are still working on it because it is a continuous process, but we feel we are making good process.

How do you marry this environmental responsibility with the fact that IT, and printers in particular, retain a large energy and environmental footprint?
The reason for the slowness of the progress has been technology-based and due to the fact energy has just not been an issue for customers until very recently. However, we have supported a range of energy efficiency standards, including TCO99, Energy Star and Blue Angel, and have strived to improve our technology over time. While we have some way to go we are confident we are approaching a big breakthrough - we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Can you give more details about this breakthrough?
In 2005 Brother debuted a new line or long head ink jet printer prototype that produced 6x4inch colour photos, boasting 600dpi resolution at a rate of 170 pages a minute, and all with power consumption of 13.5w/h. That contrasts with current ink jet models that print 20 pages per minute at a lower res while using up to 40w/h or a colour laser printer that can use 600w/h. We've been working on commercialising the product, codenamed Project Cobra, and in January we announced that we would have the product available within two years.

How have you cut energy consumption in this product?
The fact is we have done the best we can in terms of current printer technologies' energy efficiency. We might be able to cut laser printers' energy use by 10 percent or so, but laser is by definition an energy hungry technology. If you are going to deliver real energy efficiency it has to come from ink jet and the trick is to make the print head long enough so it doesn’t have to move and the motor is taken out.

How long does the print head have to be?
The prototype we developed was 4.25inches, but the heads can be stacked together so in theory we could apply the same technology to larger paper sizes. If we produced a product for the office using the long head technology it would use about 60w/h. That would be 10 percent of the energy used by the typical laser printer.

When it comes to printers isn't energy consumption just half the story? Surely paper use means they are inherently damaging to the environment?
I'd totally agree. The paperless office is our goal. Currently the aim is to move to a paper-lite office, but ultimately we have to accept paper use could be challenged. There has been some research that found that if the population of China reaches the same standards of living as the developed economies then there aren't enough trees in the world to meet global paper demand. Something will need to be done.

So what can be done to reduce paper consumption?
Well, we have to accept we won't totally eliminate paper. Where it represents a legal instrument like a contract you can’t get rid of it, but where paper is used as work in progress we have to look at alternatives.

Isn't that something of an anathema to a printer manufacturer? Your business will have to change significantly.
We already have lots of paper eliminating technologies, such as scan to PDF and scan to email functionality that allows you to turn paper documents into electronic versions. But beyond that we have to accept paper will become more precious and we may have to move on [as a company].We are throwing a huge amount of money into research and the vast majority of it isn’t going into conventional printer technologies, but into new systems [that can replace paper printers]. We're looking at the idea of the paperless printer using reusable "paper" and we're also doing a lot of research into completely new systems, such as electronic paper and wearable displays where you could fit a display into your spectacles.

So how close are we towards realising the paperless office?
Internally we argue a lot about the timeline. It could take 15 years it could take seven. But we have got a lot of interesting developments in this area in the pipeline.

About Mike Dinsdale

Mike Dinsdale is communications director for Brother in the UK and is also responsible for the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda.

He joined Brother in 1974 to repair calculators and moved through various departments before founding Brother UK's service and call centre facilities. He was appointed marketing director in 2003 and became communications director in 2005.

Posted by James Murray on July 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

IT may not be in the sights of environmental protestors just yet, but with emissions rising IT departments can't expect to avoid their ire for much longer. Amy Sims argues that a new green IT leadership board could help IT chiefs lead their firms' green transformation.

The airline industry, car owners, and big business are all commonly blamed for causing climate change. But you don't see many scathing headlines about the IT sector killing off the polar bears, or protestors gathered outside a business demanding that they cool their data centres more efficiently.

IT-related emissions have for the most part evaded the spotlight, although they now account for a significant percentage of global carbon emissions with estimates generally ranging from two to three percent, hovering very closely to those of the climate change poster child, aviation.

At Global Action Plan we work with businesses every day to help them lighten their environmental impact and save money, and we’ve noticed an increasing need for guidance with IT systems and operations. Many IT departments never even see the company energy bill and are unaware of the level of emissions their data centres and office equipment are churning out.

To help support businesses in this area we are leading the UK’s first end user green IT board which will be supported by our newly appointed green IT manager.

Chaired by our director Trewin Restorick and sponsored by Logicalis, the Environmental IT Leadership Team aims to create an independent expert user group focused on exploring and publishing best practice sustainable IT strategies. While there have been other groups driven from the manufacturer side, this is the first from user perspective.

An interesting mix of organisations and businesses sit on the board, including Sony UK, the British Medical Association, E.ON UK, Lloyds TSB, CQS, the University of Cumbria and John Lewis Partnership. This variety illustrates just how pervasive and important IT is today in reducing carbon emissions.

The board will act to share knowledge within the group and wider business community and will look at policy issues, engage with government, and particularly examine ways to overcome some seemingly contradictory policy such as storing data for long periods of time whilst keeping energy use down.

Many companies are bombarded with information and confused about what is best solution for them. This board will help with independent analysis, breaking down techy and political jargon to give clear advice on best practice.

Acting almost like a select committee the board will have the opportunity to question political, industry, technology, and expert guests at its meetings.

One of the first aims for the group is to steer a research project that will be conducted by Global Action Plan. This report will be launched at an event at the House of Commons in the autumn with the backing of Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

This research will contain two main parts: 1) Establishing the carbon footprint of IT in the UK from equipment and the energy consumed, including indirect footprint of using equipment such as the air conditioning needed to keep it cool. 2) A survey of how companies are approaching greening their IT and where they are at the moment in this process. For example, do they have a 'switch off' policy at night? Are they experiencing rapid growth in their data storage?

While there is much to be done to improve the efficiency of IT, it is important to stress how technology can greatly help businesses reduce their emissions. At GAP we've seen many businesses benefit from so-called 'intelligent building' features such as motion detection powered lighting, grey water collection systems, and smart thermostats that keep buildings at a comfortable but energy efficient temperature. Not to mention video and phone conferencing reducing the need for business travel.

But most important is the behaviour of the people in the businesses who are using all this technology. A business can have the most efficient technology around, but if the employees don't use it in a sustainable way its efficiency is greatly reduced. At GAP we know every employee can make a difference by taking simple actions such as switching off their monitors when away from their desks, turning off computers at the end of the day, and only printing documents when absolutely necessary.

Stay tuned for further developments on the IT leadership board and Global Action Plan's upcoming green IT research.

Amy Sims is Communications Manager at environmental charity Global Action Plan

Posted by James Murray on July 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do small donations to green charities really make a difference?  It's a case of yes and no, argues Lawrence Gosling

I obviously look like a man who wants to save the planet. On the way from the tube station to the office to write this column I was stopped FOUR times by chuggers – the charity 'muggers' – who try and get you to sign for regular donations.

Today's chuggers – no where near as annoying as the 'fuggers', the free newspaper muggers who accost you in the afternoons – were representing Friends of the Earth.

I felt some kind of sense of satisfaction that I stopped four times in what must be about 500 metres – then I realised it wasn't because I had a green halo over my head – it was the suit and brief case, they obviously thought I had some money.

Then I realised I was the same kind of person HSBC is after by offering a £5 donation to a green charity if I open or move my back account to them – but only for a limited period.

I'm also the same kind of person Barclaycard are after to take out a 'Breathe' credit card with them and see 50% of their profits donated to Pure, the carbon charity.

I certainly use my credit card, and I have a bank account but I'm not sure I'd move it for a £5 donation to anyone.

I'm sure marketers would tell me that these kind of 'green' initiatives do appeal to consumers – but on what level.

I don't seriously think a donation for opening a bank account or half the profit from my credit card each year is going to save the planet. Do the product providers?

I guess they don't and there are two ways at looking at it. They are either being cynical and exploiting the current debate or they have recognised a need for the individual to want to do something and they are offering them an option.

Because the weather's improved, I'll be charitable and take the latter view. But are we really going to save the planet by doing things like this?

There is a debate to be had about whether being 'green' is a lifestyle decision or a product or a hybrid of the both, but that's for a future column.

Can you save the planet by signing up for a direct debit to Friends of the Earth – no you can't. But like turning off you PC when you go home from work or turning off the standby button on your TV at bedtime – it's something. And lots of little 'somethings' are going to make the difference.

PS – I didn't sign up for Friends of the Earth. Nothing personal, I make my charitable donations to the British Heart Foundation, but that's another story

Lawrence Gosling is the group editorial director of Incisive Media

Posted by James Murray on July 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many of the world's largest companies are ignoring the risks to their business posed by global warming, instead preferring to regard climate change as a major business opportunity.

That is the finding of a major report released yesterday by auditing giant KPMG and UN-backed sustainable reporting group the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which looked at 50 large global companies' annual sustainability reports and found that their focus on climate change was almost universally optimistic.

Entitled Reporting the Business Implications of Climate Change in Sustainability Reports, the survey found that nine out of ten companies included climate change issues in their reports, but only 20 percent reported on any risk to their business posed by global warming.

Where they did assess risks associated with the changing climate companies focused on increased energy prices, while other climate change risks - such as tighter environmental regulation, higher insurance costs, potential class action law suits, and the increased risk of weather damage, and political and economic instability - were almost completely ignored.

Professor George Molenkamp, chair of KPMG's Global Sustainability Services, said companies were guilty of sticking their head in the sand. "The findings are very surprising," he admitted. "When you think of climate change you think of business risks. If you take just one sector, like food production, their whole business is seriously threatened by climate change and yet it is often not evident in their corporate reports. This pattern is repeated across many different sectors - they are either choosing not to mention it or are just not aware of the risks."

Molenkamp predicted that firms would come under growing pressure to face up to these risks. "Over time more and more of these risks will be disclosed," he said. "Investors have a lot of interest in these issues and companies need to be clear with them about the scale of the risks they now face."

However, while firms may be guilty of ignoring the risks posed by climate change the report also revealed that growing numbers of businesses are committed to reducing their carbon emissions and seeking out climate change-related business opportunities.

The survey found that the majority of firms reported a greenhouse gas emission reduction target and nearly half included a statement from their CEO or chairman highlighting how seriously they take climate change. Moreover, two thirds of those surveyed reported on commercial opportunities related to climate change that they had identified, while nearly half disclosed their involvement in emissions trading schemes.

This optimism may of contribute to many firms' refusal to face up to the risks associated with climate change, but Molenkamp insisted the upbeat reports were on balance an encouraging development. "Business leaders, by definition, have to have a positive outlook on the world," he said, "and the fact that so many see climate change as an opportunity is encouraging, as without major business support the problems posed by climate change will not be solved."

Posted by James Murray on July 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Solar power has made solid progress over the last few decades, argues Daniel Kammen, but now the time has come to scale up and monetise the technology

Solar photovolaics (PV) have undergone a remarkable evolution, really a transformation, since the beginning of the industry in the 1960s. Initially solar was so expensive -- well over $100 per kilowatt hour -- that only super-high value or remote applications, such as satellite and spacecraft missions, could be justified.

Following the OPEC embargoes of the 1970s, a wave of investment took place in the industry that, while brief, helped to bring a number of largely silicon-based technologies to niche markets. Since then scientific and materials engineering progress in the solar field has been steady, with an evolution away from silicon as the only material, to a truly exciting and promising range of plastic, thin film, nano-based, and organic cells.

While the potential for solar has long been touted as a clean, no-carbon (in the use phase) and very low carbon (including manufacture) technology, just how to implement solar has been an issue. Initial technological breakthroughs and manufacturing techniques had energy analysts planning large-scale "solar fields" to replace fossil fuel power plants.

One such test-bed, the aptly named Photovoltaics for Utility-Scale Applications (PVUSA) built in the 1980s in South Davis, California, took the utility-based plan literally with a then-huge 1 MW field of photovoltaic solar panels. The large-scale, slightly remote PV plan gave way during the late 1990s and the last few years to a far more distributed model of rooftop (both commercial and residential) that has seen sales growth of over 20 percent per year for the last decade and a half, with global production growing by close to 50 percent each of the last two years. Total production in 2006 was over 2000 MW, with installed, unsubsidized costs, now coming close to 20 cents/kWh in the best applications.

This has been remarkable progress, but from such a small base, skeptics note that it will take decades for solar to become a major contributor, and during that time we may be well on the way to irreparably altering the climate system.

What can be done to dramatically accelerate -- or at the very least evaluate the potential for -- a true evolution/revolution in solar energy?

First, it is important to note that several very different models have emerged that have all put large amounts of solar into commercial service. Germany instituted a very generous feed-in tariff that guaranteed early installers a fixed income for the long-term (typically 20 year) solar contracts.

California, the third-largest market for solar on Earth, has over 30,000 home and small-business systems installed, and in 2006 put in place a 10-year, $3.3 billion program termed "Million Solar Roofs" that should add a whopping 4,000-10,000 MW of solar over the coming decade.

Kenya, not a place that comes readily to mind as a PV leader is, in fact, just that. With roughly 30,000 small (truly small, 20-100 watts, not kilowatts, per household) systems sold per year, has the world's highest household solar ownership rate.

These programs are all promising, and so far successful. A tremendously compelling case, and one often cited by less often studied, however, is that of the Sunshine solar energy program in Japan. Over the course of almost two decades, starting in the late 1980s, Japan developed and then implemented a remarkably coordinated, well-designed solar development and dissemination effort.

As can be seen in the diagram showing Japanese national investment in solar energy research, a steady build-up in solar energy research and development (green and yellow) was then partnered with a more rapidly expanding deployment and dissemination effort that focused on consumer and utility education, trial and test home, business, and industry locations (blue), products and services. This sort of staying power and coordination of both the so-called "technology push" (R&D) and "demand pull" (commercialization) efforts is truly a rare thing of beauty in the world of technology policy.

The Sunshine program is not just pretty on paper, it really worked. During the program annual PV installations grew to over 300 MW of solar/year, and the rate of cost decreases grew to almost 10 percent year.

This is compared to the best rate seen in California to date, at about half of that: a 5 percent rate of cost declines per year. This level of cost improvement is very significant, and took place at the same time that Japanese research laboratories made a succession of scientific and engineering advances.

What is needed next, of course, is replication and scale-up. Programs like the Sunshine effort, or more broadly the efforts of the 'big three' of Japan, Germany, and California, need to be developed, and put in place for the long haul in a far larger range of countries, states, and municipalities.

Second, the lessons of these efforts, in terms of technological leadership, job creation, and climate protection -- need to be well-documented and widely known.

Third, and in many ways the least easy to do, the real benefits of solar need to be monetized. Local solar installations reduce the need for investments in new power plants, and -- critically -- lessen the likely peak power demand on crisis days.

Solar also reduced demand on the transmission and distribution system, and puts emission-free power near people, thus directly benefiting urban air quality and health.

Daniel M. Kammen is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-directs the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and is founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. He has appointments in the Energy and Resources Group and the Goldman School of Public Policy.

This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com

Posted by James Murray on July 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just months after screening one of the most scientifically dubious anti-environmental screeds in its history in the form of The Great Global Warming Swindle, Channel 4's Dispatches documentary series went some way towards repairing its reputation with environmentalists with an intelligent, urgent and timely investigation into carbon offsetting.

Channel 4 News Science Correspondent Tom Clarke uncovered few new concerns with his documentary The Great Green Smokescreen, but he eloquently highlighted the sheer scale of the problems currently afflicting the burgeoning carbon offset industry and the publicity risks currently being run by those firms using carbon credits to supposedly limit their environmental impact.

First to fall victim to Clarke's investigation was oil giant BP, which credited a methane capture project at a Mexican pig farm with delivering enough carbon credits to offset the annual emissions from 750,000 cars in the UK - as Clarke observed "these are very special pigs".

However, as it turned out they weren't that special after all with Clarke revealing that the project was only delivering enough savings to offset 2,500 cars. BP quickly removed the claim from its website.

Though BP was not alone in its embarassment with Clarke visiting a range of carbon offset firms and projects that sounded great in principle, but which revealed on closer inspection that they were singularly failing to live up to their bold claims.

All the usual suspects were present and correct in Clarke's investigation: the impossibility of guaranteeing that trees planted now will last the 80 years needed to justify offset calculations; the lack of scientific consensus over how best to calculate emissions from air travel and the subsequent huge difference in the cost of offsetting flights through different offset firms; the concern over the lack of a clear definition for the term "carbon neutral"; and the fear that offsetting will allow firms to ignore the need to invest in reducing their carbon footprint.

However, a special kicking was reserved for the lack of "additionality" displayed by some carbon offset projects, with two initiatives backed by The CarbonNeutral Company coming under the microscope and found to be seriously wanting.

Clarke visited a tree planting project in the UK and a hydro electric plant in Bulgaria, which were selling offset credits to The CarbonNeutral Company. However, representatives of both projects openly admitted that the investment from the offset firm was not essential to the project's success, raising the question that if the project was going to happen anyway how could it justifiably be used to offset the carbon emissions of The CarbonNeutral Company's customers.

In a knock about sequence that conjured up the image of panicking PR execs running around like characters in a French farce desperately trying to undo the damage done by one off-message spokesman, the Bulgarian energy company contacted Clarke to insist that there had been a terrible misunderstanding and that the offset money was absolutely essential - not simply a nice bonus. But a quick call to the bank that funded the plant confirmed it would indeed have gone ahead without the offset firm's involvement - the project's "additonality" appeared to be non-existent and Clarke had got the confirmation from the horse's mouth.

The Carbon Neutral Company's response to the investigation was informative only in so much as it offered a perfect example of how not to deal with pesky investigative journalists.

In a written statement (first rule of damage limitation: put forward a spokesman, written statements make you look like the evil face of big business that the reporter is invariably painting you out to be. The Carbon Neutral Company's arch rival, ClimateCare, wheeled out its founder, Mike Mason, to talk to Clarke and while the company faces many similar challenges it came out of the documentary looking a lot better), The CarbonNeutral Company said: "We work with 150 projects and demonstrate through independent monitoring and verification that they reduce greenhouse gasses now and will continue to do so into the future".

This of course begs the observation that if one reporter armed with nothing more than a film crew can talk to your own partners and uncover that several of your projects are seriously flawed and not really providing any additional reduction in carbon emissions then perhaps your "independent monitoring and verification" procedures need some work.

What Clarke's film clearly displays is an industry that needs to take some serious steps to restore its credibility – and fast.

As such the government's proposed quality standards can not come soon enough and the offsetting firms should realise they are better off accelerating the introduction of this kitemark rather than quibbling over the details. Strict standards may indeed force one or two operators out of business, but without them the whole industry is going to go up in smoke as firms realise there is no point paying to be carbon neutral if their customers believe the bulk of offset projects are fatally flawed.

Meanwhile, any firm using an offset provider needs to urgently crank up the intensity of their auditing processes, or risk being named and shamed by the next TV documentary crew.

Done correctly offsetting may well have a positive role to play in the future, particularly in countering the effects of still-essential corporate air travel, but businesses buying offsets have to be sure they are getting what they pay for and that means detailed independent verification of offset project's effectiveness. It may drive up the cost of offsetting, but if you are serious about limiting your carbon emissions then it is a price worth paying.

The only reason Clarke was able to make his film was because businesses have been guilty of failing to adequately investigate the credibility of their offset suppliers' projects themselves. So, as high profile offsetters such as BP, Sky and HSBC, assess the damage done by last night's TV they should perhaps avoid cursing Clarke's name and instead consider offering him a job.

Posted by James Murray on July 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The widespread roll out of so-called smart energy meters capable of providing detailed real time information on energy use moved a step closer last week following the launch of a major trial of the technology.

Through the pilot scheme 40,000 households are to receive either state of the art smart meters or simpler electronic display devices with the government investing £10m in the initiative and energy firms EDF, E.ON, Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Power investing a further £10m.

Many large businesses have had smart meters for some time, but it is hoped that the pilot represents the first phase in a wider roll out of the technology in homes and smaller businesses. Under government targets smart meters are to be installed in all households within ten years and to all but the smallest businesses within five years.

Experts said the aim of the trial was to investigate the scale of the impact smart meters have on energy use and also explore whether it will be more effective to roll out intelligent smart meters capable of sending information back to the energy supplier - which should eradicate the need to estimated bills, allow utilities to provide better energy efficiency advice, and provide energy usage data to customers through their TVs or over the internet - or simpler real time display units that are clipped on to existing meters and make it easier for people to work out how much power they are using and what it costs.

Business and Enterprise Secretary John Hutton said that the results of the trial "will provide invaluable evidence to support the future rollout of displays and smart meters".

However, Nikki Bowles of the Energy Retail Association said that it was already a "no brainer" that sophisticated smart meters would prove more effective at reducing carbon emissions. "Our metering system is very outdated and there is a real need for smart meters," she said. "All the evidence suggests that these more intelligent systems have a genuine impact on carbon emissions. If we go with electronic display devices that are not sending information back to suppliers then estimated bills will continue and users won’t be able to get the same quality of information."

A spokesman for EDF agreed that there was evidence that smart meters could contribute to a considerable reduction in carbon emissions. "Our major business customers who have had smart meters for some time, such as supermarkets, tell us it is critical that they have the real time accurate information smart meters offer, rather than traditional estimated bills, if they are to reduce carbon emissions," he said. "Having this information also means that we as suppliers can offer far more detailed advice on the steps they need to take to improve energy efficiency."

A spokesman for industry regulator Ofgem predicted that the roll out of smart meters could also pave the way for full blown intelligent grid technologies whereby electronic devices could be integrated with the smart meters so that they are automatically turned off at times of peak demand. For example, the grid would be able to work out when supply was getting tight and conceivably turn off people's freezers or washing machines for an hour as demand peaked.

However, EDF's spokesman warned that while such innovations were feasible it could be many years before such technologies are widely available. "The smart meters in this trial are early generation devices," he said. "There is still a lot of work to do in terms of standardisation and development before we can roll out a truly intelligent grid."