You know that sinking feeling that you get when you realise you should of thought of something. Well, that was me on Saturday morning staring at the front page of The Guardian and John Vidal's excellent investigation into some of the adverse environmental implications of bioplastics.

It was the first three paragraphs that did it:

"The worldwide effort by supermarkets and industry to replace conventional oil-based plastic with eco-friendly "bioplastics" made from plants is causing environmental problems and consumer confusion, according to a Guardian study.

The substitutes can increase emissions of greenhouse gases on landfill sites, some need high temperatures to decompose and others cannot be recycled in Britain.

Many of the bioplastics are also contributing to the global food crisis by taking over large areas of land previously used to grow crops for human consumption."

It's all so blindingly obvious when someone spells it out for you isn't it?

The sinking feeling, which I imagine was shared by the marketing and sustainability departments of retailers up and down the UK, was prompted by the sense that I already knew on some level that there were environmental risks attached to these "bioplastics". What Vidal had done so effectively is make those risks plain.

Anyone with even a fleeting interest in environmental science knows that organic matter will release methane as it breaks down and is probably aware that methane is one of the most harmful greenhouse gases. Just as anyone who has any experience of the UK recycling sector, knows that recycling technologies tend to lag far behind the emergence of new types of waste.

Equally, it stands to reason that if biofuels are guilty of taking up land previously used for food crops and inadvertently contributes to deforestation, then any other product that similarly diverts food away from peoples' mouths and increases pressure on agricultural land will have similar effects.

What The Guardian's investigation has done is draw together these facts, and while the bioplastics sector can justifiably claim that it poses a relatively small problem compared to the burgeoning biofuels industry and that work is underway to enhance recycling capacity, the paper is entirely right to have raised these concerns.

The investigation also serves to highlight to corporate risk assessment and due diligence teams everywhere the extent to which many of the unintended consequences that arise from well intentioned green initiatives are in fact surprisingly obvious if you just take a detached look at the bigger picture.

It is always tempting when an exciting new green technology emerges to deploy it as quickly as possible. But as the problems experienced by biofuels and now bioplastics prove, such an approach could leave you repenting at leisure. It is a fact those scientists dallying with climate modifying technologies, algae based biofuels and various other clean technologies would be advised to remember.

In the long run, bioplastics may well prove a sustainable green alternative to conventional plastics, but in the meantime firms would be well advised to make sure they have considered the full environmental impact of using these types of polymers - or else they might just have to get used to that sinking feeling each time someone else points out that their green plastics might not be so green after all.

Posted by James Murray on April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the second time in almost as many months I have managed to get myself blindsided by a talk radio host.

As you can imagine I am now feeling suitably sheepish, not least because this is up there with getting outwitted by a tea towel in terms of intellectual embarrassment, but also because the best definition of stupidity we've got is an inability to learn from one's mistakes.

Still, in my defence, it was Monday morning and when the researcher for BBC Three Counties Radio rung up to ask if I'd be available to talk about Tesco's plans to put carbon labels on some of its products I had no reason to be suspicious.

She said the show's host, Jonathan Vernon-Smith, wanted a view on how the scheme could work and whether consumers would see it as a case of the supermarket jumping on the green bandwagon, which all sounded fair enough (although, in retrospect the alarm bells should of sounded when she signed off with the words, "try to enjoy it").

What followed was straight out of the talk radio host handbook: leading questions, incredulous tone, refusal to accept any of the positives to be found in the scheme, all culminating in a rather long-winded rant.

I was asked why anyone really wants to see carbon data on products, why supermarkets are trying to make people feel guilty, and why Tesco wants to do something that is only going to confuse customers, "just like the traffic light fiasco" surrounding food labels (that'll be the fiasco of improved nutrition labelling that most supermarkets report has led to a decline in sales of the most unhealthy foods, then).

My attempts to defend the scheme - which is after all only a pilot and is on balance likely to prove beneficial - only served to prompt a slightly bizarre rant in which Vernon-Smith asked, I can only assume rhetorically, "who has the time to start checking the carbon count of products? Who really has the time? Not me that's for sure."

Well, erm, thanks for that.

Now, I know I've posted on this before - after I found myself trying to debate the case for curbing carbon emissions on LBC Radio with people who think global warming will be a good thing because they'll be able to grow oranges and lemons in their garden - but what are you supposed to do when faced with these types of questions and the environmental scepticism they embody.

Last time, I think I espoused ignoring them, on the grounds that the point of view of the questioner - climate change scepticism, wilful ignorance of the global warming threats, refusal to countenance new green technologies even where they bring huge benefits – is  essentially based on a series of beliefs rather than facts and consequently it is almost impossible to change their mind.

But now I'm not so sure. Of course, it makes sense from a marketing and communications perspective for businesses to target the receptive audience offered by the new breed of green consumers. But at the same time green products will only go mainstream if the entrenched hostility towards green issues embodied by the talk radio hosts is challenged and defeated.

So how do you go about beating them at their own game? Where is the nuclear option that stop's the next "yeah, but" rejoinder dead in its tracks?

I'm pretty sure losing your temper and pointing out to the green cynics that they are just plain wrong is not the answer (although it is a tempting option), just as I would never advocate any sort of censorship to force such opinions from the media spotlight. So what do you do?

So far all I've come up with is to try and ensure you have facts at your disposal that counter the anti-environmental argument, to always focus on the positive benefits green products and services can deliver, and to try to explain that principles of risk mitigation mean that at the very least green measures represent a sensible precaution.

This all makes sense and is equally good advice for any firm putting together a green campaign as it is for individuals stuck talking to climate sceptics. But I'm sure you'll agree it isn't the most impressive rhetorical arsenal when you are faced with an adversary armed with the far more potent weapons of knee-jerk hostility and an only passing acquaintance with the concept of logic.

What all this is leading to is an unashamed plea for help. If you have any ideas on how best to engage with those who are convinced all green business activity is a case of hype, or conspiracy, or both, then please put the answer on the back of a postcard (or at the bottom in the comments box – it's greener).

It's either that or I'm going to have to get used to be outmanoeuvred by tea towels, which, as you can imagine, is a less than attractive prospect.

Posted by James Murray on April 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Amidst the frenzy of investment and product launches that characterises the clean tech sector it is sometimes easy to lose sight of exactly what is at stake.

This is entirely understandable given that unless you are a particularly virulent misanthrope it is far more exciting to write and talk about solar cell breakthroughs, pioneering clean tech business models, burgeoning green investment funds and plants with funny names that might just save the world, than it is to bang on about impending apocalypse.

Hell, it's even more appealing to talk about new green accountancy models than it is to have a cheerful chat about humanity's chances of making it to the end of the century. 

Moreover, there is a strong strategic argument for playing down the scale of threat posed by climate change in order to guard against defeatism.

And yet at the same time many businesses' tendency to focus on the opportunities presented by the fight against climate change while paying scant regard to its accompanying risks is not only short sighted, it poses a severe threat to the long term health of their business.

Several weeks ago I gave a presentation at an event on green marketing in which I pointed out that few businesses will maximise their long term investments in India and China if the two economic titans end up pointing their nuclear war heads at each other in a stand off over water. It actually got a laugh, which I found a bit strange firstly because I was being entirely serious and secondly because, frankly, I'm no Peter Ustinov when it comes to the public speaking.

The sheer scale of the threat posed by climate change was hammered home again this week with a new report from defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute detailing how climate change will lead to a severe deterioration in global security. The more morally repugnant corners of the defence industry might be rubbing their hands together at the reports predictions of a century long conflict on a scale of the two World Wars, but the rest of us are more likely to be asking ourselves what can be done to avoid this catastrophic scenario.

Businesses need to be assessing these risks and constantly reminding themselves that climate change strategies must take a duel-pronged approach: simultaneously hoping for the best through investment in clean technologies, while planning for the worst through adaptation measures.

Even at a micro scale firms should be undertaking climate change risk assessments capable of identifying where their operations and sales are at most risk from disruption.

Sadly, as KPMG's recent report into climate change risks shows this is simply not happening with many of the world's largest industries simply refusing to face up to the environmental challenges they face.

It can be depressing to envisage a world akin to that in Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and as such it is understandable why so many businesses, and governments for that matter (we're looking at you Mr Bush), are tempted to water down the scale of the threat. But it is only in undertaking a realistic assessment of possible threats that businesses and economies can build true resilience and begin to recognise new opportunities ahead of the competition.

Right, I'm off to try and weigh the carbon in an email.

Have a good weekend.

Cheers,

James

Posted by James Murray on April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In one of those funny coincidences that occasionally beset you I have just managed to read two consecutive novels both dealing the ever so cheery topic of the apocalypse.

The first was Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma, his 1998 fantasy about a 17 year-old girl who slips into a coma in 1979 and wakes up years later to warn her friends of impending doom.

The apocalypse that follows sees the world succumb to a surreal pandemic where everyone simply falls asleep, never to wake up, until the only people left alive are the girl's boyfriend, small band of school friends, her teenage daughter who she gave birth to while in the coma, oh and the ghost of their dead classmate - bear with me here it really is a very fine read.

All the tropes familiar to anyone who has read a Coupland novel are present and correct: an appalled fascination with modernity and technology, an obsession with a group of young friends, a love of memorable one liners and a fiercely questioning agnosticism.

The apocalypse is ultimately a metaphorical one, highlighting the spiritual vacuum that afflicts the modern world - a world which the waking coma victim believes has gone dark.

However, while the end of the world may be fantastical in nature the scenes of the small group of friends coping in a city stripped of human presence offers a compelling reminder of the fragility of civilisation.

It is this concept that is taken to its chilling extreme in the second novel, Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

It tells the post apocalyptic story of a father and son travelling across a "cauterised terrain", "a cold illucid world" stripped of all life except for occasional lone travellers and terrifying bands of cannibalistic bandits.

The novel has already been hailed as a masterpiece by environmentalists, including George Monbiot who called it "the most important environmental book ever written" – he has a point.

What McCarthy's haunting, apparently post nuclear, landsape shows us is what will likely happen in the event of the biosphere collapsing. As Monbiot observes, "his thought experiment exposes the one terrible fact to which our technological hubris blinds us: our dependence on biological production remains absolute".

So why draw your attention to all this on a business blog?

Well, besides that fact that The Road is a genuine full blown masterpiece, the kind of which you want to tell everyone about, it also highlights the full scale of the climate change risks we all face and the fragility of the societies we have built.

The world The Road imagines is necessarily extreme, but the scientific consensus is convinced that milder versions of it are heading our way unless urgent action is taken.

It always seems heartless to point out that business suffers in regions devastated by starvation, drought or flooding given that people suffer far more. But it is also a useful way for stimulating action.

The Great Depression had its roots in the dust bowl and the collapse of the midwest's ecosystem and it is a precedent all firms should take to heart. None of the many companies currently investing in India want to see their money wasted in the event of the monsoon being disrupted and the country succumbing to drought. None of the firms ploughing cash into China will want to see a vicious fight for resources between China and Russia to its north, particularly when both have the ability to turn nuclear warheads on each other – in short, if the biosphere suffers, business suffers.

Countless UN and government reports, including a new study this week from defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute, have now warned that climate change and its associated natural disasters and migrations represent the greatest security threat the world faces, but still this message is not getting through to business leaders and policy makers.

Perhaps Mccarthy's The Road can succeed where the scientists have failed and make it plain what the collapse of the biosphere really means. And if it does then the book also contains a second message for our leaders in its representation of the father and son protagonist and their compelling hope, ingenuity, and burning desire to survive.

Posted by James Murray on April 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone who spends any time around the green business movement will have become used to being asked one question more than any other.

In essence it boils down to, "What technology is going to save us?", although if your questioner is of a more mercenary bent it can also be phrased as "Where should I invest my money?"

Now if I knew the answer to this question I would not be sitting here and would instead be trying to decide whether it is a touch too ostentatious to have a fountain installed in my land that spouts actual money, while simultaneously mulling which Premiership football team to buy.

However, while the truism that there is no silver bullet and a myriad of green technologies will be required remains as valid as ever, I am increasingly convinced that one area could have a critical role to play in making renewable energy feasible on the scale that it is required – and what's more it is a field that until now has remained largely under the radar of both investors and the media.

It is the oh so glamorous field of electricity transmission.

The renewable energy challenge has never been one of potential capacity, and nor for that matter has it been one of cost - it has always been about transmission.

This was hammered home to me last week on a press trip to Iceland, a country that some geologists believe is sitting on top of enough geothermal energy to power the whole of the northern hemisphere.

The energy is cheap, relatively easy to access and emission free, the only problem is that it is being generated in a country that is a very, very long way from anywhere. If we could only transmit, or even transport the energy, in an efficient manner we would instantly have the answer to many of our energy and climate problems.

This self same transmission issue emerges as the biggest stumbling block wherever you find huge potential reserves of renewable energy.

Several studies a couple of years ago from the German Aerospace Centre and a group of researchers called the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation suggested that installing concentrated solar power systems over just 0.3 per cent of the deserts in the Middle East and North Africa would meet all the current and future energy needs of both the Middle East and the EU.

Or to put it another way a little over one per cent of the Sahara could power the entire planet.

Progress is being made to make such thermal power systems cost effective and storage systems are also being developed that advocates reckon could save the problem of the sun setting each night. All of which means that again the only fly in the ointment is getting the energy from the deserts to the population centres where it is needed.

Tidal and offshore wind power also face the same problem on a smaller scale with the lower energy yields involved being compensated by the fact that transmission over a few nautical miles to the mainland is considerably easier than transmitting power across the thousands of miles from Reykjavik to London.

The simple truth is that if we can solve the problem of long distance energy transmission we have the missing piece of the jigsaw that makes the development of a genuine renewable energy economy if not simple exactly then certainly much simpler.

Now I will freely admit that I did not pay enough attention in Physics classes to draw any conclusions on the chances of this missing piece ever being found, but there is growing numbers of engineers who reckon that improvements in long distance high voltage direct current (HVDC) power cables could hold the answer.

These DC cables are currently much more expensive than the AC cables that underpin our national grid, but they are falling in price and unlike AC cables the amount of energy lost does not increase with distance, meaning they could feasibly allow electricity to be efficiently transmitted over thousands of miles.

It is worth noting that there are some who would argue you will need to pretty much rewrite the laws of physics to make such long range transmissions possible. But then again, if they are right then the vision of global clean energy hubs providing cheap reliable renewable electricity could be become a reality.

In the meantime, any industry that requires plenty of energy but few employees would be worth considering the old idiom about Mohammed and the mountain.

With energy costs soaring and concern over carbon emissions mounting it will make increasing sense for those industries that can relocate operations to consider getting as close as physically possible to the green energy hubs that can provide them with clean, reliable, cheap and carbon tax free power.

It is a concept that the Icelandic government is buying into with its support for the aluminium smelting industry and its work with companies such as Data Islandia and Hitachi Data Systems to encourage firms to shift their power hungry data centres to the country. It is also a model the governments of North Africa and any other country with a potential abundance of green energy would also be wise to emulate.

Meanwhile, the rest of us should sit back and hope the laws of physics aren't as rigid as some people think and that long distance energy transmission can one day become a reality.

Posted by James Murray on April 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Any environmentalist occasionally tempted (and I admit I've been one of them in the past) to use one off weather events to highlight the risks of climate change would be advised to pick up a copy of today's Times.

There, under the headline "Global warming? Scotland sees its best snow in a decade" (it's the question mark that I really love), is an article from Scotland Correspondent David Lister detailing how Scotland's five ski resorts are enjoying "once-in-a-generation" spring skiing conditions.

The implication in the headline is that the high levels of snow enjoyed this winter provide some sort of evidence that global warming is not happening.

Now, this is of course utterly nonsensical - although only in the same way as taking a single flood as evidence that climate change is happening is nonsensical.

The fact is that any commentator or business that tries to link individual floods or hurricanes to climate change invites both critics of climate change science and sensation seeking headline writers to do exactly the same thing with those one off weather events that appear to run contrary to global warming.

The only way to assess the risks and realities of climate change is with long term data sets that show a clear and present warming trend – anything else is junk science.

In fairness to The Times it hints at this reality itself in the story, albeit circuitously, noting that while the Cairngorm resort is now expecting 60,000 skier days for the season this is a massive fall on the 150,000 to 200,000 skier days it consistently enjoyed when it was in its prime 30 years ago. Moreover, the resort has only just managed to break even over the last six years and will still only expect to make a modest profit this year.

Scotland's skiing industry may well be enjoying a good year, but those are the long term data sets it should really be worried about.

Posted by James Murray on April 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

It is remarkably easy to criticise President Bush's stance on climate change, although that does not make it wrong.

His speech this week setting a voluntary target to curb US carbon emission growth by 2025 was little short of a disgrace, bearing all the familiar hallmarks of his administration's climate change non-strategy.

There was the now familiar rhetoric on clean technology, with no clear idea on how adoption of these technologies can be accelerated; a defence of the absolute primacy of jobs and the economy, with no understanding that a failure to tackle climate change will do untold damage to the very same economy; opposition to proposed changes to environmental legislation, with little thought given to what can be done instead; and a complete failure to accept the scale and urgency of the threat, with even those targets that were outlined bearing no relation to recent climate change science.

And yet while the frustration of those governments trying to cope with Bush's constant attempts to undermine the development of a global legislative framework is entirely understandable am I the only one who finds their constant sniping at the US a little annoying. Funny, I'll admit, but annoying all the same.

Bush's latest plan (if you can call it that) is so unsophisticated that the soubriquet "Neanderthal", given to it yesterday by the German environment minister, has a stinging accuracy. But you have to ask if likening the US President to a caveman is really the best gambit, particularly when the Bush team still have eight months with which they could do untold damage to international climate change negotiations.

Europe's kneejerk criticism of Bush's would also carry far more clout if the continent's rhetoric was matched more fully by its action.

Germany is in a better position than most to point out the flaws in the US administration's thinking (or lack there of) given its flagship renewables policy and burgeoning clean tech sector. But it is also worth noting that when it comes to protecting its own carbon intensive industries the German government is just as craven as Bush, lobbying Europe for carbon emission standards for new cars to be weakened and reportedly pushing for some aspects of the EU's climate change plan to be watered down.

The UK government should also think hard about pushing for an expansion of global carbon trading when its own plans for a new cap-and-trade scheme increasingly look like an ill thought out mess. While Europe's position on biofuels is just as reckless and damaging as Bush's, regardless of what the Brazilian government thinks.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the biggest cleantech hub in the world remains in the US. The Californian clean tech cluster may have developed despite rather than because of Bush's policies and may be being hampered by the White House's absurd reluctance to extend renewable energy tax credits beyond the end of this year, but it is still proving far more successful than rival centres in Europe.

For example, while the UK has this week seen the opening of just its second hydrogen fuel station, California already has 25 and has just earmarked $7.7m for rapid expansion of the embryonic network.

None of this is to excuse Bush's climate change policy, which has proved more hindrance than help to green businesses, politicians and indeed civilisation's chances of surviving past the end of the century. But you have to ask if Europe would be better served in the long run by quietly getting on with its own climate change plans and proving they can work effectively, while it waits to greet a more enlightened incumbent to the White House.

Bush's plan deserves condemnation, but there is equally some merit in the administration's attempts to, as US negotiator James Connaughton puts it, "steer away from rhetorical commitments that have no prayer of being met".

Between the sanctimony of Europe's rhetoric and the short sightedness of White House interests perhaps lies a happy middle ground where investment and legislation can work together to deliver a genuinely low carbon economy – I think it's called Iceland.

Right I'm off to buy an Orang-utan saving carbon credit, while trying to work out how much carbon you get in Tesco value toilet rolls.

Have a good weekend,

James

Posted by James Murray on April 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's rarely a good week for the world's biofuel industry, but even by the rather tempestuous standards of the last year the past seven days have represented something of a new low.

You know your industry has a bit of an image problem when the UN is indirectly blaming it for poor people going hungry.

In the past week, we've seen the German government ditch plans to increase the proportion of biofuel in petrol, Gordon Brown raise concerns with other G8 leaders that more needs to be done to limit biofuels impact on food prices , a report claim the bioethanol investment peak is over, and a UK firm exiting the biofuel refinery business amidst complaints US subsidies are tilting the whole global market in favour of US operators.

That said, it is hard to disagree with the view of Primafuel's Rahul Iyer that it is far to early to right off the biofuel sector.

There are undoubtedly major problems with first generation biofuels both in terms of their impact on the environment and on food prices, and as such firms would be wise to avoid first generation biofuels and Brown really should turn his current concerns into action and suspend the UK's biofuels target.

But despite well docuemented problems the emergence of more sustainable alternatives based on waste or algae raises hope that biofuels do have a role to play in the low carbon economy.

Whether or not second generation biofuels can be developed on a scale large enough to genuinely replace fossil fuels remains to be seen, but enough new developments are being reported – such as this week's news of a waterless biodiesel production method - to suggest there is hope for the biofuels sector yet.

Right, I'm off to try and convince some people to start sporting a C&C logo while trying to work out if there is any way I can pick up a couple of million quid from the ETS.

Have a good weekend,

James

Posted by James Murray on April 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you listen carefully you can hear the sabres being rattled from here.

Oil giant Shell has become the latest to warn the EU it better play nice and scrap plans to tighten up its faltering emissions trading scheme (ETS) or the company will pick up its ball and go and play elsewhere.

Echoing comments from many within the steel and concrete industries, Shell France director Christian Balme said that if the EU persists with plans to force heavy polluters to buy emissions credits at auction from 2013 then its profitability in Europe will be wiped out and there will "be no more investments by Shell in Europe".

According to Shell, it is in favour of cap-and-trade schemes (isn't it funny how all company's are in favour of cap-and-trade schemes for as long as they don't require them to do anything), but forcing it to pay for all its carbon credits would be an unbearable burden.

The first question to ask is does anyone really believe that Shell will make good on this threat? Is it actually going to deliver "no more" investments in Europe in the event of it being forced to pay for its pollution?

Of course, if extra costs are imposed (and you have to remember that is kind of the point) then undoubtedly some investments will be diverted to regions with more relaxed regulatory environments. But "no more" investments in one of the largest markets on the planet? Seriously?

Is it not equally likely that Shell will try and shift some investments overseas, but, faced with the higher cost of polluting will begin to invest seriously in ensuring its European operations are as carbon efficient as possible.

Moreover, the threat to shift investment overseas is dependent on the assumption that there will be a more attractive overseas location available. But the world's politicians are even now debating how to ensure this is not the case as they push for a global cap-and-trade scheme largely based on the EU model to be included as part of a post Kyoto agreement. Meanwhile, Europe's leaders are openly threatening to slap tariffs on carbon intensive imports if other countries won't co-operate.

Is Shell really going to go to the hassle of shifting its investment plans if the oil that it has refined in a new plant in Morocco, for example, has to pay a sizable tariff to be imported to the EU? Will it really shun Europe altogether in the hope of getting a couple of year's grace before a post Kyoto trading scheme hits its new plants. Again would it not be simpler and easier for it to continue invest in minimising costs from the ETS by focusing on cutting emissions from its EU operations?

It is informative that when I rang Shell's press office and asked if it was the company's official position that it would cease investment in Europe in the event of auctioned emission credits the spokesman on the other end of the line was extremely evasive. Shell won't commit to such a plan because it is never going to happen.

It is easy to understand Shell's nervousness over the EU's plans, because ultimately they are designed to eradicate its oil-based business model. The whole point of the polluter pays principle is to accelerate the development of low carbon technologies and business models and wean us off of fossil fuels. Shell is part of a dying industry, it is just that it has no intention of going quietly.

What Europe's politicians and business leaders need to remember is that while many firms may threaten to leave as a result of the EU's climate change plans few actually will, particularly if  the games of international diplomacy currently being played ensure that there is no competitive advantage for them to gain by doing so.

Moreover, where those firms that fail to adapt do end up declining - we're looking at you Shell - it is worth remembering that the jobs that are lost will be largely replaced by the emerging clean tech industry. It is worth noting that as Shell threatens to take jobs overseas the German government is reporting that by 2030 its renewables sector will be as big as its car industry.

Managing the decline of an industry, and the job losses and economic pain that go with it, is one of the ultimate tests of a politician's skill and strength and it looks like leaders across Europe are about to get tested.

How well they perform will determine both the entire bloc's credibility as a leader in the fight against climate change and all our chances of transitioning to a low carbon economy.

We can only hope they realise this and tell Shell and its supporters precisely what they can do with their rattling sabres.

Posted by James Murray on April 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

What the hell is going on over at Apple?

If you are a globally recognised computer company whose reputation in many ways depends as much on its ability to appeal to hip, young, media savvy consumers as it does on its cutting edge technology you'd think you'd want to be seen as down with the green zeitgeist and supportive of the whole environmental movement.

Add in the fact that treehugger-in-chief Al Gore sits on its board and you'd assume Apple, perhaps more than any other technology firm, would be doing its utmost to reach out to environmentally conscious consumers.

And yet despite its recent commitment to enhance its environmental policies and become a "Green Apple" - itself an embarrassing u-turn following repeated refusals to respond to a barrage of constant criticism from Greenpeace over the company's environmental policies and use of toxic components - the company has once again managed to embroil itself in an unedifying spat with another green campaign.

The latest row is with the City of New York over its new GreeNYC campaign to encourage consumers to curb their environmental impact.

It's pretty hard to take issues with such a campaign, but according to reports at Wired.com Apple has managed it, objecting to the Big Apple's use of a stylised green apple with a stalk and a leaf as the logo for its campaign.

The logo has begun to appear around the city on bus shelters, hybrid gasoline-electric taxicabs and Whole Foods' shopping bags, and the city has applied for a trademark prompting Apple to file its formal opposition to the move.

The company says that the logo bears a resemblance to its own famous Apple logo and as such infringes on its trademark. It calls for New York's trade mark application to be rejected on the grounds that it will confuse people and "seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services".

Now this line of argument appears pretty rich on three fronts.

Firstly, as you can see you have to suffer from particularly bad myopia to be unable to distinguish between the two logos.

Secondly, unless Whole Foods has decided to ditch the concept of selling organic food in favour of selling laptops there appears no danger of this logo confusing anyone bar the most congenitally stupid. As Gerald Singleton, the intellectual-property lawyer representing New York, told Wired.com: "No consumer is likely to be confused… this well-known city is using its new design in a variety of contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with Apple Inc."

Thirdly, if (and it's a big if) there is some vague subconscious association that consumers draw between the two logos then given that Apple's recent environmental track record includes a long-running stand off with Greenpeace, a refusal to join any of the IT industry groups seeking to address the sector's gargantuan environmental footprint and repeated accusations that it has not done enough to remove harmful components from its products, it can only stand to benefit from being linked with a green campaign.

Of course, every firm has the right to protect its trademarks and Apple has a powerful brand that is well worth defending, but you still have to pick your battles. Apple has won justified plaudits in recent months for finally attempting to improve its green policies and releasing several products that boast impressive green credentials. And yet, now it appears it wants to rile green consumers and activists afresh for little or no purpose. 

The complex vagaries of the patent system mean Apple may yet prove successful at blocking New York's use of the logo. But given that it has now cast itself as the bad guy in a fight with a campaign that aims to promote "environmentally friendly policies and practices" you have to ask whether it is really worth it. Particularly when the only people likely to be confused by the two logos are in all likelihood too stupid to turn on a MacBook in the first place. 

Posted by James Murray on April 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)

For far too long one of the biggest problems faced by CSR officers is the (entirely unfair) perception amongst some of their colleagues that they are some king of mung bean eating hippy who has taken the role because of their treehugging love of all things green.

In many ways this perception is meant to be flattering, highlighting as it does the CSR professional's passionate commitment to their job. But the flip side of this popular image is that of the enthusiastic amateur, motivated by personal ideals rather than cold, hard commercial factors.

So it is extremely encouraging to hear this week that while they may still lag behind many other senior execs in the pay stakes CSR officers are catching up fast. Six figure salaries may not seem like much to the big beasts of the corporate jungle, but the fact that CSR officers can now command salaries in excess of £120,000 shows how seriously they are now being taken and the extent firms are willing to go to attract real talent.

Right across the green business movement nothing underlines the seriousness with which the environment is now being taken by firms than the sums of money involved.

This week alone we've seen Credit Suisse at one end of the scale pledging to plough $300m into cleantech, EDF pumping $50m into Nanosolar, Foresight stepping up its investment in wood-to-energy technologies, and the Scottish government offering £10m to any scientists capable of delivering a major marine energy breakthrough.

As US Senator Everett Derkson once observed, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money". 

Right, I'm off to try and book my place as a passenger on the next zero carbon flight.

Have a good weekend and try not to worry too much about whether or not the government is planning to ruin your car.

Cheers

James

Posted by James Murray on April 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

A small cabal of the world's leading climate scientists have today confirmed they are to dig into their own pockets to buy the pacific islands of Fiji, Western Samoa and Tonga in a move welcomed by climate sceptics as conclusive proof that their climate change theories were only ever driven by avarice.

The group of five European climate scientists, all of whom sit on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reportedly paid $9bn to the governments of the three largest archipelagos in the South Pacific to take ownership of the islands.

The deal raised immediate questions about the provenance of the cash, but sources close to the deal said it had come from the scientists' personal fortunes which they had quietly amassed in Swiss bank accounts following years of multi billion dollar research grants.

A spokesman for the group of unidentified scientists, Salif Poro, said that after years spent extracting ice cores in the Antarctic as part of their lucratively funded research projects the scientists were looking for a warm weather location for their retirement mansions.

Wall Street financial analyst Randy Bega said that the three sovereign states had been acquired at a significantly reduced price after much of the work pioneered by the scientists predicted that they would be largely submerged within the next century.

Climate sceptics said the development provided conclusive proof that global warming is a hoax.

"These scientists may dress like they haven't two dimes to rub together and there may be no evidence to support our claims, but we have long known that most climate scientists in fact command gargantuan salaries," said former oil executive and founder of lobby group Truth about Climate Change, Rik Moran. "This news proves that some of the most senior members of the IPCC are in fact richer than Warren Buffet and have delivered their research findings with the sole aim of undermining property prices in the tropics – we're also pretty sure that they caused the credit crunch."

He added that his only concern is that given the news has emerged on April Fool's Day some people may refuse to believe the latest evidence of the scale of the conspiracy currently being perpetrated by the world's climate scientists.

"The only alternative is to believe that the laws of physics do in fact apply and that manmade carbon emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels are in fact leading to increased global temperatures," he said. "If that were to be the case, I'd have to stop drawing my lobbyist's salary, get a proper job and start driving a smaller car, and there is no way that is happening any time soon."

Posted by James Murray on April 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)