Some stories are shocking, others are intriguing, and then there are those that fill you with nothing so much as a wearying sense of inevitability. Reports the Advertising Standards Authority has launched an investigation into the government's latest advert encouraging people to cut their carbon footprint after receiving over 350 complaints falls firmly into the latter category.

You've probably seen the ad, which shows a father telling his daughter a bedtime story in which he warns of a future in which rising sea levels and droughts have devastated the land. There's even a cartoon dog that sinks beneath the waves, and a stark message that adults can help play a part in protecting their children from this future by tackling the 40 per cent of carbon emissions that result from day-to-day activities.

Cue an entirely predictable avalanche of complaints from people with far too much time on their hands, arguing that climate change is not happening, that there is no consensus on climate science, and that it is wrong to scare the little children.

The ASA now has to decide if it is going to take issue with the suggestion that scientists have said carbon emissions contribute to global warming and uphold complaints that there is no overwhelming consensus on the issue. If it were to go down that route (and if it does then it had better have its peer-reviewed science ready) then the government should get its chief scientist to organise its defence and tell the watchdog to "bring it on". Either that or simply change the voice over from "scientists said..." to "many, many, many respected scientists said..."

Slightly more interesting is the accusation of scaremongering and unsuitability for children - although again the ASA would have to set a pretty remarkable precedent if it is to uphold the complaints.

If the ad is to be banned on the grounds that it's a bit dark then all ads concerning road accidents, smoking and health will have to be banned too. If an ad about climate change is scary for a kid, I don't doubt those adverts telling them their parents are going to die if they smoke are pretty terrifying too.

The ad might seem hard hitting to some, but it is also entirely justified. Environmentalists have long complained that if people knew the full scale of the climate change threat they would be storming parliament demanding action, while the government's own research has shown time and again that one of the main reasons for inaction on carbon emissions is that people think the global warming threat is distant and ill-defined. Having tried almost everything else to instil greener behaviours, it is about time the government tried a more robust approach and it is to be applauded for giving it a go.

Of course, businesses would be wise not to emulate this approach in their marketing - promoting the benefits of a green product is always going to be more effective than trying to scare people into buying it - but there is a lesson for firms in the government's increasingly stark warnings.

Despite all the evidence that we are going to see fundamental changes to the climate during this half of the century, there is still a tendency for businesses to underplay the existential nature of the risks they face. This is entirely understandable given that no one really wants to spend too long thinking about devastation and destruction. But if a business really wants to accelerate its development as a low carbon operation then senior executives need to comprehend both the scale of the threat and the scale of the opportunity - after all, nothing focuses minds like fear and greed.

Increasingly, business leaders get the opportunity side of the equation as more and more reports highlight the rapid growth enjoyed by the clean tech sector and the huge potential presented by new regulations and incentives. But many are still burying their heads in the sand over the risks. Whether its climate change, carbon regulations or peak oil, there is a tendency to dismiss or downplay the risks businesses face.

Personally, nothing has had a more profound impact on my understanding of the need for urgent action, than a couple of days spent earlier this year listening to the world's top climate scientists present their latest findings. Every politician and business leader in the world should be made to sit through two days listening to these scientists and see if they still think they cannot make the case for investing in low carbon. Or, failing that, they could just watch the government's new ad and ask if they really want to be responsible for the drowning dog.

Posted by James Murray on October 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Do league tables really work?

Obviously, as a means of determining whether one group of men is better at kicking/throwing/hitting a ball than another group of men they are nonpareil. But when it comes to more important issues, such as our health, our children's education, and now our efforts to tackle climate change, does publicly ranking organisations' performance really drive improvements, or does it just demoralise the losers?

As the son of two teachers growing up in the nineties, the merits of league tables, which were at the time being introduced for schools across the UK, was a source of considerable debate around the Murray dinner table.

My parents were forced to take a fair degree of professional interest in the annual league tables, often resulting in pride one year and dismay the next as their schools' fortunes fluctuated.

They were also painfully aware that any improvements that the publication of league tables delivered were at least partly offset by the iniquities inherent to the naming and shaming of struggling schools.

There was always the fear amongst my parents and their colleagues that the publication of the league tables would create a self fulfilling prophecy that further opened up the gap between the best and worst schools - a situation that many education experts believe has subsequently come to pass.

In essence, pushy middle class parents would make sure their children, who were statistically more likely to deliver stronger academic results in any case, got into the schools near the top of the league table. This would in turn make it easier for those top schools to maintain their position, while also providing them with a stronger position from which to apply for additional funding for facilities, equipment and the like.

As a rule, my parents schools probably benefited from this arrangement given they were always pretty well ranked in the league tables and received consistently good inspection reports, but that did not stop them questioning the wider merits of the league table system.

Moreover, there were similar question marks hanging over the efficacy of the league tables themselves.

My father was head of a relatively small primary school, so in some years the whole school's position in the league table would be determined by a group of just 12 or so 11 year olds. In such a small group pass rates could change dramatically from year to year based on the performance of just one or two pupils. The school could jump up and down the league table from year to year based on a minute change in its exam performance.

More than a decade on the government appears to have finally acknowledged some of these concerns and has just set out a new set of proposals to ensure school league tables are based on a wider set of criteria than straight exam results. But that does not mean that its love affair with league tables is over and fears are now mounting that the same problems associated with school and NHS league tables could soon afflict the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC).

As has been widely reported, the Carbon Reduction Commitment will not only require firms to report on their carbon emissions and energy use, it will also rank them in a league table demonstrating which organisations have performed best and worst.

The not unreasonable hope is that those that end up at the bottom of the league table will be shamed into taking action to curb energy use, while the system of financial bonuses and penalties that accompanies the league table will also provide firms with a fiscal incentive to cut their carbon emissions.

But will it work?

The problem is that shame is a funny thing. I don't want to reveal too much about my own moral compass, but public condemnation tends to have two diametrically opposed effects on people. Some will act swiftly and decisively to rectify their mistakes, others will decide it is not really worth the effort and embrace the "no one likes us, we don't care" philosophy beloved of football fans.

It is easy to envisage some of those firms languishing at the bottom of the league table deciding to take the financial hit and ignore any condemnation that comes their way. We could even see self-styled mavericks such as Ryanair's Michael O'Leary revelling in a poor carbon rating and using it promote his opposition to green taxes and climate change legislation.

The government plans to combat this by steadily increasing the size of the bonuses and penalties paid through the CRC. But such a move only risks a scenario already familiar to teachers across the UK, whereby those organisations that need the least help receive an extra boost, while the poorest performers are penalised still further.

Moreover, as with school league tables, the system will only work if the rules governing the league are beyond reproach and accepted by all parties. This is certainly not the case with the CRC at the moment with high profile companies such as BT warning that the legislation's credibility is fatally undermined by its failure to recognise investments made in renewable energy technologies. The government will never successfully shame companies into action, if those languishing near the bottom of the table can point to reporting rules that make the whole exercise worthless.

The basic premise of the CRC is admirable, but there are plenty of potential pitfalls awaiting it when it comes into force next year and it will be interesting to see how widely the new league tables are supported.

It might run counter to the capitalist principle of rewarding those who perform best, but given the main aim of the CRC is to cut emissions across the entire the economy there is a strong case for a completely different system of rewards whereby it is those that end up at the bottom of the league that receive the extra money they need to invest in energy efficient technologies.

Such an approach would seem weird to those used to the winner-takes-all mentality of European sports leagues, but it would also be familiar to anyone who follows US sports and their annual draft system, whereby the teams that perform worst get first pick on the next wave of promising players from the college leagues.

Of course, the government would be reluctant to seen to incentivise failure and is unlikely to change the CRC at this late date, but it will have to keep a very close eye on whether the concept of league tables helps or hinders efforts to cut carbon emissions.

After all, the results of the Premier League each year do not really matter in the grand scheme of things, but the success of our efforts to cut carbon emissions, and educate our children, does.

Posted by James Murray on July 7, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's time for action stations.

It is one of immutable truths of the court of public opinion that you can not hold people's attention for more than six months. So, with six months to go to the Copenhagen culmination of the UN's seemingly never-ending climate change negotiations the various political, public, and corporate campaigns surrounding the talks have finally slipped into top gear.

In the past few weeks we have seen a flurry of climate change activity on both sides of the Atlantic (and some typical heel dragging from Australia's government, but we'll put that aside for a moment): both the US and UK released bone chilling climate impact reports painting the bleakest picture yet on the likely effects of global warming on the two countries; the White House launched an orchestrated campaign to secure support for the proposed US climate change bill, culminating in a direct appeal to action from Barack Obama; the UK announced plans to power 20m homes using offshore wind; the US issued $8bn of green car loans; the UK launched the world's largest electric car trial and kicked off its carbon capture strategy; and green groups the world over released more studies projecting a boom in green jobs than you can shake a wind turbine at.

And this is just the start. As the UK government confirmed last week, six months of high profile activity is planned in the run up to Copenhagen, all of which is designed to hammer home the message that aggressive and ambitious measures will be required to avert planetary disaster.

Meanwhile, arguably the most compelling stimulus for greener business models has quietly re-emerged with the realisation that oil prices are on the rise again. They may not be anywhere near the record highs of last year, but with the first green shoots of recovery slowly emerging economists are deeply concerned that oil supplies will not be able to keep track with the rising global demand that will come with any recovery.

Add in the fact that investment in carbon capture and renewable energy, coupled with expansion of carbon cap-and-trade schemes, will inevitably drive up long term energy prices and it becomes clear that energy efficiency initiatives still make a great deal sense regardless of the economic climate.

All of this presents a huge opportunity for green businesses - and an enormous headache for those firms yet to embrace more sustainable practices.

On a purely tactical level, the public awareness campaigns being orchestrated by governments and NGOs offer a one off opportunity for those businesses offering green products and services to push their message to a ready primed audience.

But on a broader level the next six months offer a great opportunity for green businesses to really open up a gap on their carbon-intensive rivals.

Regardless of how the US climate change bill goes in tomorrow's vote and regardless of how the Copenhagen talks eventually resolve themselves, the fact is that more environmental legislation is on the way, along with more low carbon incentives, higher energy bills, and ever increasing investment in low carbon infrastructure and technologies.

Those firms that seize on the opportunity presented by this six month long "perfect storm" and act now to prepare for the post-Copenhagen settlement will be the same firms that are rewarded with higher profit margins and lower risk profiles over the next decade.

Like I say, the time for action stations.

Posted by James Murray on June 25, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)

A week on from "End of the World Conference" and the implications of the climate scientists' latest findings are beginning to sink in.

Not the physical implications of rising sea levels, deadly heat waves and malfunctioning carbon sinks, nor the social implications of mass migration, resource shortages and climate wars - that sunk in pretty sharpish, as horrifying news is wont to do. More the immediate implications of what the accelerating rate of climate change means for current carbon reduction strategies.

The simple fact is almost all the current goals that have been adopted or are in the process of being adopted by both governments and businesses are woefully inadequate.

Factor in the latest scientific findings and emission projections and it soon becomes plain that well meaning targets to cut global emissions 50 per cent by 2050 and rich nations emissions 80 per cent by the same date are like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Actually, they are more like bringing a water pistol to a nuclear showdown, but let's not argue over similes.

As the new report from the Tyndall Centre makes plain, the carbon budgets currently being considered by the UK government were based on "naively optimistic" projections for global carbon emissions even before the latest science revealed climate change is happening even faster than first thought. While the government looks set to adopt targets to cut emissions by 34 per cent by 2020, the Tyndall Centre reckons it should be aiming for 42 per cent as a minimum if it is to have any hope of making an equitable contribution to limiting temperature rises to two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The longer term targets being discussed as part of the Copenhagen process look similarly inadequate.

A few years ago agreeing a target to halve global emissions by 2050 and cut emissions from rich countries by 80 per cent would have been a cause for celebration (given the possibility we may not yet get a deal perhaps it still should be). But the science moves on, and all the latest evidence suggests such cuts simply won't limit warming to safe levels any more.

According to Professor John Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, we should be now aiming to cut global emissions by 80 per cent to give ourselves even a "Russian Roulette" chance of limiting warming to two degrees. Given the developing world has next to no chance of delivering such deep cuts that means the developed world should be aiming for nothing less than the complete decarbonisation of its economies by mid century and may even have to develop means of removing carbon from the atmosphere as well.

It doesn't take an intimate knowledge of international climate change negotiations to understand that such targets are extremely unlikely to be adopted. A few governments - Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and now the Maldives - have made bold commitments to achieve carbon neutrality, but most countries are not even close to countenancing cuts on such a scale.

In an ideal world governments would allow their climate change strategies to be dictated by climate change science, would revise their existing targets upwards as quickly as possible, and use the new targets to justify levels of investment in clean technology that would make the recent wave of green stimulus packages look like spare change from down the back of the sofa (in the case of the UK this is already exactly what it looks like, but that's a topic for another day). Sadly, this is not an ideal world and everything about the current stand off between China and developed economies over carbon targets suggests this is not going to happen any time soon.

However, the equation is slightly different for businesses.

With growing numbers of large firms now having emission reduction targets of one form or another, there is a real commercial opportunity for those businesses willing to be amongst the first to say "the science has changed, so we are changing our targets".

For many companies 50 per cent cuts in emissions by 2020 and complete decarbonisation of their operations by 2040 are entirely realistic goals. Those businesses that come out and say so will not only bolster their environmental credibility they will also distinguish between themselves and rivals who they will be able to reasonably accuse of ignoring the latest climate science.

As the sixty energy companies that this week announced a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 have realised, the scale of the fight is greater than we first thought, so the scale of our response must become greater as well.

Posted by James Murray on March 20, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sometimes it is the smaller stories that can have the largest implications.

On the face of it this week's update to one of Microsoft's many business application packages, allowing firms to track their environmental performance looks like just another software release - of interest only to software developers and a few tech-savvy green executives.

But placed in the context of Microsoft's never ending quest to dominate the world of business software it marks a significant step along the path towards carbon becoming the next universal currency.

Other software developers have, of course, got their first.

IBM is pushing its various carbon emission reporting and management systems hard and only this week launched new functionality to help firms track energy use by non-IT systems such as lighting and air conditioning units, while reporting software specialist SAS has been heavily promoting its new tools for tracking environmental performance, and business apps giant Oracle is also rumoured to be preparing a new environmental management product. Meanwhile, smaller specialists, such as carbonetworks and CarbonView, have been offering various emissions management software packages for years.

But these various reporting and accounting suites are, almost without exception, aimed at those large Global 500 companies that have made the clearest commitments to tracking and reducing carbon emissions and as such require automated systems for keeping track of how much carbon their sprawling operations are emitting and where.

In contrast, Microsoft is going after the mainstream. In fact, if you look at its history, Microsoft is the mainstream.

Microsoft's Dynamics AX 2009 business application suite - to which it has just added a free Environmental Sustainability Dashboard capable of providing execs with access to data on their company's fuel consumption, energy use and carbon footprint, amongst other performance indicators - is aimed squarely at midmarket firms (US companies tend to define midmarket organisations as having revenue of less than $1bn a year, which means they are still pretty hefty by my reckoning, but are still not quite at that global level where green commitments have become an almost default corporate reality).

The new functionality provides ample evidence that Microsoft is convinced the need to track environmental performance will not be confined to the big beasts of the business world for long.

Moreover, the addition of environmental reporting to its Dynamics suite shows Microsoft wants to provide the standard tool mid-sized firms use to keep track of their green performance.

The company's Dynamics strategy - born way back in 2002 when Microsoft went on a spending spree and snapped up a number of business application software developers - has always been about replicating the dominance of the desktop the company has achieved through Windows and Office in the business application market.

Industry watchers may still be divided on the strategy's success, but one fact remains: when Microsoft sets out to dominate a market it usually gets there in the end.

As such we are faced with the tantalising prospect of environmental and carbon reporting software becoming a standard feature of not just the world's largest firms, but the vast global midmarket as well. And once all executives, regardless of their company's size, know how much carbon their organisation is emitting they are in the perfect position to start doing something about it.

Posted by James Murray on February 11, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5)

If I worked for a tabloid I would, at this very moment, be putting the finishing touches to a front page scoop - after all what else is there to write about, besides more moaning about the snow.

Earlier today, Jonathon Porritt, former director of Friends of the Earth, co-founder of Forum for the Future, chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, and arguably the government's most important green advisor, said that what we needed to shock us out of our complacency over climate change was at least "four Katrinas in one year".

In fairness, he did qualify his comments to say that they should not all hit America, but did argue that it would be handy if at least two hit the developed world as Europe and the US had an unfortunate habit of ignoring disasters in poorer nations.

He then admitted to occasionally dreaming of Miami getting wiped out - you can kind of see why the guy so often finds himself mired in controversy.

Taken out of context, Porritt's comments are just the kind of thing that gets environmentalists their reputation as callous doom-mongerers who take a perverse delight in natural disasters that vindicate their world view.

Like I say, a tabloid hack would have gone to town on Porritt's speech, delivered at a conference on carbon management hosted by business software company SAS (not content with talk of deadly hurricanes, he also touched on the need for huge cuts in aviation and meat consumption and declined to distance from his controversial view that there is an environmental case for seeking to limit population growth).

But taken in context, Porritt's comments follow an indisputable, if slightly morbid, logic.

The point he was making (and elaborated on in an interview with BusinessGreen.com which we will post tomorrow) is that all the climate change models now point to an era of "radical discontinuity" characterised by increasingly frequent "climate-induced shocks".

Be they devastating events like Katrina or slower-moving shocks such as droughts or carbon feedback loops there will be increased pressure on societies, governments and businesses to somehow prepare for the unpredictable.

As Porritt puts it: "There are businesses working on models that are not worth the paper they are written on. Whether you are talking from the perspective of demographics or technology change or the environment or changing consumer expectations the reality for business now is one of radical discontinuity. So smart management teams are already thinking how do we proof our business against that discontinuity? How do we build resilience in the company so we are better equipped to deal with all that?"

This resilience will have to take two forms. Firstly, there is the urgent need to make businesses and their supply chains more physically resilient to climate change threats, but secondly there is the need to create resilience against the legislative and market changes that will accompany any increase in the frequency of climate shocks.

Porritt noted that while carbon cap-and-trade schemes may have their flaws one advantage they do boast is flexibility. As a result governments are in a position to lower emission caps as soon as public opinion becomes fully aware of the need for greater action on climate change - most likely in the wake of a flurry of climate-related disasters.

Consequently, businesses need to prepare for not just increased climate instability, but also potentially sharp changes in the legislative environment that would drive up energy prices and require dramatic reform of business models. As with any such systemic changes, it is those firms that prepare earliest that will prove the most resilient and best equipped to prosper in the new low carbon economy.

It might not grab as many headlines as hypothesising over the potential up-side of Katrina-scale disasters, but this is the message business leaders should take from Porritt's all too real warnings.

Posted by James Murray on February 4, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The backlash is upon us.

It was always only a matter of time before those opposed to the steady march of the green movement used the economic slowdown to try and force it back to the margins of the political debate - and this week they were out in force.

Mayor Boris, for example, celebrated getting through 100 days in office without any humiliating groveling apologies (give it time, they'll come) by scrapping a flagship zero carbon vehicle project, while professional controversialist Julie Burchill offered up her assessment of environmentalists as "supremely unsexy" hypocritical poshos who manufacture their concern over the environment as an excuse to tell poorer people what to do (much to the amusing chagrin of George Monbiot).

Meanwhile, over at The Times columnist Alice Thompson offered a thorough assessment of why "being green is not cool anymore", arguing that the "the chilly economic climate... has frozen the shoots of environmentalism". Citing static demand organic produce and a MORI poll showing that the proportion of people who rank the environment as one of their top three concerns has fallen from 15 to 10 per cent in the last year, she argued that "espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone".

Admittedly, she concludes that a desire to lower energy and food bills means people are behaving in a greener manner by growing their own veg and trying to embrace energy efficiency, but the crux of the argument remains that the environment is fast receding as a political and business topic.

What is so interesting about these attacks is that both Thompson and Burchill, perhaps wilfully, are addressing an extremely narrow and increasingly outdated idea of what constitutes an environmentalist.

The idea that the green movement is faltering because fewer people can afford to buy organic Swedes or because environmentalists are still perceived as hair shirt attired hippies completely fails to comprehend the extent to which the green movement has shifted in recent years from niche popular movement to critical economic issue.

Demand for organic fruit and veg and other green consumer products will undoubtedly drop off as people tighten their belts, but the importance of this market to the green business movement has always been overstated (in fact you can make a case for it not being green at all given organic crops lower yields and the requirement at a time of rising food prices for more land to be given over to farming).

The business world's interest in green issues has always been more about the opportunities and challenges presented by the massive structural shift towards a low carbon economy than opening up a couple of relatively small new consumer markets. As such the economic slowdown will have negligible impact on the emerging clean technologies and green business models that truly define the green business movement. In fact, with the slowdown caused in no small part by rising energy prices there is a strong case for saying that the case for greener and more energy efficient infrastructure and processes.

This is certainly the view of most investors as the alternative energy gold rush and recent spate of clean tech IPOs clearly demonstrates.

Right, I'm off to put my money in Brazil.

Have a good weekend,

James

Posted by James Murray on August 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today's sadly inevitable decision to delay the planned increase in fuel duty met with an equally inevitable chorus of crowing from motoring groups.

"Good," said the seemingly endless battalion of associations, lobbyists and trade groups who claim to represent motorists' interests, before realising they had the chancellor on the ropes and adding that "of course, it doesn't go far enough."

Not satisfied with their victory, spokesman after spokesman trotted out their view that while the postponement was welcome, rising oil prices and the fact that many hauliers are "on the brink" meant the government should go further and cut fuel duty.

But where was the countervailing view?

The Green Party and bodies such as Friends of the Earth did their best, pointing out that rising oil prices show exactly why the government should embrace measures such as higher fuel duty that serve to wean people off of fossil fuels.

But as is so often the case it is all too easy for the media and business groups to dismiss such arguments as the preserve of the old hair shirt brigade. Consequently, the view that fuel prices are too high and need to be reduced is allowed to become established as the conventional wisdom almost unchallenged.

What is urgently required are green business leaders who are willing to make the case for potentially unpopular green measures from an explicitly commercial perspective.

Where are the retailers committed to green supply chains who are willing to say that yes, high fuel prices are a problem, but they pose a far bigger problem for those companies running inefficient fleets than those who are already moving to improve their fuel efficiency?

Where are the electric car and rail companies who are willing to argue that while rising fuel prices represent a challenge for road hauliers and conventional auto manufacturers they represent a great opportunity for greener alternatives?

Where are the business groups - I'm looking at you CBI - who are brave enough to point out that lobbying for lower fuel duty in the face of soaring global oil prices only serves to distract from the urgency with which businesses should be looking for alternative business models that leave them less exposed to fossil fuels?

The problem is that barring a couple of noticeable exceptions, there is a near complete absence of such figures, and while the silence is particularly noticeable with regards to the fuel duty debate it is similarly evident around almost every green business issue.

For example, I've spoken with several people within the wind industry who feel that the trade groups that represent them are far too willing to keep their counsel for fear of alienating Whitehall mandarins, when they should be screaming from the rooftops about the countless barriers being put in the industry's way.

They have a point - you know for sure that if the motoring lobby faced even a fraction of the challenges that have dogged the renewable energy industry they would have taken to the streets long ago.

The scarcity of business figures willing to speak up for the sector is understandable in many ways. The bulk of specialist green firms are still relatively small and tend to be more focused on building their own businesses than they are on becoming champions for a whole sector. Meanwhile, those larger firms that have signalled their support for a low carbon future - Tesco, M&S, Virgin, HSBC, et al - are hampered by either a traditional reluctance to get involved in political debates or an unwillingness to anger shareholders by being seen to lobby for measures that would result in higher energy costs.

But the fact remains that as the economic slowdown begins to bite and those lobbyists representing carbon intensive industries become ever more desperate green businesses will need vocal champions more than ever.

There is a strong long term business case for measures that increase the costs for carbon intensive firms and incentivise the shift towards alternative technologies - plenty of firms realise this, we just need more willing to come out and say so.

Posted by James Murray on July 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Would you trust a farmer to fill in the right field on an Excel spreadsheet?

I know, I know. "Agriculture is a modern, technologically savvy industry filled with IT literate professionals." But, seriously, would you?

I'm not picking on farmers. Would you trust a haulier, or a manufacturer, or a shipping firm to fill in the right field, either?

Nope, thought not.

Personally, I wouldn't trust 90 per cent of office workers – myself included – to fill in the correct field in an Excel spreadsheet, and yet this appears to be the tool the vast majority of firms are using to keep track of their carbon emissions.

Speaking at last week's Corporate Climate Response conference, Peter Klein, vice president of carbon management software specialist Carbon View estimated that around 90 per cent of the company's the firm engages with are using Excel spreadsheets to try and calculate and track their carbon footprint.

In a previous life I spent four years covering the IT industry and always felt much of the knee jerk criticism of Microsoft was driven as much by envy as legitimate concerns. Yet it is hard to argue with Klein's view that the flexibility that makes Excel such an attractive tool for so many tasks also ensures that it is ill suited for handling carbon data, particularly when that carbon data necessarily originates from countless different sources.

CSR departments using Excel to try and work out the carbon emissions of a product or supply chain are likely to have to regularly consolidate countless different spreadsheets provided by countless different suppliers and partners, all the time knowing that one rogue digit or field filled in incorrectly could undermine the integrity of the entire exercise.

Of course, using the advanced functionality offered by modern versions of Excel can limit these risks and help ensure it is easy for suppliers to input the right data in the right fields, but if truth be told most CSR departments probably lack the expertise to make full use of such functionality.

As I outlined last week, there are a large number of measures that need to be adopted to give firms and their customers greater confidence in carbon footprinting calculations, not least the adoption of clear international standards, but the development and installation of dedicated carbon management software tools that simplify and streamline the processes by which suppliers provide firms with carbon data has to be one of them.

Posted by James Murray on May 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

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.

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