Embedding sustainable development across Government

A report published by a parliamentary select committee has warned that Defra is not best placed to ensure that other government departments embed sustainability in their operations and policy making. The cross-party Environmental Audit Committee has called for the Cabinet Office to take more responsibility for driving improvements in sustainability across Government, and has recommended greater support from the Treasury and the Prime Minister.


Next year funding will be withdrawn from the Sustainable Development Commission, the government's watchdog on green issues. The committee raised concerns that the loss of its experience and resources will threaten the government’s green agenda and the sustainability of its policies.

It argues that embedding sustainable development into the policy-making of all departments will help tackle long-term environmental, social and economic issues. In addition, increased resource efficiency can save the government millions towards reducing the budget deficit. But it claims that the government is not set up to capitalise on these potential benefits.

The report recommends creating a new minister for sustainable development, based in the Cabinet Office, whole role would be to hold departments to account when they fail to deliver on green targets. Financial sanctions are also proposed for departments that deliver poor sustainability performance. Without such measures, the committee warns that the government will not be able to keep the commitments made in the Climate Change Act.

Resource scarcity could hamper business growth, says Defra

Defra has conducted research to determine how scarcity of materials and resources could affect the viability of businesses in the future. Its Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Evidence Programme concluded that the depletion of some materials and resources might lead to price volatility as well as restricting their availability. The consequences could affect both the viability of businesses and their ability to deliver on policy goals.

Resource efficiency is a key focus for Defra. It considers that awareness of the threats is patchy and as a result not enough businesses are taking action to conserve limited resources and to find alternatives. This is very much a commercial issue: Defra has calculated that UK business could save over £6 billion by adopting resource efficiency measures that cost nothing or would pay back within a year.

Defra has already begun to tackle this issue with the ‘Saving Money, It’s Your Business’ campaign and the  ‘Can You Afford Not to?’ booklet. This new report identifies the resources posing the greatest risk to specific business sectors because of anticipated threats to their availability, providing data that will enable Defra to engage efficiently with individual sectors to mitigate the risk, as well as highighting opportunities for new markets and technologies.

Carbon Offsetting Flights - the true cost

In general, I'm cynical about carbon offsetting but I do offset flights. I try to avoid flying if possible, but when there's no alternative I use the airline's own offsetting service. It's a token gesture, I know, but it still feels better than nothing. However, I'm astonished by the variation in the offsetting fees for similar flights from different airlines.


Booking a return flight to Amsterdam with KLM recently, I was struck by the low cost of offsetting - just 97 Euro cents. To offset the same flight with BA costs £1.80. Both airlines claim to be supporting certified carbon offsetting projects. However, KLM states categorically that only the actual cost of offsetting is claimed from the customer and KLM receives none of the revenue. I couldn't find a similar claim on BA's site.

Taking this further, I used the flight offset calculators on the carbon offset sites certified by Defra and got figures ranging from £1.22 to £2.51. The variation in price was less worrying than the variation in carbon emissions. Carbon Passport considered the emissions would be 0.08 tonnes of CO2 costing £1.22. Pure reckoned the distance was 458 miles, emitting 0.15 tonnes of CO2 costing £2.51 (without Gift Aid - Pure is a charity) and Carbon Retirement makes it 0.13 tonnes costing £2.18.

As for how much CO2 my presence on the flight actually contributes, I looked for clarifiation from Defra. The latest conversion factor is 98.3g per passenger kilometre. That works out to 0.73 tonnes, to which BA adds 9% to account for indirect routing and delays - so Carbon Passport is closest at 0.8 tonnes. So what does all this prove? Well, it certainly doesn't make me feel any more positive about carbon offsetting, that's for sure.

Carbon Reduction Commitment User Guide issued

Defra has today released a user guide for the Carbon Reduction Commitment, which will operate from April 2010. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is designed to tackle CO2 emissions not already covered by Climate Change Agreements and the EU Emissions Trading System. It aims to help reduce the country’s carbon footprint to deliver the ambitious emissions reduction targets set in the Government’s Climate Change Act. It is a domestic cap-and-trade scheme for public and private sector organisations that use more that 6,000MWH of energy per year – equivalent to an energy bill of about £500k – and have half hourly metering.

Originally it was stated that only 5,000 or so organisations would be impacted, but this has now been revised to 20,000 – so many who considered themselves to be exempt could now fall into the programme when it begins in April 2010.Under the scheme, companies must purchase allowances depending on how much carbon they intend to emit – initially at a fixed price predicted to be £12 per tonne. Eventually the total number of allowances available to purchase will be capped, to provide a mechanism to drive down energy consumption, and the carbon price will float. Savings of £1bn in energy costs by 2020 are projected for the participants, but those who don’t curb their emissions will be hit by penalties including monetary fines and a poor ranking in the scheme’s league table. Those who top the league tables will receive financial incentives.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment will be phased in between 2010 and 2013 and although capping will not apply until allowance auctioning starts in 2013 it is widely accepted that adapting early to the legislation offers both financial and reputation benefits. You can opt-in to updates from Defra here.

Japan adopts carbon footprinting methodology

News today that brewer Sapporo will be among the first companies in Japan to publish carbon footprint data on product labels. From next spring government approved labels will appear on food and drink, detergents and electrical appliances from around 30 firms in a project led by the Japanese trade ministry. The labels will show how much carbon dioxide is emitted during the manufacture, distribution and disposal of each product, following a methodology loosely modelled on the PAS 2050 standard being developed in the UK by The Carbon Trust and Defra.

According to a report in The Guardian, the companies involved in the pilot project will display their labeled items at an eco-products fair in Tokyo in December, and the products are expected to start appearing in shops at the beginning of April 2009.

Renewable energy doesn't count in carbon reporting

The UK government plans to change reporting criteria for businesses so that they will no longer be able to claim carbon savings gained by using renewable energy. As a result, many organisations which currently claim to be "carbon neutral" could find themselves with a large carbon deficit to deal with. Several large companies are lobbying against the move, including BT which has been using the carbon contribution from buying renewable energy to help towards its ambitious target to cut carbon by 80% by 2020.

Currently about 5% of UK grid electricity is generated from clean hydroelectric and wind sources, and in 2005 the government said companies buying such renewable electricity tariffs could report them as producing zero emissions. However, environmental campaigners and energy experts have called into question the benefits of green tariffs. The Carbon Trust has indicated that concerns over green tariffs are similar to those over carbon offsets: transparency, double counting and additionality – ie whether they cut carbon emissions over and above what would have happened anyway.

Hence the move by Defra, which could prove costly for larger businesses, which from 2010 will have to participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment. The cap and trade scheme will not just impose levies on companies with above-average carbon emissions, it will also rank them in a league table, causing potential embarrassment for organisations which have previously earned a reputation for carbon busting.

A consultation will now take place on this subject, but it's likely the controversy will continue for some time. In the meantime, organisations which are serious about cutting carbon should focus on reducing energy use rather than relying on the potential carbon benefit of renewables.