What’s on your plate? Agriculture, meat, and carbon

(The following article originally appeared in the 15 November 2010 (no. 108) issue of the IEMA journal "the environmentalist", and is posted here with permission from the publisher.)

Most greenhouse gas reduction initiatives – including those promoted on these pages – have focused on energy industry and transport as these sectors comprise the bulk of measurable human-induced emissions.  In addition, international climate negotiations (UN-REDD) have focused increasing efforts on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation.

In general, agriculture has received less attention in carbon management policy and legislation, despite the fact that more of the earth’s surface is dedicated to farmland than to cities.   Agriculture is estimated to account for anywhere from 10% to 40% of global anthropogenic GHGs.

One agricultural topic that has received more attention is the environmental consequence of the globalization of food as a commodity product. Should the carbon impact of our globalized food system and meat-intensive diet be part of the debate?  Are there farming practices closer that could reverse this pattern?

                                                                                                               

Loving our Livestock

Modern society seems to have a love-hate relationship with livestock.  An ice cream manufacturer might use images of grazing cows to symbolise fresh, natural products, and yet food scares from BSE to E. coli infections highlight some of the apparent risks of industrial agriculture.

A similar contradictory relationship exists when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Intensive livestock rearing generates both direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, while improved practices can result in quantifiable emission reductions and support the transition to a lower-carbon economy.    The extent to which agriculture is a source or sink for GHGs depends on existing regional land-use and management practices. An important related question is what the alternative uses for the land would be, and whether those uses would generate even greater emissions than agriculture?  

The beef carbon footprint

Greenhouse gas emissions arise at every step in getting a hamburger or steak to our tables, from preparing the soils, to growing the animal feed, to housing and feeding animals, managing their waste, transporting the animal to market, to meat processing, packing, refrigeration, transport, and finally cooking. 

At each stage, GHG emissions are released - and can be mitigated.  How cows are raised– e.g. whether grain fed or pasture raised-makes a difference. Most cattle are fed a diet rich in corn and alfalfa. These grains are often grown using artificial fertilisers produced through energy intensive means and harvested with mechanised farm equipment.    However, the lower GHG intensity of grass-fed cattle is not always better if pastures are overgrazed and cause soil degradation and soil carbon loss.  And the demand for grazing lands can put pressure on nearby forests resulting in significant emissions from deforestation.

The multi-stomached cow, while well equipped to digest otherwise inedible grasses, burps largevolumes of the greenhouse gas methane – anywhere between 100 and 700 litres per animal per day.  The animal waste is also a source of methane emissions if it is stored in large lagoons where it decomposes anaerobically. And depending on the application of manure and/or nitrogen fertilizers for feed crops, nitrogen can be released into the atmosphere as N₂0.  Both methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂0) are particularly significant greenhouse gases as the former has a global warming potential 21 times that of CO₂ and the latter, 310 times that of CO₂.

By adding up all of these emissions sources and dividing by the amount of meat produced, it is possible to estimate the carbon footprint of each piece of beef.  According to a 2009 analysis, a 150 gram burger is responsible for approximately 2 kg CO₂ equivalent the same as driving 15 km in an average car.

The cumulative effect of our burger eating is huge.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2004," beef cattle accounted for 71% of methane emissions in that country in 2004. The FAO estimates that cows and other livestock worldwide are responsible for total 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than for transport. As incomes rise in poorer countries, so does global meat consumption, potentially undermining efforts to reduce emissions.

Carbon Management on and Off the Farm

While attention is turning increasingly to the problem of carbon-intensive global livestock production, campaigners, policy makers and journalists have said less about the opportunities for better management practices on domestic farms.  It is possible to adapt the well-tested “reduce, reuse, recycle” hierarchy to our production and consumption of food to find ways to reduce the greenhouse gas impact of the food we eat.

Accordingly, the first approach is to reduce demand of high emissions foods like beef by reducing food waste.   Careful meal planning and better storage can significantly reduce the amount of food purchased and sent to landfill without being eaten.  A second approach is to encourage a shift in favour of lower-carbon protein sources like pork (single-stomach pig), poultry and legumes will reduce GHGs.  In the short term, however, it will prove difficult to separate people from their beef burgers and Sunday roasts.  What is more, these efforts may be swamped by changing diets in the developing world.

Improving practices and finding farm & carbon management synergies

Is it possible, then, to raise cattle that emit less methane, and to reduce emissions associated with feeding them?  Here the results to date have been promising.  Studies have shown that changing pasture can reduce gaseous emissions by 20%, and including garlic in cattle feed can reduce emissions by 50% and lead to healthier cattle[1].  Optimizing the diet of animals not only improves the efficiency of weight gain for animals (i.e. meat) but also reduces the methane emissions. About 6% of the energy input to the cow is released as methane gas from the cow.

Best practices on farms have great potential to mitigate GHGs and improve carbon sequestration. Biomass and carbon comprises much more than the plants and animals immediately obvious on the farm. Land-use practices such as ploughing or tillage intensity can determine the extent to which soil is a sink or source for GHGs. Ploughing up grassland releases up to 84 tonnes per hectare CO2e in England and up to 330 tonnes CO2e per hectare in Scotland.[2] On the other hand, grazing animals can help maintain grasslands if grazing in controlled and pastures are rotated.  By reducing land clearing and minimizing soil disturbance, soil’s role in storing carbon and available nitrogen for plants can be maximised and soil structure and microbial activity can be enhanced to increase agricultural productivity.

In short, best practice pasture management can help soils sequester carbon while, on the other hand, poor practices (e.g. overgrazing, excessive nitrogen use, and forest destruction) will lead to increases in GHGs.  “Using existing technologies and best management practices, US agriculture could sequester 350-550 million tonnes of CO2e per year and current N2O and CH4 emissions could be decreased by 20-40%.”[3] 

Reducing or eliminating nitrogen-based artificial fertilisers as part of a programme of integrated farm management can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from soil.  Spreading manure on croplands has the dual benefits of replacing artificial fertilisers and reducing the volume of methane-generating waste lagoons.

Where waste lagoons are unavoidable, they can aerated to break down the waste aerobically, producing CO2 instead of the more powerful greenhouse gas methane.  An alternative is to capture the methane and flare it or use it to generate renewable heat and electricity.  Feed-in tariffs and standard contracts in the UK and US provide generous incentives for farmers to generate power in this way, in order to displace fossil fuel-fired generation (as described in our article in issue 104 of  ‘the environmentalist’.

A final approach is to look at local land use practices.  The decision about the best use of a given parcel of land is made jointly by landowners, local communities, government and other stakeholders.  Allowing livestock grazing may be considered the best way to preserve open space, which also allows recreation and provides habitat for native species.  The challenge then is to ensure that the practice helps to reduce net emissions rather than contributing to them.

Reducing over-grazing and using perennial grasses helps to maintain soil structure and reduce soil carbon emissions.  Managing sites for some woodland growth can aid carbon sequestration and conservation. Indeed, livestock can be part of a program to control invasive species and encourage native ones.

As farmers in the USA have learnt, wind farms are often a perfect complement to livestock grazing.  Around the town of Klickitat, Wisconsin, landowners have given wind developers permission to install over 600 turbines, generating enough power to supply 300,000 to 400,000 homes.  In this way, local farmers are making a significant contribution to the low-carbon economy. What is more, the landowners earn approximately $18,000 (about £11,000) per year for each turbine on their land – a significant boost to modest local incomes.[4] 

Conclusion

Domesticated livestock have been with humanity since before written records began. It is important that we recognise the carbon cost of our intensive agriculture and food choices, and continue to seek ways to balance our meat consumption with our need to combat climate change.


Suzy Hodgson AIEMA is a Principal Consultant and Jamal Gore MIEMA,CEnv is Managing Director at carbon management company Carbon Clear Limited.

References:

1 Soil Carbon and Organic Farming, Soil Association, November 2009 http://www.soilassociation.org/

2 Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation: Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture, US Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, May 2004

3 Nathan Fiala, “The Greenhouse Hamburger”, Scientific American, February 2009.

4 http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/statistics/climate_change/1_20100414165435_e_@@_GHGnatstatsrelease140410rev1.pdf

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[1] http://www.thebeefsite.com/news/29884/afbi-study-on-methane-emissions-in-ruminants

[2] Ibid

[3] Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation: Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture, US Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, May 2004

[4] http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2010/10/18/

Carbon Neutrality: In From the Cold

(Ed: This article was originally written by Jamal Gore and Suzy Hodgson in October 2009 for the IEMA journal "the environmentalist", but was never published. Nevertheless, its content remains relevant. Enjoy!) 

Companies around the world are increasingly taking action to reduce and offset their greenhouse gas emissions. A few years ago, businesses took pains to publicise their reduction programmes, so much so that in 2007 the term “carbon neutral” gained an official dictionary entry.  However, in more recent years companies have appeared less willing to draw attention to their low-carbon initiatives.

Sorting a market muddle

Some of this reluctance stems from confusion and even cynicism about “carbon neutral” claims.  While most agree that carbon neutrality requires measurement, reduction and offsetting, many claims have been plagued by a lack of transparency.  In one highly publicised example, a computer company was criticised for making its offices and business travel “carbon neutral”, while ignoring the much larger emissions from the manufacture and use of its core product.  Few companies that have gone carbon neutral publicly disclose all aspects of their carbon footprint.

As a result, it has been difficult for stakeholders to understand how organisations’ footprints are measured, and whether internal reductions or offsets have been used to achieve carbon-neutral status.  Without an objective standard and faced with accusations of “greenwash” many companies have understandably wished to keep a low profile.

We think this is a missed opportunity.  By promoting their carbon reduction initiatives, businesses have an opportunity to engage staff and customers and are more likely to stay the course during difficult economic conditions.  

The UK Government and the British Standards Institute (BSI) seem to agree, stepping forward with parallel solutions to address this market failure.  In late 2008, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched an informal process to develop guidance on using the term “carbon neutral”. The main aim was to provide clarity for former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s target to make all Government estates “carbon neutral” by 2012, but also to provide greater clarity for other organisations and serve as a reference to reinforce the Government’s Green Claims Code.

At roughly the same time, BSI began working on a new Publicly Available Specification (PAS 2060:2010) to give guidance on making carbon neutral claims.  BSI was responding to a perceived need from businesses for a consistent approach to carbon neutrality.  BSI intends to serve the interests of a wide range of industrial sectors, both in the UK and abroad, with a PAS that is useful, relevant, and authoritative and potentially serves as a precursor to an ISO standard.

Both the DECC guidance document[1] and the BSI specification[2] have the potential to create a more level playing field for organisations working in this area.  The two documents are generally in lockstep in their references to accepted standards and protocols for carbon footprint quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions (see our article “Whose footprint is it anyway?” in issue 53 of the environmentalist.), and both outline the key stages of carbon management, i.e. determining the subject scope, measuring the footprint, implementing a reduction plan, requantifying the residual carbon footprint, and offsetting.

Setting the scope

 As readers of our previous articles may recall, the boundaries for an organisation’s carbon footprint set the stage for the rest of the carbon management process.  Without a credibly scoped footprint, the organisation’s reduction programme may fail in the court of public opinion.

BSI and DECC take similar approaches to scoping emissions, using the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064 as their starting point.  DECC recommends that at a minimum, emissions within Scope 1 (sources under the organisation’s direct control) and Scope 2 (from purchased energy) be included. In addition, DECC recommends that organisations include their “significant” Scope 3 [other indirect] emissions with guidance for determining significance. 

As DECC does with the word “significant”, BSI provides guidance for determining “materiality” for Scope 3 emissions, stating that “those Scope 3 emissions deemed to be material to the subject shall be included.” To remove doubt about what must be included, BSI states that where the subject is an organisation, “the boundaries shall be a true and fair representation of the organisation’s greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. shall include all emissions relating to core operations including subsidiaries owned and operated by the organisation.)” 

Clearly, “significant” and “material” do leave room for managerial discretion in determining Scope 3 emissions.  DECC and BSI both recognise that organisations will differ in the extent to which they are responsible for, or can influence the emissions of third parties who pollute as a result of the organisation’s activities. Nonetheless, organisations are required to document their decisions transparently. However, differences in interpreting Scope 3 mean that the DECC guidance and BSI specification do not make it easy to rank carbon-neutral organisations in a league table. 

Reductions done right

 Both the DECC guidance document and BSI’s specification require organisations to put in place a programme of internal reductions in order to make a credible claim.  DECC requires three “separate” and distinct management steps - measurement, reducing, and offsetting, specifically stating “a carbon neutral claim consisting only of calculating emissions and offsetting should not be made.”  This requirement addresses those critics of carbon offsetting, who see it as a substitute for reducing emissions within the organisation’s boundaries [see our article “Carbon offsets: a last resort?” in issue 64 of the environmentalist].

BSI takes a different approach. While PAS 2060 requires an ambitious plan for internal reductions, it acknowledges that it may take several years for these plans to bear fruit.  PAS 2060 allows companies to recognise, as part of this longer-term target, reduction activities begun before the carbon reduction claim.  This approach reflects that organisations can often reap significant reductions in the first year, but that subsequent reductions might require significant investment and be realised more slowly.  Requiring a set reduction every year might inadvertently discourage companies from making investments in ambitious long-term emission reduction activities.

Interestingly, neither guidance document specifies a minimum level of internal emissions reduction.  Instead, they require that organisations announce a reduction plan and publicly disclose their progress each year, allowing stakeholders to scrutinise activity and form their own opinions regarding their appropriateness.

Offsets – an essential component

 As for carbon offsets, DECC and BSI acknowledge that, while internal reductions are an important way to demonstrate an organisation’s commitment and set the organisation’s course to a lower-carbon future, internal measures alone are unlikely to lead to zero net emissions. 

Both guidance documents outline the methodology and strict requirements for offsets.  These criteria include requirements that all offsets used to achieve carbon neutrality are:

• Genuine
• Additional
• Without leakage
• Permanent
• Independently verified by a third party
• Transparent (i.e. supported by publically available project documentation on an established registry)

Beyond this point, the two guidance documents diverge.  Recognising the national and international organisations likely to use PAS 2060, BSI does not specify particular offset quality standards, but provides a list of popular schemes that meet these criteria, including the Clean Development Mechanism, Voluntary Carbon Standard, and Gold Standard.  Regardless of the standard, BSI requires organisations to publicly disclose the type and quantity of offset credits used to balance out their residual emissions.  Again, BSI relies on public opinion to drive good behaviour.

DECC, on the other hand, recognises only those offsets that have been accredited under the Government’s Quality Assurance Scheme.  At present, only “compliance” credits from the Kyoto Protocol and the EU ETS can be accredited under this scheme. These credits typically cost twice as much as voluntary credits certified under other schemes – and sometimes even more. While DECC recognises that voluntary carbon credit standards have the potential to meet the criteria for generating quality offset credits, and often provide social and environmental co-benefits, the Department states that it is currently unable to vouch for their quality.  Organisations that wish to use unaccredited offsets are required to demonstrate that they have performed due diligence and met the criteria described above.

Which to use?

As the above points demonstrate, the DECC and BSI documents share a number of common elements: GHG Protocol/ ISO 14064 footprints, a plan for measurable internal reductions, high quality carbon offsets, and public disclosure throughout.

But, the differences between these two documents mean that they are not interchangeable.  DECC is more prescriptive in the timing of internal reductions and the types of offset credits organisations can use to achieve carbon neutrality.  The more flexible BSI approach will appeal to organisations that operate across national boundaries, and to large organisations making significant long term capital investments to achieve their internal reductions, or whose offsetting bill is so large that a reliance on compliance credits might force them to abandon the effort altogether.

On the other hand DECC’s approach, , may be more attractive to organisations that are already demonstrating year-on-year reductions and using compliance credits for their offsetting, or who prefer to rely on an implicit Government endorsement of their lower-carbon initiatives to deal with stakeholder scepticism.  The more prescriptive approach and implied hierarchy of the DECC guidance may offer the impression of increased rigour, even as it excludes some would-be users.

Conclusion

Because these two documents allow organisations to choose the scope for their measurement, reduction and offsetting programmes, they do not facilitate direct comparisons between organisations making carbon neutral claims. Even so, they both have the benefit of making these claims more specific, transparent, and readily verified.  As a result, we expect this guidance help reduce stakeholder scepticism and make it easier for organisations to speak more confidently about their carbon reduction initiatives.

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[1] Department of Energy and Climate Change, Guidance on carbon neutrality, 30 September 2009

[2] PAS 2060:2010 Publically Available Specification for the demonstration of carbon neutrality.

(Back to the Carbon Clear homepage)

Happy New Year from Carbon Clear

Best Wishes from the team at Carbon Clear.  2010 was a good year for us, with new offices launching in Spain, Turkey and the United States.

As usual, we have worked to stay on the leading edge of carbon management best practice, and contributed to efforts to support the global transition to a low carbon economy. In addition to providing carbon footprint, CRC, and reduction advice and supporting carbon offset projects, in 2010 we:

• contributed to the launch of the BSI specification on "carbon neutrality" (more on that in an upcoming post);
• guided, via the General Policy Working Group, the first full compliance audit for members of the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA);
• became a Core Member of the Carbon Finance Working Group for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves;
• spoke and presented at a wide array of workshops and conferences around the world; and
• did lots more that I'll probably recall on the way home tonight.

In addition, I volunteered to author two chapters ("Energy" and "Climate Change") in the forthcoming second edition of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) Practitioner's Handbook.

We expect 2011 to be at least as fruitful, and look forward to working with you.

(Carbon Clear Homepage)

Going Local with 'Home-Grown' Power

This article was originally published on 20 September 2010, in issue 104 of the IEMA journal 'the environmentalist'.


A shift from large-scale energy production overseas to smaller local energy supply and distribution is underway in the UK and US.  In the UK, one of the main drivers for this change has been the establishment of a set of five-year national ‘carbon budgets’ intended to achieve a 34 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

In the US, meanwhile, the overarching driver has been a move towards more secure domestic energy sources, which tend to have more immediate financial benefits and fewer associated environmental and economic risks than imported fossil fuels.

Despite these differing rationales, households, businesses and communities adopting local renewables stand to  reap similar types of benefits:

• reduced fossil fuel consumption and therefore reduced dependence on imported resources;
• improved security of supply and consequently less vulnerability to price shocks;
• more local job creation than with large-scale power plants;
• cleaner energy from renewable sources and less environmental damage, and in particular a reduced carbon footprint; and
• financial benefits to households, companies and other adopters due to reduced electricity bills, government subsidies and feed-in tariffs.

Tipping point
More people are realising that the costs and benefits of renewable energy are not only financial. Indeed, recent events have highlighted the increasing costs of our continued reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels.

This past summer, extreme weather events have occurred across the planet. Temperatures in Moscow reached 40 degrees Celsius for the first time, resulting in thousands dead and widespread forest fires. The heatwave decimated wheat crops and sent global cereal prices soaring. Meanwhile, the Indus River reached its highest level in 110 years causing catastrophic flooding in Pakistan. The misery in Pakistan coincides with major flooding in China, North Korea, Niger, Sudan, Ethiopia and Guatemala.

While no single event can be directly attributed to climate, their occurrence is consistent with the predicted impacts of global warming. The World Bank estimates that developing countries will need between US $70-$100 billion each year to adapt to anticipated climate change impacts on agriculture, infrastructure and human health between now and 2050. When coupled with increasing international competition for limited global petroleum and gas reserves, it becomes abundantly clear that the model for economic development based on fossil fuel consumption is unsustainable.

Betting on renewables price stability
One of the main obstacles to increased use of renewables – high upfront costs despite low to zero cost for the fuel – is increasingly one of the technology’s main attractions. The economics of oil – uncertain and unpredictable – are making renewables a safer bet for many end users. OPEC spot prices spiked in July 2008 at $137.18 per barrel before plunging to $35.48 in January 2009, only to start creeping up to $76.91 by December 2009. This extreme volatility makes it difficult for households, companies and governments to set long-term budgets, and increases financial uncertainty in the midst of a severe economic downturn. For those who can afford the initial investment, renewables can offer the reassurance of long-term price stability needed to plan for the future.

Not only climate change, oil prices and the prospect of dwindling supplies dampened enthusiasm for fossil fuels, but also, in recent months, more immediate environmental and safety risks. The recent BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill was splashed across front pages around the world. This oil spill, surpassing the Exxon Valdez as the worst in US history, ensured increased attention to spills from the coast of Indonesia to the Niger Delta. This negative media attention has helped spur the search for local energy alternatives.

Local power generation – then and now
In the past, electricity generation at the household or building level has generally meant running a diesel or petrol (gasoline) generator. These generators tend to be noisy, polluting, and more expensive than simply buying electricity from an electric utility. As a result, they tend to be kept on standby and used only in emergencies. The recent growth in local generation comes from renewable energy technologies – especially wind, geothermal, biomass, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic (PV).

While small petrol and diesel generators tended to produce more pollution per unit of electricity than utility power plants, most renewable technologies are significantly cleaner, producing (with the exception of biomass) practically zero ambient air pollution at source.

Renewables and regional recovery
Local clean energy is seen as potential source of recovery from the current economic recession. Rebuilding the economy by creating a new energy system is widely predicted to create more jobs. A 2009 report found that renewable energy investments are estimated to generate roughly three times more jobs than an equivalent amount of money spent on fossil fuels.(2)

As Greg Barker, UK Climate Change Minister, commented last month, “Our homes, businesses and communities can become dynamic players in the new energy economy by producing their own green electricity and selling it back into the national grid. New feed-in tariffs – a system of financial incentives to encourage households and communities to produce their own electricity – are at the heart of our efforts to ‘green’ Britain and empower consumers and to create a more local, decentralised energy system.”(3)

While job creation tends to be a lagging economic indicator, the British and American governments have made financial incentives available directly to UK households, companies and other renewable energy adopters  through government subsidies and feed-in tariffs. In the UK, the feed-in-tariff system introduced in April 2010  guarantees a payment of up to £0.42 per kilowatt-hour for renewably generated electricity. A PV installation for a moderately-sized household in London might cost £15,000. Thanks to reduced utility bills and payments from the government feed-in tariff, this investment would produce over the next 20 years a guaranteed annualised return of approximately nine per cent. Few other investments available to households in this economic climate could do as well. Lured by the feed-in-tariff, a number of firms are now offering to provide and install solar panels for free; the firm claims the feed-in-tariff and the property occupant benefits from a lower electricity bill. And as electricity prices are predicted to rise in the near future, the financial benefits only increase.

Planning for renewables
While world leaders from India and China to the US have trumpeted the macroeconomic benefits of renewables, local issues regarding land-use planning can still be a concern. NIMBYism has not gone away, and residents continue to protest against large wind farms ‘in their backyards’. However, the smaller scale and partnership approach employed by local renewables projects can increase acceptance. Moreover, local companies (rather than distant multinationals) are more likely to get community buy-in with ‘home-grown’ and power projects that provide energy at the local level.

“Planning is the big unknown in renewable,” says Ryan Law, founder of Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL). “Communities object to mega-projects which supply the whole country, but if people realise they can have a direct stake in local schemes I think this is the key to it. Geothermal is Cornwall’s resource, not a project dumped on the county from outside,” said Law.(4)  After two years of planning with Cornwall County Council, GEL has been granted planning permission to develop the UK’s first commercial geothermal power plant at its Redruth site.

The challenge
The extent to which governments can continue to prop up their economies with large renewable energy  investments remains to be seen. The cost to governments will start to add up quickly as more and more companies and households take advantage of generous tax credits and feed-in tariffs. Most governments have anticipated this issue by gradually reducing the amount the feed-in-tariffs will pay to new adopters in subsequent years.

There are also technical challenges as large numbers of small generators are linked to the grid of electric utilities. While the overall generation from baseline power plants may go down as local power generation rises, utilities will have less control over when and how much electricity will be available, necessitating an investment in additional back-up generation capacity from more expensive power plants. On the positive side, a technical fault or downed power line in one location will not necessarily plunge an entire region into darkness. The more technologically and geographically diverse the local generation systems in place, the less the utilities should need to bring their back-up systems online.

On balance, the benefits appear to outweigh the challenges. There are synergies across the various benefits that extend from the local to the national level via job creation, diversification, and financial savings which could lead to greater spending and investment in the local economies instead of purchasing imported fossil fuels. As we noted in a previous 'Energy and Business' article (‘From credit crisis to carbon crisis’, Issue 68), governments were quick to step in when the global financial system was on the brink of meltdown.

All in all, these investments in renewables should lead to greater energy security and reduced climate change risks in an uncertain world. Given these benefits, local renewables need more – not less – support.

Suzy Hodgson AIEMA is a Principal Consultant and Jamal Gore MIEMA, CEnv is Managing Director at carbon management company Carbon Clear Limited.

Don't Be Afraid to Think Big

Last month the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly announced that the ozone hole has stabilised.  More specifically, the thinning observed since the 1970s in the high altitude layer of ozone that protects us from ultraviolet radiation has stopped and the hole is beginning to recover.  The ozone layer outside of polar regions is expected to return to pre-1980 levels before 2050, with the polar regions recovering a few decades later.

The story earned a few newspaper headlines the day after it was announced, and then disappeared without a trace.

In reality, this is tremendous good news.  Policy makers and environmental advocates should be shouting from the rooftops.  After all, how often do we get to report that an environmental problem is getting better?

There's another encouraging story here.  It's that concerted global action to tackle environmental challenges works.

In 1987 the nations of the world came together to enact the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol  represented an historic attempt to phase out entire classes of industrial gases- chloroflourocarbons (CFCs), halons, and methyl bromide - used in everything  from refrigerators and fire extinguishers to hairspray and pesticides.

Wealthy industrialised nations agreed to strict targets for the phaseout, while developing countries were given more leeway before their cuts began.  At the time, industry lobbyists argued against the science of the thinning ozone and complained about the cost of compliance.

But we held firm.  All 196 nations ratified the treaty, and the Montreal Protocol came into force.  There was no economic catastrophe - the costs of transitioning to less harmful gases were much lower than anticipated.  And the ozone layer has begun to recover.  Without the Montreal Protocol unabated destruction of the ozone layer was projected to result, in the words of UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, "...up to 20 million more cases of skin cancer and 130 million more cases of eye cataracts, not to speak of damage to human immune systems, wildlife and agriculture."  Fortunately, that threat seems to be receding.

This isn't the first time that we've come together across boundaries to solve major environmental problems.  In the 1970s and 1980s, SO2 emissions from power plants and factories caused acid rain and damaged forests  and waterways in North America and Europe.  Regional trading progammes were launched with strict emissions caps - again over the protests of vested interests who argued that the rules would be unaffordable and cost  thousands of jobs.  The cap and trade programme designers argued that their scheme would achieve  environmental targets at the lowest possible cost to the environment.

And it worked.  Acid rain is largely a thing of the past in industrialised countries, and the cost of compliance was only a fraction of what industry has predicted.

The Montreal Protocol and the regional SO2 trading schemes show what can be accomplished when we're not afraid to think big.  The Kyoto Protocol, national cap and trade legislation in the United States and Australia, and the erstwhile Copenhagen conference last December represented similar efforts.

But we seem to have lost our courage.

The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and prospects for its replacement seem uncertain.  Christiana Figueres, the UNFCC head with whom I worked back in the 1990s, says there won't be a single big agreement to replace Kyoto - the parties simply can't agree. Meanwhile, legislators admit that US climate change legislation is dead in the water, and the Australian government is rapidly backtracking on their climate change plans.  Opponents, sensing blood in the water, are now attacking regional and state-level climate change initiatives in the United States, arguing that fighting climate change will cost jobs.

Big problems call for ambitious solutions.  We took bold, concerted action when CFCs and other chemicals threatened the ozone layer.  We took similarly bold action when acid rain threatened our lakes and streams.  Climate change is an even bigger problem than either of these and yet we fret about the cost and struggle to come to agreement.

When did we become so timid?  How did we become afraid to think big?

We know the nature of the challenge facing us, and we know what needs to be done.  It's time to face our  fears, roll up our sleeves, and get started on the path on the road to a low carbon economy.

(Carbon Clear homepage)

Signs of the Times

According to the New York Times, this summer goes down in the record books as New York's hottest with the temperature hitting or exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C) on 34 separate days.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Indus River has reached its highest level in 110 years and caused devestating flooding, and the temperature in Moscow hit 104F (40C!) for the first time ever. Floods have also stricken Sudan, China, North Korea, Niger and other countries.

Hmm, increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, unprecedented extreme weather across the globe as predicted in the climate models.  I wonder if there's a link?

(Carbon Clear homepage)

"Geoengineering Lite"

Last month the US Environmental Protection Agency imposed stricter regulations on sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions from power plants.  The rules require more frequent pollution monitoring and the installation of new SO2 monitors in regions considered most at risk from pollution exposure.

This announcement, the first revision to these rules in 40 years, is welcome and overdue.  SO2 emissions from industry and vehicles is a major ambient pollutant, contributing to asthma, bronchitis and premature deaths.  In many parts of the US, the communities downwind of the smokestacks tend to be composed disproportionately of poor people and people of color.  The EPA estimates that implementing the new rules will prevent between 2,900 and 5,900 premature deaths and 54,000 asthma attacks.

And of course, SO2 is a precursor to acid rain.

European countries have also been steadily tightening their air pollution laws to reduce the amount of SO2 entering the atmosphere.

This is good news for the environment and people, but why am I writing about it on Carbon Clear's climate change blog?

SO2 particles are just the right size to block certain wavelengths of light.  Scattered in the atmosphere, millions of tonnes of these particulates block a fraction of the sun's light and provide a planetary cooling effect.  These effects are so significant that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change incorporates assumptions of industrial SO2 emissions in their long-range climate models.  More specifically, they assume that SO2 emissions will continue to diminish over time as more stingent pollution controls are enacted and we switch away from fossil fueled power generation.

And that means we will no longer be able to hide behind the cooling effects of industrial pollution.  It's ironic that cleaning up a pollutant that causes such misery on a local and regional level means we have to work even harder to prevent a warming climate.

This may not be the last we hear of SO2, however.  Given its strong cooling influence and relatively low cost of production, an increasing number of scientists believe SO2 may provide a last-ditch defense against catastrophic climate change.  Faced with abrupt and runaway warming, governments might choose to inject large volumes of SO2 into the stratosphere to simulate the cooling effects of a major volcanic eruption.

While these geoengineering measures might provide short term relief from warming, they are not without their own challenges.  First, the effects on regional climates have not been modelled thoroughly - changing rainfall and temperature patterns may create winners and losers.  Second is the fact that SO2 injection would mask the warming effects of climage change, but would not actually address the cause - greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, nor would it do anything to counter CO2's acidifying effects on the world's oceans.  What is more, SO2 only stays in the atmosphere for a few months or years, at most, while CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.  That means that, once we start injecting SO2 into the atmosphere, we have to keep doing it unless we want to see a dramatic and devastating rebound to higher temperatures.  And of course, geoengineering does not provide the benefits that accrue from decarbonising our energy and transportation infrastructure.

It is clear, then, that geoengineering with SO2 is not a measure to be undertaken lightly.  As countries around the world impose much needed regulation to continue reducing ambient air pollution levels, we will be running a mini-geoengineering experiment, in reverse.  I anticipate that climate scientists will be observing the resulting changes and incorporating them into their models.   It would be a tragedy if we were panicked into adopting geoengineering measures without fully understanding the likely impacts.

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Ash and Carbon: Reassessing the Risks of Air Travel

This article originally appeared in the 14 June 2010 (issue no. 100) edition of the IEMA journal "the environmentalist".

The eruption in April of a previously unremarkable volcano in Iceland disrupted air travel around the world. The blanket no-fly zone that resulted from the ash cloud over Europe brought chaos to travellers and companies who relied on air travel to get products and people to their destinations. During the initial travel crisis, at least 95,000 flights were cancelled . Even weeks after the event, sporadic restrictions continue to make air travel a guessing  game.

Companies that had contingency plans in place tended to fare better than those that  were solely dependent on travel through the airports. Dutch logistics company TNT was able to mobilise an existing plan to transfer air freight from its air hub at Liège, Belgium to its road hub in the southern Netherlands.

Not everyone was so lucky. Faced with the closure of airports across Europe, people and organisations  scrambled to find ways to get between points A and B. Families boarded ferries and long-distance coaches,
business people turned to trains and videoconferencing facilities, and more than a few intrepid travellers hired cars and taxis for 12-hour drives across the Continent.

Countless others whiled away the time in airports and hotels until flights resumed. Many organisations that commit to reduce their carbon footprint, pledge to address their business travel emissions but struggle to meet
their goals in the face of everyday business requirements. If there is a silver lining to the Eyjafjallajökull  eruption, it has been an increased awareness of travel alternatives on the part of individuals and organisations.
The prolonged transport disruptions and ensuing chaos gave many companies and travellers an opportunity to reassess their transport choices and test some of the alternatives. Now that the dust has started to settle, we can consider the extent to which these experiences will affect their future transport decisions.

How are transport decisions made?

According to a World Trade Organization report, over one-third of global trade by value is transported by air. How do organisations and individuals decide when to travel by air, sea, rail or road?

Transport decisions are usually made as a trade-off between speed, financial cost, and comfort or reliability. An increasing number of organisations are also weighing the environmental impacts of their transport decisions. One of the greatest apparent advantages of air travel over the alternatives is speed. With a cruising speed in excess of 500 miles per hour, aircraft make it possible to deliver products and people anywhere in the world within 24 hours.

This speed comes at a cost, both financially and to the environment. Air freight tends to be more expensive  than shipping products by rail, sea or road, which means that companies tend to use airplanes for lightweight, higher value products like flowers, pharmaceuticals and perishable foodstuffs. Meanwhile, the greenhouse gas emissions for air freight, at around 0.65 kg CO2e per tonne-kilometre, can be over 50 times higher than  surface-based alternatives.

Ships and barges are a popular means of transporting large volumes of cargo where rapid delivery times are not as critical, and ferries are an increasingly attractive option for passenger travel over small bodies of
water like the Irish Sea or the San Francisco Bay. With greenhouse gas emissions as low as 0.01 kg CO2e per tonne-kilometre, cargo freighters are a cost- and carbon-efficient means to transport non-perishable products long distances. With advanced planning, it is possible to transport many otherwise timesensitive
goods overseas by ship instead of by air, lowering air-related emissions and potentially reducing costs.

Rail and road transport occupy a middle ground between ships and aeroplanes. For passenger journeys of a few hundred miles, high-speed rail can be just as time-efficient as short-haul air travel – without the hassle
of airport security and often with greater amenities. For example, Eurostar sources local fresh foods and provides regional cuisine on its train journeys between London, Paris and Brussels. The company’s
offerings are even featured in a magazine for lovers of fine wines, restaurants, and travel. It’s hard to imagine such accolades for a short-haul flight of comparable distance and time.

While passenger rail travel is experiencing a resurgence – at least in Europe – rail freight continues to struggle.
In the US, goods are transported coast-tocoast by truck even though the rail network could carry greater volumes at a lower carbon cost. However, lack of investment in rail has resulted in an antiquated network
with very slow trains. In the UK, meanwhile, a congested rail network that prioritises passenger travel has led to surging road freight levels. Freight trucks have the added advantage of flexibility and convenience
compared to rail, despite generating roughly twice the greenhouse gas emissions per tonne-kilometre. Trucks can provide door-to-door delivery of a wide variety of products and services – a benefit that makes them
indispensable to many corporate customers.

For corporate travellers in the US, fast train travel is limited to the Boston to Washington, DC corridor – and with average speeds of 70 mph even these ‘high-speed’ Amtrak trains are not particularly fast. Beyond this northeast seaboard, passenger travel by train can take twice as long as driving. An investment in high-speed rail is included in pending climate change legislation in the US, where a shift from cars and airplanes is seen as a key element in reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels for transportation.

Alternatives to travel

The sudden closure of airspace in April meant many travellers had to use alternatives they would otherwise not have considered. Many stranded travellers turned to video-calling and other internet teleconferencing solutions. Companies such as Cisco and Hewlett-Packard experienced a surge in business bookings for their
teleconferencing and newer ‘telepresence’ technology and facilities for online meetings. Telepresence is essentially a virtual meeting using large screens and high definition images to simulate face-to-face meetings.

Long-standing habits of travelling for meetings and conferences quickly fell by the wayside, as technological alternatives such as teleconferencing were given a boost. “A market transition is very often marked by a big external event or disruption,” said Fredrik Halvorsen, the chief executive of Norway-based teleconferencing firm Tandberg (just acquired by Cisco). The disruption in air travel was clearly a market opportunity for Cisco which launched a Fly Free programme to provide businesses or governments with stranded key personnel with complimentary use of the company’s telepresence rooms. “As the world (has) seen earthquakes, H1N1 and other disasters, it has really made businesses pause to think how they can use technology to create a
sustainable business model,” Cisco senior vice president of emerging technologies Martin De Beer said.

In the UK, telecommunications company BT is championing the use of teleconferencing solutions as a way for
businesses to make progress on their carbonreduction commitments. With business travel often comprising a third or more of many organisations’ carbon footprints, technology that reduces the need to spend time, money and carbon travelling from place to place appears poised to experience a surge of interest.

Making informed decisions

Individuals and company representatives can use websites, travel agents and freight forwarding companies to get reliable and up-to-date pricing and scheduling information on travel alternatives. As the cost of carbon becomes an increasingly important consideration when choosing to use air, rail, road or sea transport, organisations are asking for tools that allow them to make informed decisions based on the environmental impacts of their transport modes.

For a simple point-to-point journey using one type of vehicle, this type of carbon calculation is relatively simple. Things become more challenging for intermodal transport decisions – for example comparing the cost and carbon emissions from a truck-barge-truck shipment against a rail-truck-air freight shipment. The same
challenges appear when organisations must decide whether to send staff by rail – when they will have to stay several nights in a hotel (with resultant financial and carbon costs) – versus a shorter stay because the journey can be made by plane (assuming no volcanic ash). In anticipation of this need, we have been trialling an online intermodal calculator to compare the emissions impact of complex, multi-mode transport decisions.

Conclusion
The UK Committee on Climate Change has projected that reaching the 80 per cent greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by 2050 will require decarbonising most of the economy and severely restricting any further growth in air transport emissions. If we are to reach these targets, the transition has to begin now. It is our hope that the volcanic ash cloud has spurred people and organisations to begin the process of identifying viable low-carbon alternatives to current travel practices.

Suzy Hodgson AIEMA is a Principal Consultant and Jamal Gore MIEMA,CEnv is Managing Director at carbon management company Carbon Clear Limited.

Coalition Support for Carbon

After days of fraught negotiations and political wrangling, we finally have sight of the Tory/Lib Dem plans for a low-carbon economy in a coalition government. The signs look good. Particularly encouraging is a commitment to push the EU for full auctioning of Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) permits. Putting the jargon aside, this has great potential to make Europe’s efforts to fight climate change both more efficient and effective.

At the moment, the European Union simply gives away a large portion of its ETS permits to the big polluters. These permits authorise the holders to pollute the atmosphere, to agreed levels, at no cost. Yes – for free. This is absurd. The cost to the environment is clearly not zero. It’s mad that this forms the heart of an emission reduction scheme.

The current arrangements also have two very unwanted consequences: It encourages companies to grossly overstate their predicted emissions in order to sell those they don’t use to make a windfall profit, while at the same time removing any economic incentive for them improve their energy efficiency.

Auctioning the total quota of ETS permits would ensure that companies only receive the number they feel they will really use – and removes the incentive to be greedy in order to sell on excess permits at a profit. Equally important, it will make economic sense for companies to make efficiency changes that cost less than the equivalent amount of ETS permits. So if a new technology, like a boiler upgrade, costs £5 per tonne of carbon saved, versus a carbon price of £10 per tonne, making the technology investment becomes the sensible thing to do.

The other way of making ETS permits an effective stick (or carrot) for polluters to improve their energy efficiency is to put sufficiently few up for auction. This will push the price of the permits high enough to ensure that many companies take big action to pollute less – the whole point of the ETS in the first place.

Let’s hope the coalition will support these intentions with solid action, both at home and at the EU, where the ultimate decisions of the fate of the EU ETS will be made.

****

The Environmental Industries Commission have kindly provided a summary of the main issues in the coalition document:

General

• The two parties agree that cuts of £6bn to non-frontline services can be made within the financial year 2010-11. Other policies on which they agree include further support job creation and green investment, such as work programmes for the unemployed and a green deal for energy efficiency investment.
  
• The parties also agree to seek an agreement on taxing non-business capital gains at rates similar or close to those applied to income, with exemptions for entrepreneurial business activities.

Waste

• Measures to promote energy from waste through anaerobic digestion;

Environmental finance

• The creation of a green investment bank;

Sustainable buildings and energy efficiency

• Home energy improvement provisions paid for by savings from lower energy bills;
  
• Retention of energy performance certificates and the scrapping of Home Information Packs

Government Procurement

• A commitment to reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months

Carbon management

• The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of Emissions Trading Scheme permits

Transport

• Mandating a national recharging network for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles;
  
• The establishment of a high-speed rail network;
  
• The cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow;
  
• The refusal of additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted;
  
• The replacement of the air passenger duty with a per-flight duty; a proportion of any increased revenues over time will be used to help fund increases in the personal allowance.

Energy generation

• The establishment of a smart grid and the roll-out of smart meters;
  
• The establishment of feed-in tariff systems in electricity, as well as the maintenance of banded Renewables Obligation Certificates;
  
• Measures to encourage marine energy;
  
• The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient CCS to meet the emissions performance standard;
  
• Continuation of the Labour government's proposals for public sector investment in CCS technology for four coal-fired power stations;
  
• Increasing the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the climate change committee.

The Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the government to bring forward a national planning statement for ratification by parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible. This process will involve the Government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it before parliament, and a specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesman will speak against the planning statement, but that Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain.

Managing the Climate Change Message

(The following article was originally published in the 19 April 2010 issue (Number 96)  of the Institute for  Environmental Management and Assessment journal 'the environmentalist'.)

For the first few months of 2010, people and organisations working to fight climate change have found themselves on the defensive. What happened? And how can we regain a sense of momentum in our efforts to reduce carbon emissions?

A few years ago, documentaries such as ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ increased public awareness and seemed to mark a turning point in efforts to fight climate change. At last, citizens, politicians, celebrities, and corporations were united in their desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With only a few exceptions, climate change sceptics were a small quiet camp. The main question was how swiftly, not whether we would, reduce global emissions.

Economy, politics, and bad press

Times have changed. A severe economic downturn has forced corporate decisionmakers and households alike to focus on financial survival and cut investments that don’t produce an immediate return. With jobs on the line and household savings squeezed, individuals are less likely to pay extra for environmentally friendly products, and organisations often choose to reduce budgets for seemingly discretionary activities like carbon management.

However, economics alone cannot explain the recent shift in sentiment. Climate change politics also plays a large part. While the failure to reach a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol did not mark the end of  coordinated global efforts, it was widely portrayed in the media as a major setback in efforts to enact tough
climate change legislation. It did not help that leading politicians in the US and UK, sensing the mood of their  constituents, have dropped all mention of climate change from their public statements. Environmental activists,  apparently exhausted after their preparation for Copenhagen, have also been quieter than usual.

Meanwhile, journalists and climate  sceptics have seized upon highly publicised errors and unfortunate mis-statements by a small number of climate scientists to cast doubt on the entire subject of global warming and climate change mitigation. It is no surprise that a key scientific report such as the IPCC’s 900+ page, Working Group II’s contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report based on over 8,000 peer-reviewed publications and reviewed by 1,181 experts from 92 countries would contain some errors, nor that people would make some statements in private email conversations that they would not wish to make in public1.

Unfortunately, after the first story about stolen climate change email messages broke, most of the attempts to  clarify the situation were taken out of context and exaggerated to generate sensational headlines. While few  members of the general public are equipped to evaluate the detailed scientific arguments, the belief that ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ means that a scandalous-sounding story can derail the main message – even when overwhelming evidence points in a different direction.

What is neither a story, nor a scientific controversy are the facts. The facts remain that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are warming the atmosphere and changing the chemistry of the oceans at an unprecedented rate.

Climatologists also agree that there are many short-term periods for  which the temperature and weather data will not fit their models. Where scientists disagree is on the precise nature of the complex feedback effects  between natural systems, and the rate at which climate change impacts will become apparent. This distinction  has been lost in the headlines, which imply that climate science is in disarray, or worse, that scientists are in a  conspiracy to mislead the public about global warming.

Shifting priorities
It is perhaps unsurprising in the context of economic recession, political torpor and confusing headlines that  climate change is seen as a lower priority than other issues amongst individuals and corporate leaders.  A recent MORI poll of UK adults taken in February 2010 shows that the economy remains the most important issue facing the country, as it has been since September 2008. Just under half of the public (48 per cent) place the economy among the most important issues facing Britain. Pollution and the environment ranks number 11 of most important issues listed by British adults behind the economy, race relations and immigration, law and order issues, unemployment, defence, the National Health Service, education and schools, morality and behaviour, inflation, and poverty and inequality.

More tellingly, only seven per cent of British adults listed pollution and the environment among the most important issues facing Britain.

Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, a recent study by the Pew Research Center found that the belief that global warming is occurring had dropped from 71 per cent in April 2008 to just 56 per cent in October 2009. As the report’s authors note, “When asked in open-ended formats to name the most serious problems facing the country, virtually no Americans volunteer global warming”.

A different message

The decisions we make today – about the vehicles we drive and the power stations we build – will have an  impact on the climate for years to come. It is clear that environmental managers, policy-makers and climate  change activists face an uphill battle if they wish to rely on concern about climate change to alter behaviour.  Scientific scenarios and statistical analyses alone are unlikely to sway public opinion and, as highlighted by  recent media coverage, may actually exacerbate the problem.

We believe that a shift may not occur until it is too late; that is, until we have passed a global tipping point and  the impacts from irreversible climate change have become a crisis – obvious for all to see.  How can environmental managers communicate with stakeholders and drive change in such an environment?

We can offer several suggestions:

• Don’t get bogged down in the science. The overall trends are clear; where uncertainty occurs, it is in the precise nature of the impacts of climate change – which range from modest to catastrophic. Action to reduce
• greenhouse gas emissions is akin to purchasing an insurance policy. Catastrophic events may be rare and
• hard to predict, but we can still take reasonable steps to protect against them, and few would argue we should have no insurance at all.
• Manage expectations. The policy-making process in most modern democracies is slow and incremental. Slow 
• progress does not mean nothing is happening, nor does it mean that we can afford to give up. While politicians 
• will eventually put in place more measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, companies and organisations 
• still have the power to go beyond regulation when it comes to cutting carbon.
• Link with ‘higher priority’ issues. As the MORI poll in the UK and the Pew study in the US indicate, people tend to focus on issues of immediate concern. The extent to which climate change can be linked to other pressing concerns like jobs and economics may determine how positively the message is received by stakeholders.
• Focus on the benefits. As we have noted in previous articles, organisations that manage their carbon emissions often realise benefits from reduced energy bills, better-optimised supply chains, greater staff engagement and happier customers. Decision-makers need not be strident environmentalists to support such results.

With the economy first and foremost in people’s minds, communication that focuses on the effects of climate change alone may not have much resonance with the majority of British people. The extent to which dealing with climate change and carbon reductions can be tied to other higher ranking concerns (ie jobs) will help
create a more pressing message.

Many organisations that have continued to embrace carbon reduction initiatives are communicating exactly these messages to their decision-makers and external stakeholders. Marks & Spencer, for example, launched their ‘Plan A’ environmental initiative in 2007 as an environmental and social improvement campaign. In its second year, the company found that those improvements were cost-neutral, but in year three they saved the company £50 million.  As one industry analyst notes, “If [new Chief Executive Marc] Bolland has to look for immediate cost savings, you can bet he’ll seek to accelerate Plan A”.

Unilever, meanwhile, recently received the top ranking for its sustainability initiatives and report, in its group of the largest food and beverage companies. The company saved over €10 million just from IT measures like data centre management and video conferencing, implemented under its environmental initiative. These  examples show that green initiatives are usually easier to sell to decision-makers and shareholders when they pay for themselves and deliver positive publicity.

Conclusion

Public opinion may wax and wane, but climate change will remain as a mid to long-term threat. As a result, environmental managers must use their persuasive skills to ensure that we continue to cut carbon.

Recognising that climate change can underscore other costs and benefits that people prioritise can help communicate the need to take action. By aligning climate change messages with financial and insurance (ie risk management) benefits, environmental managers can help to mainstream carbon management into organisational decision-making.

Suzy Hodgson AIEMA is a Principal Consultant and Jamal Gore MIEMA, CEnv is Managing Director at carbon management company Carbon Clear Limited.