Alan’s blog

December 2009

Copenhagen – let’s face it – it’s time for business to take charge

I was there, along with 40,000 others including over 150 world leaders surrounded by their trusted advisors, influential NGOs and perhaps for the first time, huge numbers from the business world. We were meant to negotiate and agree an action plan to slow down and prepare for climate change. Money would move from developed countries to developing countries, the pace of new technology would accelerate to help cure the world’s problems and tropical forests would be protected once and for all. The scale of the challenge was obvious, disappointment amongst the most ambitious inevitable, but who could have predicted the scale of failure?

So what happened? There will be as many theories as there were delegates. We all know enough about the China / America dynamics to agree that were it not for them, a bold agreement would have been brokered. I hope history remembers this.

My umbrage is that we always knew that China and America were going to be the sticking point. We knew it two years ago and we knew it at the eve of conference. As tacticians could we have prepared better for it? Was Copenhagen the modern, political equivalent of the “charge of the light brigade”? Honour from the battle, but tactically flawed. Surely the question we should have asked before was, what can we do to ensure a deal, even if China and America go into deadlock? There were joint accords and agreements from business and NGOs, we all knew the menu of agreements and targets we were seeking, but none of us felt empowered to tackle the two elephants in the room. Somehow we hoped they would go away.

I have no magic answer nor do I want to pretend to look smug armed with the power of hindsight, but I have always been impressed how business sectors can organize themselves to resolve difficult social and environmental issues they impact. Having worked at B&Q I feel well qualified to remind us how that retailer together with its competitors and peers and WWF, created a movement to decouple its purchases of wood and wood based products from deforestation. Many retailers have united to agree a way forward on sweat shops and it was in the 1990s that the cement industry agreed a way forward on carbon. Within less than 18 months the aviation industry agreed its own targets and tactics that exceeded anything world leaders could agree.

Maybe the biggest failing of Copenhagen was our expectations on what national leaders can agree. Businesses now cross international borders and they are empowered to be nimble whilst confined within sensible boundaries by their shareholders. If America and China are the elephants, and we agree with the metaphor that the best way to eat an elephant is to cut it up, then a sector approach might be the best way to cut them up into manageable pieces. Sectors’ supply chains have no boundaries. China and America as a whole are all powerful but buyers of their products have buying powers and choices.

I wonder what would happen if global business sectors were asked to negotiate amongst their peers what they could achieve and by when. They will have more freedom and they can focus on the unique challenges facing their industries. Having achieved a portfolio of sector targets, national leaders could then agree a series of accords, protocols and conventions to protect the forward thinking sectors and companies within those sectors. This also has the advantage that they can focus not just on carbon but all the other sustainability challenges facing their industry. If I managed a fisheries fleet of course I would worry about the carbon coming from my engine but fish stocks are my biggest sustainability challenge. A single strategy which focuses on the relevant main issues while also giving some attention to the minor ones, must be more do-able than a host of strategies for different issues, designed around generalities and not the specific of an industry.

Finally, when world leaders have proven themselves to be disempowered, why cannot a new form of business-led democratic progress be made? It’s time for business, with the help of progressive NGOs, to take a sector specific approach. It has worked in the past – it could work now.

October 2009

The law of natural economics

I hear lots of talk about natural economics two words that don't normally go together but they make utter common sense to me.

About 70% of the water in South Africa started life in the Congo Basin rainforests from evaporation, clouds and rainfall, and we can be pretty sure that when the Congo has been converted to oil palm South Africa will get thirsty. I can already imagine the delegation of South African companies all requesting the Congo states to stop cutting down their forests. The answer from the Congo will be simple... "Yes, but you pay".

It is a sad truth that rainforests at the moment only really add to a country's GDP when they are chopped down and converted. As the Prince of Wales says, rainforests should be worth more alive than dead.

Bees are England's rainforest. We all know that bees are in decline but we are not is a state of panic. We should be... much of the food supermarkets sell relies on bees. If we could invent a mechanical bee, how much would it cost?

Unlike finance ministers' response to the credit crunch, when the world rainforest crunch and the UK bee crunch bites harder, environment ministers won't be able to magic 18 trillion new bees and 18 billion hectares of rainforest out of nowhere. The point is simple: we depend one hundred per cent on stable ecosystems to drive our economy. No nature means no economy.

The future must lie in creating policies that track trends and quality of nature. On a global scale, sooner or later we will have to pay the hosts of large natural systems like rainforests for the utilities they provide this is good politics and good economics.

The best thing we can do is nurture nature and not harvest it like there is no tomorrow. Living beyond our natural limits will create an economy crunch so severe that the last two years will seem like a picnic in the park, with or without bees.

July 2009

The end of last month was for me five days of continuous presentations on climate change. It started with Oz of the year, Tim Flannery, at the Business Summit in Copenhagen, then the Prince of Wales hosted a three-day discussion with 20 Nobel Laureates, and it ended with a "Cultural Event" at London's Science Museum.

The week gave me access to many iconic players in climate change from the world of internal politics (Ban Ki-moon), science (Dr Pachauri IPCC), CEOs, the Prince of Wales plus a bit of glamour with Al Gore and Cate Blanchett!

The headline for me was: overwhelming consensus on the science, economics and actions required and worries of a last minute hiccup in Copenhagen politics. The role of forests and other forms of natural carbon is receiving lots of interest and will play a bigger role in future. But I worry that the conference community as a whole is still ignoring adaptation in vulnerable economies and this could undermine future political consensus.

In more detail:

Scientific consensus – the scientific community is united. It is happening, man caused it etc, they acknowledge that some sceptics remain vocal but dismiss them. Concern prevails that the more pessimistic predictions are the ones that seem to be materialising!
Political consensus – the narrative now plays like a recording. We must settle at 450 ppm by 2050, we can adapt to a 2 degrees rise in temperature, the economics stacks up, That means a 80% reduction by 2050 (against 1990 levels). This will be achieved by cap and trade, with developed nations moving first, developing nations must have a chance to grow their economies but cannot be excluded from carbon targets in medium and long term.
Obama buzz – positive vibes about Obama and progress in USA continue.
Just do it! – a slight sense of frustration. With so much consensus they are still debating this. We know what to do, so let’s do it.

For me the fresh points were:

Beyond Copenhagen – a growing sense that everyone is training for a marathon with the December event being the only thing that matters. Understandable but what will the landscape look like post Copenhagen? Sir Crispin Tickell has articulated his views – he sees climate change being a proxy for a deeper debate about our relationship with nature, poverty etc. He sees the big world issues beginning to come together post Copenhagen.
From forests to terrestrial carbon – it is exciting and noteworthy to see how forests are continuing to increase in profile. The carbon benefits of forests are huge but the numbers from grasslands, soils and even crops all point to the same conclusion - we have to include natural processes more overtly in any global carbon plan.
Fatigue – peaking too early. It is the same people making the same speeches to the same people. There is a danger that we are preaching to the converted and that those who disagree or oppose this thinking are not even attending, whilst those who do attend are getting fatigued with the same messages and conversations.
Adaptation – I worry that the world is ignoring the costs and funding of adaptation. Some economies will suffer the 2 degrees rise in temperature we have agreed will happen. I would be far more comfortable seeing this issue having more air-time at these events.

Overall, I am positive. We have to be.

April 2009

My visit to the second largest oil reserve in the world – in Alberta – was a real eye opener. If you'd asked me about oil sands before I went, I'd spout the usual negative views about massive GHG emissions, forest devastation, land wastelands and dirty tailings ponds. As it often turns out in these cases, it's not all black or white. Seeing the reality on the ground (and under it) and talking to the experts added much more substance to my view of the oil sands debate.

Calgary is, and sees itself as, a global energy centre. The world needs its oil but it also needs a low carbon footprint. As a global energy centre the major players need to be responsible for contributing to a global solution to the energy problem and so far they appear to be dancing around their metaphorical handbags. There's a will to play their part but to date they are focusing on the defensive, spending too much effort on explaining how negative views of the industry are exaggerations.

The industry needs to get on the front foot, investing in research and technology in a number of areas, including using water in the production process to generate electricity – or how about industrial scale bio-fuel production from algae which needs CO2, huge space and warm water, all of which the oil sands industry has in spades?

My overall view is voiced in the conclusion of an open letter (link through to full letter copy – see below) I wrote to the industry and which was published in local Calgary newspaper. It read: 'You must think bigger and act bolder. You need to use the technology and investments you have available today to be a global player on low carbon technology. If you don’t someone else will. And you will be where you started, a provincial town producing dirty oil. You have the most to win and the most to lose.'

February 2009

If, as a CSR/SD professional, I was a football coach in the changing room with my fellow players before a match where the opposition was in the league of the Renaldos and the Beckhams, I would tell them how we were going to win the match, how we would outclass them. I would not say, 'ok guys, this is impossible, we're going to lose, it's just a matter of by how many goals'.

If I am asked one more time by a fellow CSR/SD player if I think the economic downturn will undermine the CSR movement I will kick them!

The question invites failure. It creates that sense of self-fulfilling prophecy. The question should be 'how do we use the downturn to win more support, the cash for efficiency, the creation of green jobs and the deeper need to live within natural resource limits rather than just being blinkered by the economy?' We should not welcome the recession but we shouldn't fear it either.

Our narrative is as true in a downturn as it is in a boom, so let's not talk ourselves into failure. Let's talk ourselves into success.

January 2009

It’s all about gloom and doom, economic down turn, recession and fear of job losses. So why is it that some eco champions have a small skip in their step? It’s because deep down they are seeing that some people get it.

Fragile global finances and the consequence of too many people living off too much credit is a parallel to the state of the planet. The principle that you can live off mega amounts of credit without some form of crunch is the same for biological systems. This is why rainforests, the ecological heart of the world’s entire biological system, are once again receiving so much attention. All credit to the Prince of Wales for his Rainforest Project.

Basically global sustainability is having a world economy that runs on the following principles:

Ultra low amounts of carbon emissions
Works within the finite limits of stuff the planet can offer (natural resources)
Emotional, physical and financial wellbeing are seen as essential for quality of life
Zero ultra-poverty

These principles might seem ridiculous, over ambitious and commercially unviable. But I would argue that a three-planet economy, where the carbon content is changing global weather patterns and large sections of the population live in ultra poverty is more unstable and economically risky than working within principles of sustainability. Maybe, just maybe and fingers crossed, this recession will help raise the level of the debate and accelerate the pace of positive change.

August 2008

Some pretty big topics to talk about this month but they are on my mind at the moment because of work I am doing with some global clients...

The road to Copenhagen
It might seem a bit early to be getting worked up for Copenhagen 2009 but already there's a momentum building towards this final round of negotiations which will shape and finalise Kyoto 2.

Business support is seen as critical to giving national leaders the confidence to be bold and so far the pro-active businesses are supportive, but there’s a concern that the impact of the economic downturn could have a detrimental effect. There are loads of organisations which want to be seen as hosting a leadership coalition of businesses to lobby for bold targets but it would be better if some initiatives get together with a common narrative and joint statements to scale up their power and their profile.

The perfect storm of food security, fuel security and land use
The growing demands for new forms of fuel (whether driven by low carbon, fuel independence or geology) with a growing, sometimes more affluent, population has led to an unprecedented demand on rural land. Prices are shooting up. This is more a factor of economic success rather than climate change as more people want more things. If left unchecked, climate change will continue to accelerate.

The debate around peak oil is hotting up with the pessimists beginning to win the intellectual tug of war. This means new forms of fuels so this is another reason to prepare for sustainable bio-fuels despite the thirst for rejection of this alternative.

Keep in touch with the continuing debate on who decides what is grown, how it is grown, how much and how we maintain the underlying biological processes that maintain land and keep soil healthy and productive.

Soil as a climate saviour
I was lucky enough to have a sneak preview of an essay fantastically written by internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim Flannery. His essay is cram packed with fascinating theories but one that caught my eye was all about the importance of soil in storing and sequestrating carbon. He talks about increasing the yield of agricultural and pastoral land while at the same time sequestering carbon – creating an ecological 'magic pudding'. Specifically he describes the process of pyrolysis which results in energy generation, soil improvement and the permanent withdrawal of carbon from the atmosphere, all at the same time.

I predict that there's going to be a much more prominent focus on soil in the future with the knowledge and science around soil needing to increase exponentially.

Blogs are not the places to get into these topics in huge detail because of lack of space but I hope they raise a few debates in your corner of the world.

June 2008

It's been a head spinning two weeks, the media full of stories about food and fuel prices. Signs that the current system is beginning to feel the strain. Feeding and fuelling the economy for six billion people is highly complex and our desire to grow our own fuel means food is competing for the same soil. I find this new level of complexity challenging for my work with companies – just what can they do? I sat through a six hour long meeting agreeing 12 basic principles that would make bio-fuels more sustainable – food security was one principle but it is a public policy matter.

All is not gloom and doom – I visited an organic farm, the farmer enthusiastically explained the benefits to his farm and wildlife of the organic system. "System" was they key word, as a customer I buy organic potatoes but a farmer manages a system of rotation between different crops and lifestock. It was all to do with clover and nitrogen! I have always been a convert of organics but I left understanding more and even more loyal to this way of eating. At its most simple, it is about working with nature and not against it.

Following the ban of patio heaters from Chelsea Flower Show, today I saw a one page ad in the Mail reminding people about the energy rating label for homes. That label was a recommendation made by a think tank I chaired back in 2002. Six years on it’s gaining traction.

My point is this, from the quagmire of complexity comes some simple solutions, not enough but solutions are possible, so overall, it's good news!

May 2008

The cliché – glass half full and half empty – rings true this month. Patio heaters banned from Chelsea flower show… FSC labels on virtually all loos rolls at Tesco… environment being on the news all the time. But also many frustrations… some people celebrate the demise of almost compulsory carrier bags from supermarkets, others say that the carrier bag issue is a side show, and not materially important. I smile at the irony that the noise created by the people saying that carrier bags have dominated the news too much, ended up creating a story that dominated the news!

I have also seen some tectonic shifts. I spoke at the British Retail Consortium’s Environment conference. I saw a real shift in thinking – three years ago all the talk was eco-labels and back of store cardboard recycling. The BRC is now embracing deeper thinking. Choice editing, they agree, is the way forward – wow, not giving the customers the choice. These are big shifts and should give us hope. This new form of thinking is world wide. I was speaking at a conference for the grocery trade in Australia – they are not far behind us.

Wyevale’s focus on the environment was also a highlight – they launched a small trial of flower pot recycling banks in a few stores. TV coverage gave it a real boost. Encouraging them to roll this out should be straight forward. I sense things are changing. In my work I no longer argue about the business case, more it’s the complexity and lack of top level political will that’s the issue. But they are all connected – so let’s go into summer with the summer glass of Pimms half full.

July 2007

What a month, the world gathered to listen to rock stars telling us how serious climate change is and it rained and it rained. Live Earth did not impress me. I think those who get it, did not need a rock concert and those who are not convinced, just enjoyed a rock concert. People have heard enough. What we need are the big bold commitments to drive change. We have had the worst floods known to the UK. Thousands without electricity or clean water, homes ruined and soaring insurance claims. The media debated whether this was a natural freak weather event or a sign of the future. Scientists and politicians see it as a sign of the future and I think they are really beginning to worry! Climate change is not just longer and hotter summers but the occasional wet, and we mean wet, summers too. My favourite “patio heaters” hit the front pages – the Energy Saving Trust launched a report saying what most already know, they are inefficient and pointless. I am so proud of the decision of Wyevale (one of my clients). Wyevale was the first retailer to commit to not ordering anymore. They have some still in stock, but they will sell through. The Telegraph has gone very green, on the 25th the front page was “Floods”, “Patio heaters” and “Food prices due to soar...because of floods”.

Whilst the UK was under water David Cameron was in Africa – poverty is the other great challenge facing the planet. The Tory leader is right to make this part of his agenda – the timing of his trip however was unlucky. Organising a tour of Africa would have taken months and loads of logistics, cancelling at the last moment would have been devastating for his hosts, but going had the inevitable backlash!

Am I green? Almost, I seldom use my car, I do all the other stuff, even tried Asda carbon neutral eggs this week. My challenge is to get fitter, it is becoming clear to me that just keeping fit and eating the right foods is vital for me but also for a healthier planet (see my article), but I need to practise what I preach.

15 stone 5lbs – need to lose 1 stone!

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