Best Foot Forward

So, somewhat reluctantly given the enormity of the task, we set about devising our own strategy which ended up being shoehorned into Chapter 3 of The ZEDBook. Others have since addressed this gaping hole in the UK’s energy policy and collected together their own thoughts. George Monbiot set out his views in Heat;  CAT put together Zero Carbon Britain; and, most recently, David MacKay has published Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.

The latter is, without doubt, the most detailed analysis to date and sets out clear options for moving forward – including one alternative which is close to own our thinking in The ZEDbook. Of course, there is no one right answer to providing secure, green energy –there are inevitably uncertainties and choices that can be made; technical, political and social. That said, Without the Hot Air is a great read; informative,  technically competent and well structured. Go and buy it or read it (for free) online at www.withouthotair.com.

The survey also revealed that the environmental specialists think;

• The cost of trading carbon will rise by <11% annually by 2020 and could be as low as 3.5%
• The UK government will fail to meet its 2020 renewable energy targets
• Obama will sign the USA up to Kyoto next year
• The UK Government should back down on airport expansion – but won’t!

Read the whole survey report here.

From our point of view there are a couple of problems with this model of tackling climate change ...

Firstly, on a purely technical level, they have quoted the average UK resident footprint of 4.48tCO2 - which is Defra's figure for home and personal travel only. The actual footprint of an average UK resident is likely to be at least double this when taking into account imported goods, public services, food consumption etc (kind of ironic when this website is promoting increased consumption of imported goods!).

Secondly, supporters may argue that it's better for someone to purchase goods and contribute to some sort of benefit (depending on how you view the true effectiveness of carbon offsetting). However, in reality, money saved on such a sites would be spent on more products/services (each with their own embodied and in-use carbon impact) ...

BFF feel this sort of initiative is sending the wrong message to consumers - that you can effectively neutralise your impact by consuming more. Unfortunately, consumption is still coupled to environmental damage and so the message must be for us to reduce consumption - while looking for new ways of decoupling our economies.

(PS See the blog post above for Compare2Offset's response!)

An equivalent injection of money would provide at least 32 TWh (terawatt hours) of clean, green electricity – about 8% of the UK’s total demand, putting the country well on track to achieve the EU’s 2020 renewables target. Carbon dioxide savings would be around 14 million tonnes and energy security would take a great leap forward. Charging for the energy would, at current prices, give a reasonable return on investment of 6%.

Globally, we now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. But of course, we only have one Earth. The result is that our supply of natural resources - like trees and fish - continues to shrink, while our waste, primarily carbon dioxide, accumulates.

Whereas the fall of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made headlines worldwide in September, Overshoot Day passed by with little comment. We wonder which will have the longest lasting consequences?

However, Packaging News this week reports one producer that is moving from glass to plastic - and claiming an associated 40% reduction in the carbon footprint of a bottle. BFF would be keen to review these calculations but we have been unable to find detailed reports to substantiate the figures presented. Perhaps even more interesting is the article’s reference to using aluminium – a very carbon intensive material – to make bottles instead. No comment is made in the article on the footprint of the aluminium bottles.

We hope all of these decisions have been underpinned by robust carbon footprint measurements which, crucially, have: drawn boundaries to include the full product life-cycle; used appropriate accounting rules and applied consistent assumptions when comparing packaging systems. 

In the past the not insignificant personal footprint of Al Gore, seasoned US politician and now the world's most famous (and travelled) climate campaigner, has been justified by means of 'intellectual offsetting' - a new term coined to write-off personal impacts for the greater good.

However bloggers have been less charitable to Senator John McCain, whose 7+ homes have been recently estimated to emit 150 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year - 10 times the footprint of an average American. Perhaps it's not surprising then that his Climate Change Plan makes no mention of reducing consumption - but instead relies solely on market-based cap-and-trade mechanisms and "advanced technology". Of course being apolitical there is no comment from BFF on which party we would like to see gaining power for the next four years...!