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The Week in Green
So the European Commission has finally gone and published its Climate Change Action Plan and very impressive and wide-ranging it is too.
So wide ranging in fact we've gone and done a bit of an idiot's guide detailing the main points.
There was little in fact that wasn't already heavily trailed. The 20:20:20 targets were confirmed, the 10 per cent biofuels target was retained despite calls from British MPs for a rethink, and the ETS carbon market got a much needed overhaul that should see the price of carbon climb significantly from 2013.
Taken together the implications of these various measures are massive.
The carbon market, already worth €40bn last year and maturing rapidly with new services like Deutsche Bank's trading offering being launched each week, will go from strength to strength.
The renewables sector and in particular the wind industry will also benefit massively from the plan. The sector is scaling fast, as evidenced this week by GE Energy's billion dollar wind turbine deal, and there is every reason to believe the wind industry's assertions that the targets can be met. It is also easy to see why investment in cleantech continues to grow and the government is so keen on the Severn Barrage project.
As I argued earlier today, none of this is happening fast enough, but everything is heading in the right direction.
What is less clear is how the industries not directly affected by the EU's various measures will react. Will the carbon price filter through to the rest of the economy in the form of higher energy and commodity prices and drive more sustainable investments and behaviours or will more legislation be required? Will businesses and politicians stay focused on targets 12 years hence or will they be distracted by short term concerns like the current financial problems impacting the stock market? Will the car industry, for so long a thorn in the side of EU attempts to cut emissions, finally embrace the required technological advances? And will the green consumer revolution prove enough to drive the development of new green products?
Answer these questions and we might be getting somewhere.
Right, I'm off to see how my bid for green.co.uk is getting on.
Have a good weekend,
James
Can you remember what you were doing in 1996?
Personally, I was sitting my GCSEs, watching England come heart-breakingly close to winning Euro 96, and getting up to the kind of things 16 year old boys get up to, little of which I'm willing to commit to print. None of it seems like it was twelve years ago.
Now here's the scary thing. The distance in time between 1996 and now is the same as the distance between now and 2020, by which point, according to the EU, we will have cut carbon emissions by 20 per cent, be generating 20 per cent of our energy from renewables and generally be well along the way to operating a truly low carbon economy.
Feeling confident? I'm not.
Is it just me or is anyone truly aware how short a period of time twelve years is? Seriously, I've met people who can hold conversations that last longer.
To illustrate this just think back to 1996 again. The Spice Girls were touring, Kevin Keegan was manager of Newcastle United and every time you opened a paper there was a story about Princess Di. How things have changed.
All very glib I know, but even when you take a more serious look at the changes in the economic, political and social landscape over the past 12 years you also start to see staggering similarities. It has become fashionable to comment on the breakneck speed at which the world is evolving, but what is often forgotten is the glacial pace of change that define many spheres of activity.
Take politics for example, we've had three prime ministers since 1996, and but for a slight Middle Eastern miscalculation from Mr Blair we probably would have had only two. Similarly, the US transitioned neatly from the House of Clinton to the House of Bush and looks like it could transition back again next year.
Over twelve years most developed economies will have two, or at a push three administrations (with the ever amusing exception of Italy), which means that the politicians who will have to finally meet the EU's 2020 targets are already on the world stage. They may not make it through to 2020, but it is easy to imagine that Merkel and Sarkozy will not be that long into their retirements. In the UK, Brown surely won't go one better than Blair and last 12 years, but given their age and the fact two of the last three prime ministers have lasted a decade waking up in Downing Street come 2020 is not an unreasonable aspiration for David Cameron nor his likely long term rivals Ed Balls or David Miliband.
Similarly in the US, the targets - which the US may well adopt itself if a successor to Kyoto is agreed - are just three administrations away. If they lose the nomination this time what price a President Obama or Edwards making it to the White House in 2016. In fact, given the US political dynasties' Teflon-style resilience what price a President Jeb Bush?
The same level of stasis is evident in the world of business. Of course, the web has delivered a clutch of new firms - Google, Amazon, eBay et al - that have broken through to attain multinational status and global brand recognition. But on the most part the brands and companies that dominated the business world in 1996 have a decidedly familiar ring. IBM, Wal-Mart, Tesco, Boeing, GE, Microsoft, GM, BA, Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, they are all pretty much as influential now as they were in the mid 90s.
Again the chief execs who will run these firms come 2020 are already a long way up the career ladder, if not yet in the hot seat then either sitting on the board or knocking on the boardroom door.
These targets are not some distant aspiration; they are the objectives that the current generation of political and business leaders will be judged by.
In terms of economics and technology progress has been a bit more rapid over the past 12 years, but then again the pace of change is often exaggerated.
Globalisation, for example, has gathered speed and China and India have grown in influence and power, but both these trends were already well under way by 1996. Equally, many of the most carbon intensive industries and technologies - automotive, shipping, aviation, construction, steel, and, of course, energy – may now be making noises about decarbonising their operations, but they remain fundamentally the same now from a technological and business model perspective as they were in 1996. If they are to hit their emission targets these industries will have to change more in the next 12 years than they have done in the last 50.
The one cause for optimism for those hoping we can build the low carbon economy within the next twelve years is the internet-led technology revolution that has done the most to change social and business mores since 1996. As mentioned completely new brands have become global household names and new technologies, such as the iPod, SatNav and the laptop, have gone from being a glint in a designers eye to ubiquitous sensations, sometimes within three or four years. It is worth noting that it was 1996 when mobile phones first became affordable and portable enough to attract the interest of the mass market – twelve years on many people carry two phones with them and would be lost without them.
There is plenty of reason to hope that a Solar Century, a Vestas or a Tesla could become the Google of the next twelve years and go from ambitious start up to global powerhouse in next to no time. Just as it is possible to imagine that solar panels or plug-in hybrid cars may be as ubiquitous in 2020 as the mobile phone is today.
And yet this will not happen without a degree of urgency from business and political that is still sadly lacking. What is required is an industrial revolution far greater in scale, impacting far more sectors and achieved far faster than the aforementioned IT revolution and yet too many of the key players continue to procrastinate.
The EU itself provides a case in point. The action plan was published this week and yet it is likely to be eighteen months or so before it is finally approved. In the meantime, vested interest groups will try and water it down and those companies planning green investments will still have to deal with a degree of uncertainty over how legislation will pan out. There is always a fear that rushed decisions simply mean you repent at leisure, but that doesn't stop that fact around ten per cent of the time left until 2020 will have passed before we even know for certain that the EU's measures will be adopted.
Similarly, the UK this week launched its feasibility study on the proposed Severn Barrage. It won't be finished until 2010, despite the fact the Sustainable Development Commission has already produced a 158-page study on tidal power in the UK claiming a barrage could produce five per cent of our electricity.
Once it's completed, and assuming the government decides to go ahead with the project, we'll have to go through a tortuous process of appeals as those infuriating twitchers at the RSPB insist the whole thing will upset some wading birds, forgetting of course that the birds will be a damned sight more upset if sea levels rise and their homes disappear altogether. Then we'll have to find someone to build the thing and put up with the inevitable construction delays.
The net result, according to the British Wind Energy Association, is that a source of clean energy that could deliver a huge chunk of the UK's 2020 renewable energy obligation will simply not be ready by then.
It's easy to understand this lack of urgency. Time might march inexorably on at a constant rate (would the physicists amongst you please not write in to correct me, I won't understand it), but our perceptions of it vary enormously. Being 16 might seem like yesterday, but being 40, as I will be in 2020, seems almost impossibly distant. Most people feel the same way regardless of their age and it is this psychological reality more than anything else that explains our leaders' apparent complacency.
But this is a highly dangerous trick of mind that only encourages inaction. And of course those firms and countries that act now to meet their emissions targets are those who will enjoy the smoothest and most inexpensive and risk-free transition to low carbon business models
So the next time you are looking at how to meet your company's emission reduction targets and calculating if you can put off those changes for a few more years, just remember what you were doing in 1996. That should be enough to shock you into action.
The Week in Green
Few discussions about tackling climate change last very long before the conversation turns to the topic of China.
For many observers, China and a resurgent Asia represent global warming's greatest challenge. An almost irresolvable problem whereby any emission cuts delivered in the west are negated by the near mythical coal fired power stations that China is said to be opening every fortnight.
And yet despite Asia's chronic environmental problems and soaring carbon emissions the region could still represent the crucible in which many of the solutions for tackling climate change are forged.
That is certainly the view of brand consultant Rick Seireeni who argued this week that Asia boasts many of the economic, social, political and cultural characteristics required to deliver a genuinely low-carbon economy. Moreover, China's position as the world's factory may mean that it is now the planet's biggest polluter, but it also means that it is uniquely influential. Any environmental gains made in China will filter around the whole globe faster than you can say imports/exports.
There are also encouraging signs that China is willing to wield this influence. The government is reportedly poised to boost the authority of its environmental watchdog - something Gordon Brown could learn from on his trip to China this week given the appalling environmental performance of his own civil service – while Hong Kong is looks set to tap its potential as a global carbon trading hub with the proposed launch of a new carbon exchange.
However, despite China's progress Europe looks set to cement its position as the global leader in the push to develop a low carbon economy next week when it announces plans to give its various environmental policies a much needed overhaul.
Politicians aren't exactly renowned for admitting to their mistakes, but Brussels looks set to deliver an at least tacit admission of its various failures with plans to significantly tighten the European emissions trading scheme (ETS), introduce targets for renewable energy and proposals for a ban on imports of unsustainable biofuels.
Encouragingly, there also seems to be a consensus building that these moves can work with the attempt to crack down on biofuels falling into line with recommendations made in a recent Royal Society report on the environmental risks posed by biofuel and new research suggesting the ETS will cut emissions while not crippling European industry.
Whether these stringent measures make it onto the statute book in a world where many people won't install green technologies because they think their ugly and popular opinion on green issues appears to be polarising remains to be seen. But either way next week's announcements will certainly point out the direction legislators are heading in.
Right, I'm off for a Friday night drink – from a lightweight bottle of course.
Have a good weekend,
James
So is Las Vegas getting a vertical farm or not?
It is somewhat timely that in the same week that it emerged that the story splashed across the front pages of the UK press about twins mistakenly getting married was almost certainly a load of rubbish BusinessGreen has to issue its own editorial mea culpa.
Last week we ran a story detailing several reports from various environmental websites and blogs that Las Vegas was planning the world's first vertical farm - a 30-storey Garden of Eden capable of producing enough food for 72,000 people a year in a controlled and sustainable biosphere.
All very impressive I think you'll agree, or you would if it was actually going to happen.
Chris Jacobs quickly got in touch to inform us that not only were the designs quoted in the various blog postings and news reports his, but sadly there were currently no plans to make them a reality.
In fact, he insisted that the project was "most likely NOT going to happen" and advised, quite rightly, that we should be a bit more sceptical about what we read.
A quick email to Tina Past, public information officer for the city of Las Vegas planning and development department, confirms that while intrigued by the internet reports the city government has no such project in the works. "If you do find out anything about it, we would appreciate you sharing it with us," she adds.
Meanwhile, her counterpart at Clark County, which is responsible for the Las Vegas strip, is equally bemused by the reports.
So what's going on? Where did the story originate? Is Las Vegas getting a vertical farm? If not, should it be getting a vertical farm, particularly given the potential for biosphere technologies to help tackle the world's growing food crisis? And is the wishful thinking that characterises much of the blogosphere helping to promote new green technologies or only serving to undermine them?
Answers on a postcard (or alternatively in the comments box) please...
Video conferencing and the curse of the Blackberry
To Cisco's London offices where the networking giant has joined forces with BT to host a video conference-enabled roundtable bringing together attendees from Madrid, Dubai and, erm, Reading.
The subject for discussion is the results from a new academic study on the best practices firms should embrace to drive a successful environmental sustainability strategy. The findings of the study itself are hardly ground breaking (who would have guessed that a successful corporate sustainability strategy requires board level support, firm targets, action rather than words, and a commitment to incorporate the environment into the overarching business strategy), but the video conferencing technology on the other hand, now that was impressive.
I know it has become de rigueur for any journalist visiting one of these high definition video conferencing suites to come out and instantly file a story along the lines of "wow, this kit looks incredible", but seriously, wow, this kit looks incredible.
Having spent four years covering the IT industry and its infuriating tendency of promoting every incremental product improvement as something akin to the invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire combined, I am rarely impressed by any new gadget. But it is hard to stress quite how life-like the people on the high definition plasma screens are. You can tell the time by sneaking a peak at the watch of the academic opposite, you can admire the cuff links of the Cisco exec and if you are feeling mean you can pretty much count the grey hairs of your fellow attendees.
Personally, I am suddenly very conscious that I didn't shave this morning and silently musing on the fact that if this high definition kit takes off the biggest winners (alongside the likes of Cisco and HP who are selling it in the form of their respective TelePresence and Halo suites) are likely to be purveyors of executive grooming paraphernalia - the cameras really are that unforgiving.
I know I am beginning to sound like I'm on commission (I'm not), but after years of overstating the benefits of video conferencing those IT companies now claiming that these system have finally come of age are telling the truth this time.
However, if the technology is not that far short of flawless it is interesting to observe the extent to which the people using it have not yet caught up. All the teething problems evident throughout the call - and almost certainly repeated in teleconferencing suites the world over - could be directly attributed to the attendees, no doubt myself included.
So the conference starts with the volume set to low, is then interrupted by interference caused by one attendee leaving a mobile phone too near one of the microphones, and, due to the seats some of the speakers have chosen, is punctuated by the surreal site of the two attendees from Reading talking to the speaker from Madrid while apparently turning their backs on him.
Meanwhile, the fact that everyone is in plain view appears lost on at least one attendee who rather distractingly spends much of the call checking and re-checking their Blackberry.
The fact is that even many of those people familiar with video conferencing suites are yet to fully appreciate that this an entirely new form of communication that requires a new set of behaviours.
Video conferencing is not exactly akin to a face-to-face meeting, but it is closer to that than it is a simple telephone call and as a result the behaviours that are tolerated on phone calls - checking mobiles, tapping away on laptops, stifling yawns - are likely to alienate people on a video conference call.
The success of video conferencing technologies - underlined by BT's revelation yesterday that it saved over £200m and 97,000 tonnes of carbon last year through its use of 20 Cisco TelePresence suites - is at least partially dependent on the pace at which executives work out the optimum approaches for using the technology and it will be intriguing to see how quickly these best practices evolve.
Should people get the hang of video conferencing quickly, and there is no reason to believe that they won't, then the environmental, cost and quality of life case for the technology should ensure that it quickly becomes a common feature at large multinationals.
And if that does prove the case I'd recommend that the more image conscious amongst you add some moisturiser to the various accoutrements in your office desk drawer.
The Week in Green
So has the government promised subsidies to support the next generation of nuclear power stations?
No, insists John Hutton, the market will decide if they are built or not. Yes, argue the green groups, its all in the small print, the government help out with dismantling costs if required and will also deliver "greater certainty for investors" by underpinning the price of carbon if need be – though whether this will ever be needed given revelations this week from the European Commission that it is committed to delivering significant increases in the price of carbon from 2013.
As Polly Toynbee eloquently explained in this morning's Guardian the rest of us are left to try and work out which set of physicists and economists we should believe: the ones who support nuclear or those who think the government has just made a costly and potentially dangerous error. It really is a case of nuclear physics and the vast majority of us aren't really qualified to work out who is in the right.
For green businesses in particular the nuclear question, like the question of Heathrow expansion, is deeply vexed. The government has argued that nuclear must make up part of the energy mix if we are to hit our carbon emission targets and has made nuclear's low carbon credentials a key part of the case for new nuclear power stations.
Most business groups, including the CBI have bought this line of reasoning, and there is little doubt that new nuclear is preferable to anymore fossil fuel power stations.
But even leaving aside the unresolved issue of what to do with the radioactive waste there have to be valid concerns that the sheer scale of the investment that will flow into nuclear will leave renewable energy projects decidedly cash strapped. As Ecotricity's Dale Vince argues, if onshore wind had received just a fraction of the cash nuclear has taken off the government over the years the UK would already be the greenest country in the world.
Inevitably the government has offered assurances that the energy bill will also bolster support for renewables, but despite the welcome introduction of improved subsidies for offshore wind and marine technologies it is hard to take its commitments that seriously when it continues to cling to its perverse refusal to embrace the feed in tariff mechanism which has proved far and away the most effective means of driving renewable energy adoption. It is hard to dispute the Renewable Energy Association's view that even with the new Energy Bill we remain well off the pace if we want to meet the EU target of generating 20 per cent of energy from energy from renewables by 2020.
Thankfully the green business sector is doing its upmost to make up the lost ground, be it through the ongoing flow of capital into renewables as evidenced this week by SSE's acquisition of Airtricity and GE's new alternative energy investments; the torrent of new energy efficient products many of which were on display at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas; the emergence of potentially sustainable fuel crops such as Switchgrass and Jatropha, the auto industries new found commitment to green cars; or the booming carbon offset market.
And yet without unequivocal support from government all these sectors face an uphill struggle to deliver the carbon savings that they all promise.
The revelation this week that changes to the Treasury's capital allowances tax breaks will effectively undermine existing green tax breaks may not affect vast numbers of firms but it is indicative of the contradictory and muddled thinking that characterises too many of the government's climate change decisions.
Why sometimes it's best to keep green messages to yourself
It was the US businessman John Wanamaker who is reputed to have first observed that "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half".
But that was back around the turn of the Twentieth Century and it looks like the old adage may have become a bit outdated for this cynical Millennium.
According to a new survey from BT of 600 UK consumers, just three per cent of customers think businesses are honest about their actions regarding what they are doing to become more environmentally or socially responsible.
That means every time your company releases a green ad or constructs a green marketing message just three out of every 100 customers believe you. The rest think that at best you are exaggerating your green record and at worst you are telling outright lies. Forget half your ad budget being wasted, it looks like it is all being flushed straight down the pan.
Advertisers and marketing professionals will, of course, find ways to downplay the implications of BT's poll. They will argue, with no little justification, that green marketing can prove hugely effective if it is done properly and insist that in an increasingly cynical age customers may not believe every claim they hear but that does not stop ads proving highly effective at raising brand awareness and creating a "feel good" factor around a product.
But deep down they must be worried about the sheer scale of the breakdown in trust between company and customer. There has to be a fear that some hardnosed finance director is going to look at the number of customers scoffing at companies' green marketing claims and ask why they are bothering to waste their breath.
Like a philandering husband or a scandal-rocked politician, the green marketing community needs to urgently restore trust if it is to survive. The problem is how it should go about doing this.
The recommendation from most green communication experts can be summed up in two words: stop fibbing.
It is hard to claim customers are being unreasonably cynical about green marketing claims when within days of the BT survey being released the Advertising Standards Authority slammed the Malaysian Palm Oil Council for having the nerve to claim in an advert that its palm oil was "sustainable" and reprimanded BA for an email to customers that claimed the proposed third runway at Heathrow will make it easier for planes to get a landing slot and cut annual emissions by 330,000 tonnes, but which forgot to mention that the extra flights will result in an overall increase in emissions of 2.6m tonnes.
Eradicating such misleading messaging would of course help restore some customer trust, and it goes without saying that it is critically important for all marketing departments to do their upmost to ensure green claims are verifiable, accurate and placed in their proper context. But it strikes that any company attempting to tackle the problem of "greenwash", as it has become known, has to do far more than simply ensure that the lawyers and advertising watchdogs are happy.
Just as the breakdown in trust between politicians and voters has as much to do with MPs mealy-mouthed tendency to evade questions as it does with the still relatively rare occasions when they are caught telling outright lies, consumers' lack of faith in green ads is caused as much by a sense they are being spun as by glaring factual inaccuracies.
Late last year I met with Antony Young who works as director of security and services at IT distributor Bell Micro. As a distributor of IT kit Bell has an interesting insight into the activities of both the manufacturers pushing new green technologies and the retailers and resellers who actually have to sell the stuff.
Young's view was that despite all the hype from the global IT giants about greener, more energy efficient systems demand for the technology had largely disappointed thus far. He attributed this to "snow-blindness" amongst customers who had become jaded by the sheer number of green marketing messages emanating from IT companies.
It's an analysis that will sound worryingly familiar to countless other sectors. It's not that you could accuse any of the IT companies' individual green marketing campaigns of being inaccurate or untrustworthy or misleading, it's just that there were so many of them that customers assumed vendors were just jumping on the bandwagon. Sadly, good green adverts and campaigns that could never be described as greenwash were still regarded as such by cynical customers.
The only answer to this problem is for marketing professionals to display a characteristic that hardly comes naturally to them: restraint.
As the green marketing sector matures, businesses will have to learn that inundating customers with messaging every time they launch a new product or service that is fractionally greener than the previous version will only prove counter productive in the long run.
As Young observes, companies would be advised to "keep their powder dry" for the green products and services that really outperform the rest of the market, rather than waste precious marketing capital on yet another offset scheme or fractionally more energy efficient system that offers nothing new to jaded customers.
It is extremely difficult to display such restraint, particularly when businesses are increasingly excited about their environmental initiatives and keen to show them off to a growing band of environmentally conscious customers. But resisting the temptation to trumpet every green initiative from the rooftop may ultimately help restore trust in environmental claims and ensure that customers greet the really big and meaningful green announcements with more than just a weary shrug of the shoulders.
Why working from home is pretty miserable and not very green
I'm working from home today, though not out of choice.
I hate working from home. There are enough distractions to divert even the most single minded character, and sadly single mindedness is not one of my defining traits.
Just as way of example, as I type now I am but a click away from Bargain Hunt on BBC 1, a rather fetching looking Western of uncertain vintage on BBC 2, Loose Women on ITV, and, here's the clincher, Muppet's in Space on Channel 4. It's a miracle I'm getting any work done and between you and me as soon as CBBC comes on I'm not sure I'll be able to resist much longer.
Moreover, the argument that these domestic distractions are offset by the lack of office-based distractions doesn't really hold up when you consider that the miracle of email and IM means I can undertake the exact same meandering conversations with my colleagues that typically break up my office-bound day, only with fewer hand gestures.
No, I'm working from home because it is early January and as convention dictates I have the mother and father of all colds. I'm a spluttering, sneezing wreck and I'm not sure my colleagues would thank me if I dragged myself into work only to spend the whole day filling the air conditioning system with germs. As such I am sitting in my lounge trying to work out if it is possible to overdose on Lemsip - I've just read the box, it is apparently but I'm pretty sure I'm OK.
The silver lining to this miserable day should be that just a day after the TUC called on workers to do more to help make their workplace greener I am doing my bit, following the trade unions' advice and working from home. And yet, I'm pretty sure that far from cutting my carbon footprint my cold and subsequent domestic incarceration has only served to increase my carbon impact.
A report last year from the Consumer Electronics Association argued that home working in the US had led to an overall reduction in carbon emissions as eradicating emissions associated with commuting and office work more than offset increased domestic emissions. But while this may well be true for the economy as a whole (and it is still somewhat unclear if the same rule can be applied to the UK with its shorter commuting distances and greater use of public transport) it does not apply to each and every individual.
I'm not about to work out the exact carbon footprint - not least because my head feels like it is trapped in a very soft, but very real vice - but right now I'm guessing I'm not having the greenest of days.
Like a good environmentalist virtually everything in my flat is turned off while I'm at work, but right now the heating is on and I might have to turn it up if the weather forecast is right and it starts to snow later, a couple of lights are blazing away, the stereo has been playing all day (LCD Soundsystem, Feist, the Cribs, and Dylan's Nashville Skyline, since you ask), the coffee machine is keeping me caffeined up and the kettle has been boiled at regular intervals for the Lemsips. Moreover, the TV is going on as soon as Pingu comes on.
Admittedly I haven't travelled to work, but I usually get the Tube and even in my more egotistical moments I'm pretty sure the underground does not run solely for my benefit. Meanwhile, the light above my desk at BusinessGreen's central London bunker will still be blazing away and no one will have tweaked the heating to take account for my absence. The only difference is that my computer is not on, but then again this clunky old laptop has been on all day instead.
Of course, for many people the carbon calculations would prove quite different and working from home would deliver a net reduction in their carbon emissions. But as with so many green initiatives a blanket approach is unlikely to prove universally successful.
Businesses or employees embracing home working or considering doing so for environmental reasons need to look closely at individual worker's circumstances and assess whether or not working from home really will deliver net carbon savings. If it does they also need to look at ways to maximise those savings by ensuring that freed up office space is cut back or perhaps even by helping staff make their new home offices more energy efficient.
Home working has major role to play in any green business, but both employers and employees also have to realise that it will not work for everybody. It certainly doesn't work for me.
Right, I'm off to make myself another Lemsip.
