What will the Chancellor do?

On Friday at the Church House Conference Centre, Westminster, the CIRIA/ DTI's Global Watch Mission reported back on their "Towards zero carbon housing - lessons from Northern Europe" visit and research. The principle behind this was to investigate the construction of housing in Sweden, Denmark & Germany, countries that have housing with annual energy consumption for space heating of well below 2,000 kWh and to feedback back the knowledge gained during the process into the UK. The mission members were varied in background however all had significant experience in different areas of construction - be it from a housing association, volume house builder etc. The extremely well attended event showed what a hot issue this is today in the UK.

What came clear to me from the report was that to achieve the requirements of the future we need a joined up solution that encompasses Passive House design, along with some new products and an improvement in our construction skills. On top of this we need local planners to have the time to receive the education to train them up on aspects of MMC, new technologies AND an adoption of both carrot and stick to push through more energy efficient homes.

So will the chancellor look at tax incentives for the adoption of energy efficiency in construction?and how about making it more beneficial to put power into the grid from households and thus make the pay-back time for new energy providing technologies shorter and more accessable for the masses?

I look forward to hearing if the Chancellor has listened to the findings from the DTI mission...

Low Energy Light Bulbs - A more Balanced View

Following the lead of Australia, the EU is planning to outlaw the use of old-style filament light bulbs as early as 2008. On the surface, this edict to adopt low energy fluorescent devices looks a great way to reduce energy consumption worldwide. Some analysts claim a saving of 10% energy worldwide if this were adopted by the whole planet which is likely to save much more CO2 than any green generation schemes in a much smaller timescale.

However, my training as a chemical engineer tells me to look at the full environmental life cycle of any new product. Any fluorescent light uses mercury to produce the light as high voltage is applied to vaporise and excite the mercury atoms.

Mercury is particularly bad for the environment because it does not get destroyed and can cause catastrophic effects for the food chain, for example see this article.

Traditional filament bulbs use no mercury - so should we stop this inexorable move towards compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL's)?

In short, no, because the story isn't quite that simple. Ironically, the majority of mercury released into the atmosphere actually comes from burning fossil fuels. A US study found that a filament light bulb actually released over double the mercury into the atmosphere that a CFL did due to this indirect effect. The argument may be more marginal for countries such as France, where a high percentage of power is generated from nuclear.

Another welcome development is that some manufacturers, such as Phillips, are working the reduce the mercury content of the lamps they are producing.

The other thing to remember when you change your CFL after many years of saving the environment is not to toss it into the environment - CFL's are one of the many products subject to the EU's WEEE recycling scheme - the manufacturers are obliged to recycle the products.

Convinced now? If not, see this great video - short and well to the point.....

Click To Play

How many people does it take to make a difference?

A production of Tamarack Media. Concept by Florence Miller.

The Big Question!

With the blog race now behind us, the taste of champagne still on our lips, I can't help but ponder the greatest sustainability issues facing England this year. If fact one is unfolding in front of our eyes right now:

Can England sustain the form that made the Aussie's cry just a few weeks ago? A shaky start, but optimism is high as Anderson rips through the Kiwi top order.... The England cricket fan, a helpless victim of Variable ratio reward, is kept on the edge every game. Think of the glory, beer will flow, ugly blokes will get lucky, plasma screens saved from pelting beer cans.

Come on boys, make us proud!

Still to come, can England sustain the ultimate glory, the World Cup of Rugby Crown.

Be Fair, Feel Good!

We have all heard of fair trade in our local supermarkets, if you haven't here is a quick intro...

The FAIRTRADE Mark is an independent consumer label which appears on products as an independent guarantee that disadvantaged producers in the developing world are getting a better deal. As always, Wikipedia hits the nail right on the head



So why buy these products? Lets take a look.

The story of Toledo Cocao Growers Association (TCGA) is a perfect example of how much Fair Trade makes a difference. The cooperative has about 126 members and is located in the Toledo region of Belize, which is the poorest in district in the country.

The Beginnings of TCGA The cooperative was formed in 1986 in order to yield higher prices, improve living conditions, and help farmers increase the quality of their cocoa. TCGA's cocoa is grown organically and under a canopy of shade trees including valuable timbers of mahogany, cedar and teak. Farmers also use sustainable methods such as composting and typically grow a diversity of other food crops among their cocoa. Organic production keeps the river water pesticide-free. The preserved shade canopy makes the area a good carbon sink and supports a wide variety of natural species, including at least 187 kinds of birds.

Until the early 1990s TCGA's farmers earned enough from their cocoa to buy clothes, basic necessities and a variety of foods. However, the price of cocoa was suddenly cut in half between 1992 and 1993, falling below the cost of production.

Fortunately, a chocolate company from the United Kingdom called Green and Black's offered a long-term contract for a stable supply of quality cocoa. They agreed to buy all the cocoa TCGA could produce at an above-market price. The cocoa was used to create Maya Gold Chocolate, which was introduced in March 1994 bearing the Fairtrade Mark, denoting Fair Trade certification in the UK. The long-term contracts Fair Trade offers have given the farmers the confidence to make long term plans to improve their production. Many who had abandoned their crops have now returned to their home communities to resume their traditional, sustainable lifestyles.

That was the first product in the UK to bear the mark, there are now 2000 but still the sales represent only 0.5-5% in their product catagories.




Take a look the latest newsletter , or better still, put a product in your trolley and feel good!

Why Sustainablogability?

When we first started this blog site it was to look at two aspects:

• Would we be able, as complete novices, to put together and run a blog that would gather enough readership? and, more importantly,
• To highlight the growing impact of the issue of sustainability in everyday life.

Since about the mid-1990s I've been increasingly aware in the business world of the growing interest in the topic of sustainability in the sense of ensuring that what we do has a minimised impact on the earth and is efficient in the use of energy and raw materials to achieve it.

In the early days it was the likes of Friends of the Earth and others that brought the issues of the planet to the fore however this area has grown to become more and more main stream as it jumped over the chasm and into the main stream with the likes of the Fortune sustainability rankings. Nowadays it would seem unforgivable for a company to put out their Annual Report without the use of the word sustainable in their CSR section if nowhere else.

I would argue it has now become unacceptable for companies not to at least point their investors at some of their sustainability projects/ developments. But in the cynical world in which we live one can certainly feel that some of the major corporations that publish their green credentials set themselves up when the reality does not match their marketing. If you are going to advertise yourself as green then one bad news story that runs contra to that message can ruin the thousands of dollars spent on image. A most recent example was BP; having gone through a significant greening campaign over the past years the oil spill in Alaska and the subsequent inquiries have undoubtedly gone along way to undo all the past CSR work.

So what does the corporate world do? Do we almost need a root and branch check of our processes and systems along the lines of a "Sarbanes-Oxley" for sustainability - help no! Companies that are in business for the long term have a reason to act in a sustainable way. We need to help the others to come to this conclusion through legislation and our own buying habits.

Conservatives Stubb out Climate Change?

These are strange times in which we live. Ray Stubbs, a former credible sports presenter, is singing karaoke in front of millions on Fame Academy. At the same time, David Cameron, the leader of the conservative party in the UK, is trying to get back into power by running counter to usual Tory philosophy and arguing for HIGHER taxes on airline fuel. In both cases, there seems a smack of desperation by trying to persuade an increasingly fickle public to vote for their particular approach. The fundamental problem with the conservatives' ideas is their complexity - each passenger will be allowed one short haul flight per year without the higher tax as well as an VAT exemption for business travel - but the bureaucracy required to manage the scheme will allow loopholes and dodges for the usual beneficiaries of such schemes (i.e. those with the money to outmanoeuvre the rules).

In fairness to the Tories, personal flight allowances are but one of several options being considered. But they should be taking their traditional stance and rather than meddling, should be looking to market based solutions such as carbon trading. This is one area where the Prime Minister elect, Gordon Brown, actually has stealt a march by publicising the idea of a World Carbon Trading market being based in London.

The next unsociable habit?

Having drinks and then driving away in the car, second hand smoking... at one period of time all quite accepted behaviour however nowadays either illegal or at least frowned on social behaviour... Will our usage of energy in the future be so viewed?

Keeping up with Jones has been a quite typical past time in many countries - not only in the UK! However could we be about to see this extended in to monitoring of carbon footprints in the future? In the past an outward sign of "we're doing well" would be the number of cars parked on the drive and the size of their engines - this could well be reversed with the neighbour hiding his gas guzzling engine away in the garage rather than proudly polishing it on the drive at the weekend... In the winter time look to your neighbour's roof - if the snow's still sitting there then they have insulation if it comes off then obviously then do not... you can just imagine where this new one up man ship could go... "How much recycling do you do?" brings Neighbourhood Watch in to a whole new ball game! And think about those annual Xmas light competitions - will the behaviour picture about be acceptable?

Or is this all a fashion statement with the icons if the media tootling around in their Prius cars? My feeling is it is here to stay... In Italy the idea has caught on as households publish how good their energy efficiency rating was for their property .. with the home buyer's pack requirement coming in in the UK the need for the seller of the property to announce this in the future to all prospective buyers begins to give the householder a reason, other than "mere energy saving", to think about investing in insulation and other energy saving devices. In the past the owners may have thought they would not recoup their investment before they potentially move along the housing ladder this in the future means a quicker sale or better price.

No doubt when this does become the next big craze rather than just the minority investing in wind turbines and such like then we will all grumbling and moaning eventually catch up and maybe, just maybe, it will all become acceptable behaviour to think about energy usage or carbon footprint size as we decide our future actions.

Forget the sustainability of the Internet, can we sustain the planet for our own future?

The Sunday Times Magazine front cover shows the UK submerged by water entitled "Tomorrow's world".

It may not be the Paper vs Electronic debate that we concern ourselves with over the coming years but how to protect ourselves against droughts, floods and landslides.

Read for yourself here the full impact global warming could have.

Is the Internet sustainable?

The more successful the author the more trees that are felled, the more paper produced, the more books delivered - the more the environmental damaging potential? So is the internet the most sustainable tool for publishing and other areas of media?

At times in the world of work it would seem that some senior execs. still have to get the handle of how e-mails are supposed to work - i.e. their PAs print out their e-mails onto paper for them to read at their desks... On the other hand of late I have noticed an increased trend in companies' sign-off text in their e-mails asking readers to only print out this message if really necessary.

The other night on Radio 4 in the programme "Click On" during the explanation about data centres and about the requirement of large, secure power sources to supply the likes of Microsoft, Google etc. and the buildings and resources to house these networks and servers I began to think again about the above ideas...

So what's the more sustainable media form... your answers please... but not on a postcard!

(To listen to the show click here: "Click On Re-run"and select Listen to the latest edition - the item's about 15 minutes through.)

Virgin Innovators

Sir Richard Branson, renowned entreprenuer with considerable interests in the travel and tourism industry has pledged $25m to the scientist who can create a solution to help the growing carbon crisis.

Do we really need an innovative solution? And if we get one, will it take years for businesses and people to adopt it?

There are 2 things that are high up on people’s priorities: money and convenience. We have fallen into a convenient trap and money talks. We like to be able to drive our cars to work, fly to Southampton and put the dishwasher on when it’s half full. And I’m sure if you introduced a carbon tax in the monthly pay packet or gave people cash incentives to “be green”, the reduction in emissions would be immediately noticeable.

You could invest the $25mn in smart meters for homes to show people the impact of their actions or in running an efficient public transport service with seats for everyone (now that is being ambitious!)

These are simple solutions to a problem we have created ourselves. That is not to say that there are not people with the capability of developing an all encompassing solution, however in the coming months and years why can we not be encouraged more to reduce the impact ourselves.

China looks to Sustainability Agenda?

It was glad tidings of joy I felt as Radio Four broadcasted sections of the Annual Report given by Mr Wen to the National People's Congress in China... it felt that at last the leadership of China was beginning to acknowledge on a senior level that China also faced serious sustainability issues. Not to be too naive then I'll wait to see what arises from this recent address to the nation but it certainly felt like the waking of a giant?

China is expected to bcome the biggest emitter of greenhouse gase in 2009 however the knock on effects of massive investments into heavy industry have already shown detrimental effects on the water and air conditions in the region - particularly along the coastal development areas. Can China learn from the lessons that we learned too late? How do we balance a "need" for development but at the same time take care of the planet?

The power of the internet?

For those of you who have yet to see Al Gore & co's mini epic "An Inconvenient Truth" I can only recommend the viewing - however it does show that in this internet age the Al Gore's of this world might survive longer in the public arena than that other candidate ...

Website to view preview - click HERE

Grow your own house? Or happy hippy building blocks?

As promised I checked out Ecobuild last week - definate improvement on last year where sheep's wool was being promoted as the next best thing for insulation - although I did get to thinking about this one - if all the 13 million homes that were currently under-insulated moved to sheep's wool then firstly would we have the volume of sheep's wool to cope with this demand? Would it be a good promotion of sustainability to then use up even more land for grazing more sheep on? Would we even have sufficient room for all that many sheep - or would we have to import it from abroad...?

I was reminded of these thoughts as my eyes met the latest development on the sustainable building products being launched at Ecobuild - "Hemcrete" - yes, you've guessed it using hemp mixed with lime and binders to produced a combination of hemp and concrete for spraying onto walls. Now this might sound like a wind up but this is a serious product behind which a number of large organisations stand behind... As I researched into this I came across information this idea is not exactly new...whatever next...

On my travels last week one of the discussions I got caught up in was on the issue of carbon off-setting... (what an exciting life I lead, I know... ) what caught my attention was that the traditional offer of off-setting the carbon emissions brought about producing a certain product against tree planting was now perceived as environmentally unfriendly! Another pointed out that if we continued down this route then Britain would once again turn back into a highly tree dense land...

Do Smart Meters Reduce Energy Usage

Today's lecture talked about a disruptive technology where utilities usage is monitored and fed back to the user - imagine a graph on your TV, fed from the internet, which shows power usage (ammunition to use the washing line instead of the tumble dryer). What would be the further ramifications? Buying power from different suppliers depending on cost (marrying the Kelkoo model with the energy meter). Driving microgeneration technologies based on actual power sold back to the grid rather than the current hype around solar panels and wind turbines.

It's a way away but closer than we think - rather than saving energy per se, I believe it will be a co-enabler for other technologies to flourish or fall by the wayside.

If you want to read more, here's a great article from the BBC website. What do you all think?

Selling Sun Cream to Eskimos

You might of heard a little about the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 nominations. The names are said to include ex-vice president Al Gore, the Bolivian President and Opray Winfrey (they gotta be kidding, right?!), although we will never know for sure as the names are kept secret for fifty years. Ever wondered how the prizes work? Nobel.org.

For me, and I suppose this blog, one candidate stands out, Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Sheila is an Inuit or more commonly known as an Eskimo. What most impresses me is that Sheila was brought up in the traditional way, in fact for the first ten years of her life, her only transport was a sled and a pack of dogs. Naturally, this is not the reason for her nomination.

After her education at McGill University in Montreal, Sheila became spokesperson for the Inuit people holding many representative positions and contributed to the negotiation of the Stockholm convention. Her most recent work is taking on the US government for the violation of Human Rights of the Inuit people. It sounds a little over board, but I think Sheila is putting a face to the climate problem by telling the Inuit story, maybe a story like this:

ps: before you start you might want to look up Shaman and taboo



Did you enjoy it, thought so. Here are another 2 short scenes, I love the the way the question is answered .

Hope they will never need any, sun cream that is, but that is up to you and I.

Well done and good luck Sheila!

Financial organisations lead the way

A recent article in computing magazine reported on the initiatives undertaken by the likes of HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Nationwide to be more energy efficient. HSBC is piloting virtual boardrooms across the world from June 2007 in a bid reduce both the cost and the environmental impact of air travel – a flight to New York is equivalent to 1.2 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide. Amongst other initiatives is the drive by both Nationwide and HSBC to encourage customers to stop paper statements and complete all banking online. As an avid online banker I find the convenience of paying all my bills and transferring money part of my everyday life and would be severely inconvenienced without it.

However, I am still guilty of receiving my paper statement every month and will continue to do so as there is some part of me that thinks this big IT system containing all of our information will one day fail and I will have to rely on my trusty paper statement to remind me who and what I pay every month. This leaves me asking myself the question, “am I a laggard” for not wholly embracing e-banking? The argument becomes more compelling when I realise that I didn’t know what blogs, mash ups, and flickr were until January 2007. Moore’s admittance in Crossing the Chasm that he too falls into this category when adopting personal technology offers me slight solace (that and the fact that when I read on in the article, the take up of online statements is less than 18%)!

Having diverted slightly, I want to finish my blog by telling you all that the article also taught me something I will think about as I leave the office every night – switching off the lights will provide enough energy to make 1000 cups of tea. Maybe I will educate my colleagues by advertising this at the door, on recycled paper of course!

Ecobuild at Earl's Court

Next week at Earls Court, London the stage will be set for an exhibition around the construction industry looking at Energy efficieny, sustainability... Amongst the various exhibition halls will be Ecobuild looking at "designing and building a sustainable future". Sustainablogability will be there to report back on the event...

Google Generation still in Nappies

Confused about the title? Let me explain a little. The first time I heard the phrase, google generation, was in Tony Blair's final Labour Party conference speech. Name-dropping, Me? Never. In fact Mr Blair is just one in many world figures that talk about this phenomenon in public speeches.

I like the Wikipedia definition of Google Generation the most. Briefly, it is the generation whose first port of call for knowledge is the internet. That is definitively me, and as you are reading this, it is probably you as well.

I was talking about the title wasn't I, "nappies", do you know how many were used in the UK last year? 3.5 Billion give or take a few. Problem is they can take up to 500 years to decompose.
Sustainable? If so, for how long? What will the google generation do?
Type in a string like nappy recycling, wait 0.033 secs and read the answer…..

On this occasion, besides massive recycling plants, no viable answer comes back; in 2007 we will no doubt send 3.5 Billion little bum wrappers to the tip.

Last week I heard something that really got me thinking (they don’t happen often). It was this:
In society, as we face large and complex problems, instead of looking forward to technology, innovation etc. Look back, how did our ancestors deal with these issues.

Think I’ll try this string, "potty training 1900's", see where it goes. The second item is a story told by Gramma Geri about her Scottish mother in law, who toilet trained her new born in six weeks. Picking up on this, further searches reveal societies and organisations devoted to these techniques called "Elimination Training". As expected in this day and age, I could join clubs, talk to people and learn more. Overall pretty convincing stuff. If we were planning another baby, I would struggle for an excuse not to at least try it. On the whole it sounds a good solution, well maybe not for Pampers.

Hopefully I have got the point across, or maybe google generation still in nappies was a subtle metaphor for how we are in our infancy in knowledge management and collective problem solving. Or perhaps, to qualify my first bash at blog and social computing. Na, I am not that clever, anyway here is a picture of my dog.

Is it the influence of Sustainablogability or just a hot topic in 2007?!

I listened with interest to the news this morning that the organisers of Live 8 are planning Live Earth this Summer.

The BBC website states that the organisers expect Live Earth to become "the model for future carbon neutral concerts" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6367515.stm) but I'm a cynic at heart and I wonder if the hot topic for 2008 will still be the climate change debate?

Will Mechanical Turks Save the World?

For those who have never heard this term, a recent article in the Independent Newspaper outlines how you can earn money from the internet by doing such bizarrely different tasks such as language translation to answering off-beam questions. Before you all rush to earn your fortune, the hourly rate on offer is usually way below minimum wage, but it is interesting how the wisdom of the crowd is now being used to complete tasks which were either expensive or impossible before. What is more interesting is that the Mturk-ers providing their services for next to peanuts are actually doing it - this can only be explained by the social computing phenomenon that has lead to MySpace, YouTube and the rest.

But is this relevant for sustainability? Well, this shrinking virtual world surely omeans that searching for services becomes easier and hence less of the world's resources will be consumed in the hunt for a provider. In the old old days, if you wanted to translate something, you probably invited suppliers for interview, set up a contract and posted the information backwards and forwards. In the future, no search or contracts will be necessary as the market will provide the lowest cost (and CO2) solution.

So will Mturks save the world? Well, not quite, but maybe this ultimate market solution will start to chip away at some of our assumptions of where work resides and thus gives an opportunity for consumption reduction.

Creative Energy Homes Project

Nottingham University
set up its Creative Energy Homes Project bringing networking between academia and the building industy to look at how to reduce carbon emissions using modern methods of construction (MMC) getting away from the traditional brick & mortar techniques. Over the coming months 6 new homes will spring up at the campus allowing comprehensive studies to be carried out for future reference

Zero Carbon Homes

The hot sustainability topic on the UK government's sustainability website is housing... Our homes account for c. 27% of all the UK's carbon emissions. The government's aim is that all new homes will be zero carbon by the 2016.

Earlier this week (7th February) the gauntlet was thrown down to the construction industry by English Partnerships to speed up its response to climate change by building zero carbon developments. Trevor Beattie, the Director at English Partnerships responsible for the aptly named "Carbon Challenge" said “Climate change is with us now – so now is the time to act. English Partnerships is already working with developers to accelerate the move towards zero carbon development and this challenge will redouble our efforts.

“The built environment is one of the most significant contributors to global warming, which means our work can have a massive impact on leading the way in cutting domestic carbon emissions.”

The challenge particularly hopes to tackle the efficiency of new housing stock...

...however over 13 million homes in the UK are inadequately insulated according to the National Insulation Association - and at the current rate of c. 450,000 per annum cavity wall insulations we have a long way to go!

Sustainability - what does it mean?

So what does Sustainability actually mean then? It would seem from reading through the press and CSR literature different things to different people and organisations. In the olden days we would take the tried and trusted ( or should that mean tired and dusty) English Oxford Dictionary meaning almost as gospel however perhaps nowadays we would turn to the global world for comment by referring to a Wikipedia definition:

"an attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future. It relates to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighborhood to the entire planet.Sustainability is an attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

A mystical journey

Scenario gazing is really relevant to help us draw conclusions about the sustainability of our planet. However, where we need to find frameworks to make sense of the future, earlier cultures were able to understand the future by making sense of uncertainties that they saw developing by the simple art of story telling. This mystical film tells a story about our current environmental problems from the imagined viewpoint of a native American:

Titular Musings

So what exactly is sustainablogablity? Is it the ability to sustain a blog, which could indeed be difficult. Or is it a blog about sustainability? If it is a blog about sustainability then surely a key question has to be;

Can a blog in itself attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future ?

Does a blog actually contribute to the pressures on our natural ecosystems? Maybe sustainablogablity was simply a name made up during a crazy evening spent consuming cheap beer imported from Mexico with a carbon footprint the size of a Yeti. Or maybe it has a much deeper polito-anagramical meaning. A quick rearangement yields

It aligns you, basal bit

- if that isn't crystal clear, I don't know what is.