December 2008
Energy and Climate Change Editor, Hugh Goulbourne, speaks to Bryony Worthington, Founder of Sandbag:

Hugh Goulbourne (HG): So Bryony, nearly four months since we all gathered at the Churchill War Rooms and how do you think Sandbag is going?

Bryony Worthington (BW): Well it has been a really tough start. The economic down turn has not helped matters but we are now close to signing on our first corporate sponsor which will mean that we are a viable commercial enterprise for the next 12 months.

HG: You say commercial but Sandbag is a not-for-profit?

BW: Yes, that is right. All of the profits are invested in buying CO2 permits. There are currently two of us working on the project full time and we hope to employ a couple more part-time staff in January. The rest of the team are volunteers who offer a range of free professional services and advice to us.

The idea when we first started was to become mainly a membership organisation, with individual subscriptions funding our purchases. However, we have found it difficult to get people to sign up, largely due to the economic down turn I think. Luckily we have received great support from the Guardian who continue to host us in their offices and have given us a lot of free publicity. We are also now starting to attract a lot of interest from corporates who are becoming wary of buying so called CO2 off-sets.

HG: Tree planting and other such activities?

BW: Yes, carbon off-setting is now starting to be regulated in the UK. However, as you know through your work with the Government, there is a lot of controversy around this because it is very difficult often to show any real additionality in terms of cutting CO2 emissions. So, just as with CO2 emissions trading, the vested interests lobbying civil servants and Governments are getting in the way and there needs to be a strong voice to counter-balance them and to act as a watchdog to ensure the schemes have integrity.

HG: Yes, it is certainly true that there is too much 'green wash' out there - just as with the banking and finance sector, Government needs to start to tackle these interest groups before they ruin this plant for us all. So what is different about what you do?

BW: Well, if we want to prevent man made climate change then we badly need to clean up our energy systems so that we reduce the amount of fossil fuels that we consume. Virtually every aspect of modern life contributes greenhouse gases to the atmosphere: the fossil fuel we use to power our homes, offices and vehicles and to produce the food and products we consume, all contribute to the problem.

The way we, in Europe, have chosen to do this is to cap CO2 emissions from electricity generators and large industry to a safe level. By capping emissions we create a commodity (emissions) which encourages countries, companies and individuals to reduce emissions. A tradable commodity, emissions permits, are also created. These allow energy generators and industry to emit CO2 up to the level of the cap for a price.

This cap and trade market in emissions began in the US and was used to successfully cut levels of acid rain causing pollution. Europe has been the quickest to adapt it to the issue of climate change but all over the world countries are developing similar schemes. Under the new Barack Obama presidency the USA is also expected to introduce a similar scheme.

This is all very good news but emissions trading only works if the rules that are put in place are adequate to the task in hand. Our experience in Europe to date has shown that many things can get in the way of creating a market which successfully reduces emissions and creates incentives for serious investment in solutions. We have been tracking the evolution of emissions trading since it was first proposed. The one thing that has become clear is that in general our current crop of politicians lack the conviction or courage to implement the scheme in a meaningful way.

In the first years of the EU scheme the rules were so weak that by the end of the trading period the price of permits had crashed to zero - because caps were too generous and far too many permits were handed out. This effectively meant the whole enterprise had delivered nothing in the way of incentives. We are currently in the second period of trading and though the rules have been improved and price crashes are unlikely, there are still far too many permits in circulation to really drive change.

Sandbag will ensure that the number of permits declines to a level where the CO2 price is able to drive change. Effectively we will become the counter-balance which is needed to create and honest market. Our subscribers (Members) can also get involved in the campaigns themselves, volunteering to chase down permits that have been handed out too generously.

So, I know this is a long response but this is a complex issue. In summary, Sandbag is here to create a bridge between us as communities and individuals and the decision makers. We want to make emissions trading understandable and the decisions being taken that effect how it works much more visible. We want to campaign to make it work more effectively and we want to reduce the numbers of permits that are in circulation.

HG: I see, so do you think the UK has failed to take enough of a lead in terms of its deliver of energy policy?

BW: The UK has been far ahead of many other governments around the world. The recent creation of the Department or Energy and Climate Change was a sign of just how seriously the current government takes climate change and energy issues. However, they need to start putting in place strong policies to wean the UK away from fossil fuel dependency now and stop the endless consultation that I witnessed in my time working for Scottish and Southern Energy.

The answers are clear, we must reduce energy demand radically both in terms of electricity and heat/cooling. We also need to ramp up renewables and public transport and reduce (not stop) flying and car use. New technologies like carbon capture could also work but these should be seen as part of the UK's industrial strategy, a way of making money, and not be viewed simply as climate change policies.

HG: So we should probably wrap this up soon as I know you are keen to get back to saving the planet. But before we do just one final question. If you could ask anyone reading this to do just one thing to save the environment what would that be (and don't just say 'buy a Sandbag')?

[?]

HG: Thanks Bryony for sparing time to talk to Communityenergy.info and best of luck with Sandbag.

(Further details on Sandbag can be found at sandbag.org.uk/about)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

October 2007
Technology and Science Editor Keith Baker speaks to Professor Paul Jowitt Executive Director of the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology (SISTech):

Keith Baker (KB): It wasn't that long ago that I was being interviewed by you, so how does it feel with the boot being on the other foot?

Paul Jowitt (PJ): Not sure what you mean by that! Whose boot, which foot? The purpose of an interview is twofold - for the interviewer to find out what they need to know and for the interviewee to get across what they want to say... Let's hope we both succeeded on both sides of the hot seat! At least you got the job!

KB: Can you give me a brief history of SISTech and why you decided to take a step outside traditional academic life?

PJ: SISTech was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between Heriot Watt University and Scottish Enterprise. In May 2007 MWH UK Ltd purchased Scottish Enterprise's shareholding, becoming joint owners, alongside the University. We're a not-for-profit research institute established to promote and foster best practice in sustainable development. SISTech's aim is to make a positive contribution to sustainable development in all its work. SISTech might have one of its roots in academia but I've always been outwardly focused - research isn't much use if it doesn't escape academia and engage with world outside. There's a lot of internal pleasure about doing clever academic stuff and being acknowledged by one's academic peers but that has never been enough for me. Making a real difference for the wider good in the real world is what really matters to me.

KB: Every day we hear more and more bad news about our planet and the people we share it with. What motivates you to keep going in the face of so much adversity?

PJ: What motivates me professionally is having a safe planet, a secure future for society and improving the environment. I try to proselytise about it to the extent that I can and to engage the engineering community to get them to do something about the Millennium Development Goals. A personal heroine of mine is Dr Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Prize winner who started a movement in Kenya to empower women to plant trees. It has spread across sub-Saharan Africa. It had an environmental dimension and it is about women and gender equality.

KB: Thinking of the UK, what really annoys you about peoples' attitudes to living more sustainably?

PJ: I think that far too many people in Britain pursue selfish and short-sighted lifestyles, who say that they care about the environment but we can't get them out of their cars...

KB: Are those the same people who elect our leaders? Is there any hope that political parties will start to take the challenges ahead seriously?

PJ: The political parties have now become like management consultants/business corporations - they will not go to the polls saying that better public services and a safer tomorrow have to be paid for partially through taxes. They are not leaders so much as followers of opinion polls and focus groups.

I do not regard the environment as just the green stuff, I see it as the green and brown stuff (the urban landscape) and the people stuff - it's a system. I try to get people to think about the problems that they are dealing with as systems. The common things for government to do is stick "wicked problems" (ie those exist at the boundaries between policy responsibilities and manifest themselves in different ways in different policy areas) up "functional chimneys" called departmental ministries and then wonder why they have not come up with sensible outcomes. There is that old children's nursery rhyme "for want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the battle was lost etc".

It still rings true today. We see it in so many things. The government announces that it is going to save 3% on the Education budget and it does that by cutting school buses. As a result mothers (and some fathers too) get into their 4x4s and take their kids to school. Kids then don't know how to walk around the urban environment safely, there is a rise in air pollution, increase in respiratory problems, greater teacher absence, incomplete education, truancy leading to poorly equipped young people entering the workplace and a rise in delinquency. What was saving money for education has ended up requiring a bigger budget for Transport because of the congestion it caused, requiring a bigger budget for Health because of respiratory problems, requiring a bigger budget for the Home Office because there is more crime, and ironically, a bigger budget for Education to redress they caused in the first place. That is the kind of mess that non-systems thinking gets us into.

We need to move from an economic model where the market governs everything: a market where you get market failure and those least responsible pay for the undesirable outcomes it generates.

KB: So this is all about better governance?

PJ: A lot of this rests with government and business, but we also have to put some responsibility back to individuals. I recently heard someone from the 4x4 brigade on the radio saying that her child now had to walk to school but was not educated about road safety and that this should be taught in schools. Come on! Schools should not be distracted by having to backfill parental responsibility.

Government have got themselves - and the rest of us - into a mess. They have let us drift into a ‘liberty without responsibility' mindset, where there is a lot about ‘my rights' but not a lot about ‘my responsibility'. There is a complete lack of leadership by politicians: it is as if they are frightened of it. As stated earlier, they are all using focus groups and consulting the people but it is ‘what is needed to get your vote' consultation and does not provide leadership. There is too much focus on satisfying people's wants and not enough about satisfying their needs.

KB: Can you think of an example of something a politician has got right?

PJ: Yes, the congestion charge in London - good old Uncle Ken Livingstone. In cities where there is a public transport network and congestion then it is sensible to have road pricing. In the Scottish Highlands - where there is a no public transport network and no congestion, it is self-regulating: you don't need road pricing. In places where there is no public transport but there is congestion, then road pricing should only be introduced if accompanied by the provision of a public transport alternative. The "no vote" on congestion in Edinburgh was, in my view, a big mistake and a result of being badly handled by the Labour-led Council. The new SNP-led Scottish Government have set themselves against it too. They are putting off the inevitable. To re-iterate, where there is congestion and an effective public transport system, then road pricing makes sense. With the exception of Ken Livingston, politicians seem to be frightened of people who have cars. And it's worth recalling that it was a policy he outlined in his manifesto - standing as an Independent!

KB: So if your name was on the ballot form what would be in your manifesto and what would you base it on?

PJ: A very good friend of mine - Jon Side - was a student contemporary of Gordon Brown and similarly a left-wing student politician. Jon is now a valued academic colleague at Heriot Watt, and his position on the future of the planet, society etc owe much to that political background, informed by science and society. When he stood for President of the Students Union at Heriot Watt, his Campaign slogan was "Back Side". I'm not sure I could match that. My own election campaigns for office in Imperial College Students Union in the 1970's were rather more pragmatic and prosaic!

The best I can come up with is "If you want to survive for tomorrow, vote for me - if you want to live for today - vote for somebody else". No doubt Saatchi and Saatchi could do something with this.

We have to face up to the fact that we are the only species on the planet to have affected the planet for the worse. Other species have affected bits of the planet but we have affected most of it and there is no sign of that stopping.

There are some villages and communities in the UK that have seen the light, and are trying to become carbon neutral, fair trade communities etc. Perhaps this is a practical 21st century response to John Major's sepia-tinted vision of "long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, and old maids bicycling through the morning mist". Maybe he was expressing something important after all. .

We should not treat the environment as a free good: we should treat it with more respect. Sweden has its ore mines but they are not a hedonistic society - they show a lot more respect in everything that they do. The mother of my youngest grandson is a Swede and she has a totally different approach to life and the environment. It is not based on possessions and useless tat - it is based on values. Valuing the environment in monetary terms is difficult and ultimately futile. Comparing apples and oranges is not difficult - greengrocers do it all the time: they say that apples cost this much per kilo and oranges cost that much per kilo. The difficulty arises in comparing my apples with your oranges or perhaps more important, my apples with your shoes, which involves people's different value systems.

Current ways of putting financial vales on environmental goods in economic decision-making frameworks is naïve. "How much is this ancient forest worth?" Look at it then other way round - "What would it cost to re-create a forest that has been there for 4000 years?" The relationship between money and environmental values is hysteretic. If we took decisions by transforming money into ancient forest/rhinoceros/social equity equivalents, instead of the other way round, we might end up taking some very different decisions. Mt Kilimanjaro has lost 80% of its ice cover in the past hundred years. How much would it cost to replace that ice? How much is it worth? I am not a pulse-eating sandal wearing greenie - I just get angry about the way we undervalue the future, the irreversibility of it all - and the human role in its own premature demise because we can't learn to live with the planet that supports us.

KB: So if we don't learn to live with our planet, what are we facing and will it learn to live without us?

PJ: We're looking at Darfur or something like it. I don't believe that we will be walking around getting our feet wet and saying politely to each other that it is all to do with climate change. If we don't do something about climate change soon there will be massive social breakdown, conflict and war.

Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans led to a simple failure event in the earth dam that was keeping the lake water out. The earth dam was not a complex structure - it was something that a first year undergraduate could design - and it was a simple eventwhich cascaded into a wholesale infrastructure failure and social breakdown. The floods caused the power to go off, and the people of New Orleans are a cashless society - they rely on using ATMs to get money - and so a man who has a wife and family is saying how can I feed my family? And within 8 hours he is smashing shop windows to get food. The tsunami in Sri Lanka had a slower social effect because it is not a cashless society and they can still do things with their hands. But it still led to major loss of life, livelihoods and social upheaval. What I'm saying is that it won't be the environment that breaks first: the catastrophic events come with social breakdown. We even saw that in the UK recently with the flood events this summer - for example in Doncaster, where there was a family who camped in their drive because they didn't want their flooded house to be broken into. Internationally, there are already over 190 global water conflicts.

But at the end of it all, the world will survive, nature will recover and adapt. It might be a different world, and we might have no place in it. So yes, it's up to us to learn to adapt with it.

KB: Earlier you mentioned the Millennium Development Goals. Given the looming failure of the international community and governments to achieve them, what can an engineer do?

PJ: In some ways, my biggest challenge has been to try and influence colleagues and steer the organisations in which I am involved (Heriot-Watt, Scottish Water, ICE) to see that bigger picture in order to adapt their thinking and day-to-day activities to respond in whatever way they can.

As an academic, you have to find different ways to influence what happens on the ground at the sharp end of the business. I've managed to do this with respect to a number of research projects (waste, travel, SUDS, Sustainable WWT), and inculcating one's students with the systems tools and their context.

But for me, probably the most important and valuable "project" in my career has been to lead an Institution of Civil Engineers Presidential Commission ("Engineering without Frontiers") to enquire into the role of engineers in meeting the UN MDGs and to outline the means by which we can do this, and then see the outcomes of that work influence the Institution, its members and the profession at large.

KB: Ok, that's fine for someone at the top of their profession, but what about, say, your average engineering undergraduate?

PJ: Well, your question begs a question. What does being at the top of your profession mean? Being able to make the changes that you believe are necessary. On that criterion, I'm not there yet. But I suppose I might be better placed than some. But it wasn't always so. For the average undergraduate student I'd say two things - first, don't strive to be average! Second, pursue what you believe - you'll be surprised how far it takes you. There is no better example than those students worldwide who are members of Engineers without Borders (www.ewb-uk.org/ )

KB: So if you're pointing to an external organisation, does this mean that there's something missing in the way we educate engineers about sustainability, and if so what would you change?

PJ: Universities are vital to the future. But they are big hungry beasts with many researchers' mouths to feed. And they respond to the funding pressures they are faced with. They will tell you what they can do and how brilliant it is, but it isn't necessarily the most important or most urgent thing to do. Research is often supply not demand driven. Funding councils try to work out the priorities but they don't necessarily get it right either; they are also creatures of the research community. Involving business in setting the research agenda isn't always useful - they play to their own agenda, in many cases they think too short term and in any event they are not overly concerned with the social and environmental consequences of where they are taking us. We need to re-think what we do and why we are doing it. It is difficult for people to do research that cuts across the disciplines when proposals are reviewed by people who look along disciplines and not across them, and who look at the world through a microscope and not a telescope.

For the technologist/engineer who is given only a narrow technological objective, one that ignores the social and environmental consequences whether foreseeable and/or unintended, then that wider understanding is irrelevant and success can be measured by technical brilliance alone. But that is not the world we live in and which we hope to continue to live in. There are probably some areas of abstract mathematics where no external perspective is required. In every other academic discipline I can think of, music, biology, history, medicine, management, law, science, engineering, linguistics, and even actuarial mathematics and accountancy, there is an external perspective which requires an understanding of the wider world - where it was, how it got there, where it is and where it's going. That's what we need to change about the way we teach engineering.

My biggest regret about my time as a student was not reading Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. If I had, perhaps one or two of us might have realised in a flash that the tools we had learned in a civil engineering systems course were precisely those required to look at civil engineering in a new light.

Looking beyond engineering I would insist on there being a course in systems and sustainability in every degree programme.

KB: Finally, as Gordon Brown has just made it clear that we won't be going to the polls this year, what's your message to him as to what he needs to do to kick-start a real shift towards a sustainable society?

PJ: Deliver on what you said in the lead-up to G8 at Gleneagles. Simple as that. No more, no less.

(Further details on SISTech can be found at www.sistech.co.uk)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

August 2007
Climatecars - a clean and green ride
Energy and Transport Editor Hugh Goulbourne speaks to young business entrepreneur Nicko Williamson about his new eco-taxi company:

Q. What is the purpose/background to the project?

R. I came up with the idea of an environmentally friendly taxi company while at Bristol University. On the way home I used to drive past an LPG conversion centre -called Greenfuels - and this gave me an idea to convert a fleet of people carriers to LPG and to offer a green taxi service.

The idea progressed and I moved away from LPG and decided to focus on hybrids as the first step. Although LPG is significantly cleaner, in terms of emissions of noxious nitrogen gases and particulates, the CO2 savings were not sufficient for us at Climatecars.

I wanted to offer commercial and individual clients a green alternative that would not only be better for the environment but would give them a level of service and a product that was much better than anything else on the market at a price that was competitive and good value. Hence why I put leather seats in the vehicles, fridges with complimentary Belu water and magazines and newspapers.

I wanted to combine luxury with reduced emissions and in this sense Climatecars offers Londoners a unique proposition. I also wanted the service to be cool and for people to feel that by reducing emissions they are doing the right thing. So I decided to subtly brand the cars for recognition and invest in a solid brand identity.

Lastly, I wanted to provide all of this at a competitive cost. So we are less expensive than the market leader ,Addison Lee, and in line or less than many of our competitors.

Q. I am not sure if you know or are aware of our previous feature business Acorn House restaurant - but it strikes me that your project is similar in that by aiming at the luxury end of the market, Climatecars is able to provide people with the opportunity to reduce their emissions without lowering standards.

R. Yes, we see it as one way in which all of us who pollute the most can reduce our Carbon emissions in everyday life without having to make compromises on quality or experience.

Q. What do you see as your main green credentials?

R. We presently only use the Toyota Prius hybrid, with the lowest CO2 emissions in its class. We offset all our unavoidable emissions through the Carbon Neutral Company.

Our office is powered by renewable energy from Ecotricity, we recycle wherever possible -we even have an eco-kettle.

Q. Are here any other selling points?

R. I have mentioned them above: leather seats, air conditioning, brand new cars, magazines, newspapers and fridges in all cars with free water. We have the latest technology, GPS driven dispatch system, text on arrive and we will have online booking in the near future when we are large enough to handle it.

For the fair weather (but environmentally conscience) cyclist we operate a bike rescue service, whereby we carry bike racks in our cars and take our customers bikes home fixed to the back of the car.

Q. What about the wider industry and/or public policy benefits?

R. Climatecars will help more companies reduce their emissions through using hybrids as supposed to people carriers, ordinary saloons and black cabs. There will also be wider benefits as other companies in the private hire/taxi industry seek to green their fleets, as demand increases.

In the future as more people use Climatecars and our competitors: competitive pressure will force private transport in general to become greener, which will benefit Londoners as they call for a cleaning up of the general infrastructure. Operating a green fleet will become a perquisite for every business in the private transport sector.

Q. Can you share with us some of your exciting future plans, if any?

R. This is just the start! My eventual aim is to be the first zero emission cab company.

First, we plan to expand Climatecars to a point where we will be a market leader due to the service we operate not just our environmental credentials.

We have already started exploring cleaner technologies and alternative fuels. I am currently in early stage talks with a company that claims to have some very interesting technology to reduce the emissions of vehicles. I can't say more than this as I don't know as yet when this will come to fruition. I am told that the technology exists and it is only a matter of them getting the license before it is ready.

In the future I feel confident that a proportion of our fleet will be fully electric. With the technology from the Telsa roadster being proven I am confident that we will have battery-powered cars with a viable range for this business in the near future.

Q. Any idea how you would ensure that the electricity input is CO2 neutral - would you be able to set up a renewables (e.g., wind and/or solar) based charging facility for the batteries?

R. Once we do start to operate fully electric vehicles the electricity will have to be from renewable sources. I should imagine we will talk to the main players in the green electricity market to find a suitable source to match our environmental needs and be commercially viable. Hopefully there will soon also be, as in other European countries and some US states, a range of commercially viable and local/off-grid renewables providers and options.

(Climatecars can be found at www.climatecars.com Direct line. 0208 206 7620
Main telephone. 0208 968 0440 Mobile. 07748 968 123)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ARCHIVE

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

July 2007
The Acorn House Bears Fruit
By Maria D. Carvalho

(The Acorn House is located on 69 Swinton Street. To check out their monthly menus, and to get more information, visit their site: www.acornhouserestaurant.com/restaurant/index.html)