Richard Barrington on scale

The final keynote at October's Green Monday was Richard Barrington, ex Sun, who began with the intriguing revelation that the reason Sun initially engaged with climate change was because its HQ is only 1m above sea level and the business deemed that global warming presented a corporate risk. The close proximity of the San Andreas fault, however, is not considered to pose an equal threat.

Richard's view is that seismic shifts are needed to effect the changes we need in global consumption patterns. They key to this is dematerialisation, with products giving way to services, and new business models along these lines are already being developed. But conventional thinking on intellectual capital won't allow us to achieve sufficient scale quickly enough.

An "open source" approach is needed to create the momentum for a new technology to spread with sufficient speed, similar to how Java has become so ubiquitous that Richard estimated every member of the audience had 3 pieces of Java on them.

There are already some good examples of the power of open source - Curriki being one. This online information resource (another project which originated at Sun) provides disadvantaged teachers and students around the globe with open access to high-quality educational materials, challenging the vested interests in education. This collaborative approach, with people freely sharing their knowledge, is rare in the commercial world, but in my experience the one place it's currently thriving is in sustainability circles. It's heartening to see how willing people are to share their knowledge and expertise on this topic.

But to really effect the change we need, the new technologies we develop must be substitutional, not additional. As Richard pointed out, commentators feared that the emergence of Amazon would kill books because we'd all download the texts. That didn't happen, and book sales are higher than ever.

His ultimate conclusion was that we have no choice but to embrace the new world order because our challenge is about survival of the species; the planet will take care of itself, and may do a better job without us.

Sir David King at Green Monday

The second keynote at this month's Green Monday provided much food for thought. Sir David King agreed with Jon Williams that population growth is a key challenge, fuelled by life expectancy increasing from 45 to nearly 80. Not only that but urbanisation means that these people will have increasingly higher aspirations, and that has to be balanced against the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An 80% reduction is needed on average, so the change must be transformational, not incremental.

Energy is seen as a basic freedom but decarbonisation of the economy is essential, and necessity is the mother of invention. We will find ways but it will proably be the private sector that seizes the opportunity. As an example, if we only converted one 10,000th of the sun’s energy to power we would have enough to sustain a population of 9billion.

If we fail to accept the challenge of decarbonisation, the great powers will battle for resources. Sir David King considers that the Iraq war may have been the first example of this. The cost of that conflict is estimated at $3 trillion. It’s estimated that the global emissions trading scheme which emerged from Kyoto will be worth $1 trillion when it first goes global. If the US government had invested in finding alternative energy sources rather than going to war over oil, then we could be in a very different place now.

We need visionary leadership from the great powers, and we need them to mainstream climate issues. It's not about making freestanding speeches about climate change, but making climate part of every speech as a key part of government strategy.

Jon Williams on living beyond our means

Three great keynotes at this month's Green Monday, the first from Jon Williams, former partner for sustainability and climate change at PwC and now a consultant on such matters. His provocation was that both the credit crunch and climate crisis arise from living beyond our means; in one case economically and the other ecologically. We simply don't have the resources on our planet to live in the manner to which we have become accustomed. Even less so when you take into account the effect of population increasing to 9 billion by 2050 and the additional pressure placed on natural resources by urbanisation and wealth creation. In fact, he posited that climate change could the next sub-prime crisis.

The problem is that when global warming reaches the same degree of crisis that provoked this global economic meltdown, there will be no prospect of recovery. Economic cycles are relatively brief and, whilst many may suffer genuine hardship, we all understand that if we can weather the financial storm it will pass in a few years and equilibrium will be re-established.

Somehow we need to harness the kind of hysteria which is generated by current financial fears and transfer it to climate and population issues. Because once the planet is bankrupt, there really is no going back.

Shame on Starbucks

Funny how things happen. I was sitting on the tube, reading John Grant's appraisal of Starbucks' Welcome to Evergreen campaign in The Green Marketing Manifesto when I looked up and saw the headline of the newspaper being read across the aisle. The lead story was about Starbucks wasting millions of gallons of water every day by leaving taps running as policy in its coffee shops. Worse still, staff don't seem to be aware of the reason why this should be necessary - which is allegedly something to do with preventing a build-up of bacteria in the tap.

How can a big brand like Starbucks make such a massive misjudgement, that risks undermining all the other apparently credible social and environmental projects it's undertaking? Its a perfect example of how the activities of one department can conflict with those of another if care is not taken to ensure that policies on key issues are not communicated clearly and consistently throughout an organisation.

First Friday

I was asked to give a brief address at a new networking event called First Friday. Nerve racking for me, but I'm keen to accept any invitation that allows me to raise awareness of green issues in business. Luckily they were a friendly crowd, and it seems my attempt to generate some debate actually stimulated some genuine concern.

Most of the people I spoke to had no idea that initiatives like the Carbon Reduction Commitment would cause them financial pain if they didn't get their houses in order, and were still thinking that an environmental policy is largely about demonstrating to customers that they're doing the right thing. But in today's difficult economic environment, the potential savings to be gained from cutting waste present an even more compelling argument.

Some days it really does feel like I'm making a difference.

Government buildings come bottom for energy efficiency

In a survey published today, two of London's most famous landmarks were exposed as some of the least energy-efficient public buildings in the country. From this month, all public buildings over 1,000 square metres have to display an energy certificate recording their annual CO2 emissions. Rankings between A and G are awarded for energy efficiency, in the same way as for white goods.

The Houses and Parliament and the Bank of England both score G, and between them emit over 21,000 tonnes of CO2 per year - the equivalent of 14,000 people flying between London and New York. In fact, only 1% of buildings achieved A rating, and the Department of the Environment's headquarters only scored E.

This initiative should be useful as a means of highlighting the issue of carbon emissions from public buildings, but I hope it doesn't lead to calls for old, wasteful buildings to be bulldozed to allow new, energy-efficient buildings to take their place. Quite apart from their aesthetic value, conserving an old building is usually more sustainable than replacing it with a new one. And modernity is no guarantee of sustainability either - City Hall scores E despite having opened only in 2002. The Guardian has the full story here.

Sustainable procurement

A big talking day for me today - a one hour talk, repeated twice, to the Sustainable Procurement Conference. My topic was employee engagement and how it's not sufficient to purchase environmentally preferable equipment; you also need to change working practices to ensure that it delivers the maximum environmental gain. Changing habits, of course, is not an easy thing to do.

A very satisfying day, as it turns out - we had to bring in extra chairs for the morning session and both audiences displayed a very gratifying level of engagement with the topic. Some very animated and productive conversations took place at the end of each session, and overall there was a great deal of positive energy. I really think this would not have been the case only a year ago - the people I was talking to then were a lot less receptive. If we can keep this momentum going, we have a really good chance of making the changes that are necessary to mitigate the effects of climate crisis.