Less haste, more money

Less haste, more money

A few weeks ago I took the FuelGood driving course. It was both easy to do and informative. An Energy Saving Trust approved instructor turned up at my door and we went for a drive around town for about four miles, with me adopting my normal driving style. He then explained what I could do better and more efficiently and then we went on exactly the same course but this time he mentored me on what to do.

The results were impressive. On my first ‘normal’ drive I averaged 31.4 miles to the gallon but on the second it went up to 39.2; an improvement of 25%. My average speed dropped a little from 19.8mph to 18.5mph, so it took me a little longer, but in the grand scheme of things it was only a little longer. The whole thing took about an hour and it has changed my driving styleon an on-going basis.

Being an accountant at heart I decided to do some maths. Let’s say that I drive 500 miles in and around town each month – how much money would I save and how much extra time would I be behind the wheel? By my back of the envelope calculations, I would be over £18 better off having spent slightly more than an extra three minutes behind the wheel, each day. Not a bad trade off and the driving style is also safer and less stressful. An hour well spent.

Find out more about FuelGood here.o

When Grumpy saw the future

Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group got its name from the interim targets in Scotland’s Climate Change Act. But they are interim targets. The transition to a low carbon world will take longer and the real hard targets in the Act are for 2050. I will be 59 in 2020 and my time as a senior figure will be drawing to a close (about time, I hear many of you say!) but it is today’s 23 year olds who will be 59 in 2050. It is people in their twenties who will be the leaders running up to 2050. We recognised that reality, a year ago, by setting up a 2050 sub-group for those future leaders and on 26//11/14 they held their first conference.

They kindly invited a grumpy old man like me to give a keynote talk. Faced with over 200 committed and enthusiastic members and guests of the 2050 Group I felt compelled to apologise for my generation. We have lived through an era of unsustainable and unparalleled growth. In my lifetime:

-the world’s population has more than doubled from 3bn to 7.25bn.

-the number of cars on the roads in the UK alone has more than doubled to 32m.

-global oil consumption has nearly tripled to 90million barrels a day.

- we have gone from using about half the earth’s ecological capacity to support the whole of mankind to needing 1.5 earths.

This last point is really alarming because the last time I lookedthere is only one earth. We are, as a species, living beyond our means each and every year. All this combines to mean that ,global emissions of CO₂ have gone up from around 10bn tonnes a year when I was born, to 36bn now. At this rate we will use up the atmospheres capacity to absorb carbon without triggering changes that will undermine human wellbeing in around 20 years.We have a lot to say sorry for.

I also made the point that my generation struggles with new technology. We thought that texting wouldn’t take off, that the internet would get in the way of work, that Twitter was a passing phase and that selfies were pointless. We are either still living in an analogue world or are digital converts. People in their twenties are digital natives.

The challenge to the generation of young leaders is not to make the same mistakes as we have, to embrace technology and put us back on a path to sustainable living. As was said by Chris, the Chair of the 2050 Group, it started out as a sub-group of the 2020 Climate Group but has to become a movement in its own right.

I left the conference a lot less grumpy than when I arrived as I caught a glimpse of the future and was truly impressed.

CEOs, POWER AND SUSTAINABILITY

An article I saw in the Guardian entitled “6 Reasons CEOs feel powerless to drive sustainability into their companies” was bound to attract my attention.

I thought I would give the six reasons quoted and my response to each of them.

1.  PEER PRESSURE. The article says “CEOs are fearful of sticking their necks out in public when the vast majority of their peers, even those with sustainability programmes in place, remain in denial about the scale of the dangers from climate change, resource scarcity, growing inequality and the decimation of biodiversity” Frankly, I find the idea that CEOs can be excused because they are frightened of their peers, pathetic. CEOs are appointed, generally because they are seen as leaders and have drive and determination. I thought fear of peers was for the playground not the Boardroom.
2. LACK OF BOARD SUPPORT. I am a bit more sympathetic to this, but only a bit. CEOs are expected to provide strategic leadership and addressing issues of sustainability is highly strategic. CEOs need to spend time understanding the issues and gathering the evidence and then should be able to win the board around.
3. LACK OF INVESTOR SUPPORT. Again if I can quote the article “Even harder than changing the mind sets of their own directors is convincing shareholders of the need to stop their obsessive focus on short-term profits and consider long-term sustainability.” I found that most shareholders did have a relatively short term focus, maybe a year or two. However, I can also confirm what the article says about Unilever. “CEO Paul Polman has tried to get around this by actively seeking out investors who can take a longer view and asking them to invest in the company.” There are funds out there with a sustainable focus, probably over €15bn managed in the UK’s alone.
4. STASIS IN MIDDLE MANAGEMENT. The treacle layer of management is a well known phenomena but CEOs have to find ways around it. I used a blog posted on the Intranet to get my messages across to everyone. When pressure comes from above and below then things start to happen.
5. COMPLEXITY OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM.  It is true that even the leaders of large organisations can feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the global challenge. However, I don’t accept the premise that this means you don’t do anything. All change starts with action by small groups of people and the best time to start is always now.
6. LACK OF POLITICAL AND REGULATORY SUPPORT. Finally this is a reason I have some sympathy with. However, some companies seem to encourage an unhelpful regime as they think it suits their own short term agendas.

So I guess you can say that I don’t think the case for inactivity is, in any sense, made. The business case for embracing sustainability is strong but as the article says “It can feel very lonely if you are a CEO who recognises the need for system change, but we need to see courageous leadership” You can only lead if someone follows so if you know someone in the position of leadership who wants to make change happen then help them build unstoppable momentum. 

Turning Energy into Ecosystem. An Article from the New Statesman

What do we do about energy? It’s a question that politicians and policy makers ask regularly. How do we make sure we have enough, and that it’s cleaner, safer and more afford- able? How do we finance investment, and what about regulation, pricing and infrastructure? What technologies do we use, and what new energy sources do we prioritise? To frack, or not to frack? These and many other questions make energy a vast, complex subject with few straight- forward answers.

This is part of the problem. Energy’s complexity is driven by the way we think about it. We see the “energy ques- tion” as a list of dilemmas to answer, a series of challenges to be met; bits and pieces rather than a whole. Instead, we should think of it as an ecosystem – as a full and living picture with each part influencing the other. In nature’s eco- systems, water, air, plants and animals impact each other and survival depends on recognising this interdependence. This holds true for energy too: invest- ment, taxation, regulation, policy inter- vention, infrastructure, supply, demand, technology, consumers and producers are also parts of an interdependent system.

To encourage this eco-system ap- proach, this summer the Energy Institute (EI), the leading professional body dedi- cated to developing skills, knowledge and good practice within the energy in- dustry, brought together leading figures from our sector and from academia to consider how the energy system needs to be transformed. The event concluded with specific recommendations that provide precious consideration for

policy makers grappling with this subject. A central theme emerged: that peo- ple must be put at the heart of energy. Citizens, consumers and producers – the people that need it, provide access to it and also pay for it – should have a say in the way the system is shaped. A clear and honest discussion about the benefits and costs of changes would be a valuable ex- ercise. We need more education about the interrelationships between the various elements of the energy system and the

real world trade-offs the industry faces. The energy debate often focuses on international risks, at the expense of at- tention to national risks. What happens if Russia turns off the gas tap, for exam- ple? A silo mentality has historically per- vaded the energy industry, where policy

Planning for our energy future requires input from outside the sector, too

divisions between oil and gas, transport fuel, electricity, and heat production are commonplace. Isolated and fragmented policy interventions pose obstacles to market investment and project financ- ing. Integrated, long-term energy poli- cies are needed to break down these silos and allow energy and utility companies to plan for the long term with assured investment. If the lights go out in the UK, will it be the fault of UK policy or of global events?

Planning for a future energy system will also require the involvement of in- stitutions outside of the energy sector.

For example, more effective forecasting tools will be needed to design an inte- grated policy framework. Data is central to economic and social development, and energy is no different. Information must be collected, processed, analysed, stored and shared – and to do this successfully, data collection and storage institutions will have to play their part.

For example, we know that district heating systems are an efficient solution to domestic heat and power needs, and yet we still believe that every house has to have its own localised boiler.

We tend to focus on meeting energy demand efficiently, when we should be taking a step back and asking whether de- mand itself is for the best. The cheapest energy is the kind that is not consumed, and the cheapest power station is the one that doesn’t need to be built. With that in mind, when considering smart grids, demand-side management must be em- bedded from the beginning. We need to think about cities: they consume two thirds of energy and pose a key challenge around climate change. Cities can pro- mote green and resilient energy systems and adapt more rapidly than nations. But to do this, urban communities must be engaged, and heat, transport, electricity and other services need to be considered together in municipal planning.

The energy system is a vast single eco- system, not a series of silos. If we consid- er it in its entirety, we can implement the ideas, create the policies, and apply the regulations that will turn our many ques- tions into innovative answers. l 

What is the single most pressing issue in the debate about decarbonising heat?

The simplest questions are usually the best. By many measures, heating accounts for around half our total energy use. The cost of that energy has gone up significantly in recent years. Less than 5% of our heating is from renewable sources.

We all know the problem, how to get the first two of these measures down and the third one up. So here's where the simple question comes. What is the one thing we should focus on?

It would be tempting to use this opportunity to lobby on the political environment and support mechanisms or to wax lyrically on new technologies but I don't believe that either of these important areas are the one big thing. So what is it? I believe it’s Behaviour. 

Let me explain. The reason why we don't insulate our homes or set our thermostats and time clocks correctly is behavioural or to put in bluntly, we can't be bothered.  The reason why district heating is so hard to get going in the UK is because we all want our own boilers in the corner of our house. The reason that biomethane struggles to make inroads is that we don't regard organic waste as a valuable fuel and just throw it away. The reason we don't install new technology such as heat pumps is because the old ways are easier. 

We don't need more engineers and lobbyists taking part in the heat debate we need behavioural economists, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists to work out how to get us off our backsides and actually do something.

Top ideas for how business can help combat climate change

Last week when I was idly Googling climate change I came across a list of ten top ten things we can all do to help combat climate change in the Independent. It got me thinking about what the same list would be for businesses so I used the Main Group meeting of Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group to gather ideas. From this bit of crowdsourcing, we came up with a range of ideas, which I have distilled down to 11 and I thought I would share them with you.

1. Know how much energy your business actually uses. This should cover power, heat and transport across all locations and will involve active monitoring. If you don’t measure and monitor you can’t manage.
2.  Work with your supply chain to find collaborative solutions on things like packaging and transport. Optimising across single firms rarely produces the best outcome.
3.  Use digital technology such as video conferencing, Skype and tele conferencing to reduce travel particularly for internal only meetings. In fact try and make these the default choice for in house stuff.
4.  Put all company drivers through a full efficient driving course. Most firms see a 10% to 15% improvement in fuel consumption.
5.  Identify and support climate change/energy champions throughout your business and create a culture of bottom up innovation. Using small groups of committed people is a great way to effect change.
6.  Conduct an energy audit of your entire IT estate including servers and desktops and identify potential improvements and investment opportunities. The IT industry has made good progress on reducing energy consumption in their products but many businesses haven’t kept pace.
7.  Encouraging more efficient commuting patterns for both employees and those in neighbouring SMEs. This could include promoting and incentivising car sharing or the use of public transport.
8.  Integrate energy savings targets into managers key performance indicators with a dedicated budget for energy efficiency projects. This sends a clear message that it matters.
9.  Take a long hard look at lighting both in offices and in other areas such as warehouses, yards, factories etc. This can be a very fruitful area of investment
10. And finally and probably most importantly; its all about leadership. The tone from the top really matters. The Board and senior management team have to lead by example, support proposals and generally champion this whole area.

The Scottish Government has developed 10 key behaviours to highlight the key things households could do to make the biggest impact on climate change. This was quite a big project taking into account a lot of research on carbon emissions reductions.

Instead of producing a top 10 list for businesses, the Scottish Government have published ‘Better Business: How to go greener with staff’ as a performance guide which sets out good practice case studies. We have the opportunity to add a different perspective and I wonder whether our list of 11 is a way to go. Any views welcome…..

More reports and press releases

The UN panel on climate change, which issued its fifth assessment report late last year has followed up with two more reports. The first, published on 31 March, looks at the risks and potential benefits of climate change. The list of potential risk areas is alarming. Here are a few that grabbed my attention.

1. Risk of death, injury, ill health or disrupted livelihoods in low lying areas along coasts and in island states due to storm surges and rising sea levels.
2. Risk of severe ill health and disrupted livelihoods in large urban areas in some regions due to inland flooding.
3. Extreme weather events leading to the breakdown of critical infrastructure.
4. Risk of food insecurity.
5. Loss of ecosystems and biodiversity and therefore the goods and services that we get from them.

The report also highlights a moral issue when it says “risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities at all levels of development”. It makes two rather obvious but powerful points as a summary. Firstly, “increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” and secondly, “the overall risks of climate change impacts can be reduced by limiting the rate and magnitude of climate change”. This second point serves as a good introduction to the latter of the two reports.

This second (third actually published but the second I am looking at now if you get my drift) covers mitigation: what we could do to slow down the effects we are causing. At its basic level the report describes mitigation as “a human intervention to reduce the sources or enhances the sinks of greenhouse gases” which for an academic report is remarkably concise. It goes on to say that sustainable development is a good basis for mitigation and that issues of “equity, justice and fairness” can arise. Although the report is mainly about mitigation it does have a couple of good stats in it:

• CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributed 78% of the total GHG emissions increase from 1970 to 2010 which shows where our attention should be focused.
• About half of the cumulative man made CO2 emissions between 1750 and 2010 have occurred in the last 40 years so it really is our fault.

The academics have looked at about 900 mitigation scenarios in preparing the report. Their basic conclusions are that if we want a better than evens chance of restricting the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees we need to do more, quicker than we are. When they start reaching conclusions on what needs to be done the message is actually fairly clear as promising scenarios “show large scale changes in the energy supply sector” and “energy enhancements and behavioural changes, in order to reduce energy demand compared to baseline scenarios without compromising development, are a key mitigation strategy”.

Looking at electricity supply specifically here is probably the key sentence. “In the majority of low stabilization scenarios, the share of low carbon electricity supply (comprising renewable energy, nuclear and Carbon Capture and Storage) increases from the current share of approximately 30% to more than 80% by 2050.” The last few pages of the report (23 to 29) contain a good summary of what the global community needs to considering the areas to electricity, transport,  buildings, industry agriculture and land use, and in a final category of human settlements, infrastructure and spatial planning by which they mean smart cities.

In response to the second report the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, said; “I call for international leaders to work together with enforced vigour to reduce carbon emissions and secure an ambitious legally binding global agreement in 2015.” I am not sure what ‘enforced vigour’ is but I do know that it is not only ‘world leaders’ who have a responsibility to act but the whole of society particularly in pressurising those ‘world leaders’ to actually achieve something more than good reports and nicely worded press releases.