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The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government

Jonathon Porritt — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:19:35 +0000

When I was still Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, I was hoping to produce a snapshot of just how deep sustainable development had penetrated into the workings of government – since the election of the Labour Government in 1997, the establishment of the Sustainable Development Commission in 2000, and the issuing of the Sustainable Development Strategy, ‘Securing the Future’. As it happens, it didn’t get done. Which has allowed me a few extra months to reflect in less frenetic circumstances.

And that’s been helpful! I have to admit, I was feeling a bit grumpy back in July. There’s only so much head banging one can do before brain damage sets in! And so much of what the Sustainable Development Commission does is going on behind the scenes – received and acted on, for example, by bodies like the Environmental Audit Committee, the Office of Government Commerce, individual departments and so on.

And if one gets really disciplined about both sides of the balance sheet (the pluses and the minuses), the overall picture on the standing of sustainable development question is actually “not half bad” – and I’m constantly struck by just how impressed people from other countries are at the ‘sustainable development architecture’ that’s been created here in the UK, including the Sustainable Development Commission itself.

But there still remains something of a mystery here, despite all the good things, it’s demonstrably clear to me that not enough has changed on the ground. Plenty of good process but not enough good outcomes (and quite a few really bad outcomes!)

That’s the mystery I’ve tried to unravel in this new Report, unimaginatively entitled The Standing of Sustainable Development in Government. Not an all-singing, all-dancing retrospective, and certainly not a completely dispassionate study. But useful for all that, I hope.

View full report

Leaders must be shocked into climate action

Jonathon Porritt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:52:33 +0000

Even today’s climate optimists acknowledge that there are going to have to be some traumatic ‘shocks to the system’, induced by accelerated climate change, to jolt politicians the world over to move up a gear (well, several gears).

These shocks will come, and from the perspective of our long-term prospects, they need to come as rapidly as possible. And to be as traumatic as possible – otherwise, politicians and their electorates will rapidly revert to the current mix of non-specific anxiety and inertia.

Post-Katrina, for instance, public opinion in the US provided the best example of this phenomenon. It took just two years for Fox News and other right-wing shock-jocks to straighten out deviant US citizens who’d started to think that it really might be time for the US to get stuck in on climate change.

But Australia provides an even more compelling story. Over the last few years, it’s had more than its fair share of traumatic shocks. Earlier this year, Melbourne broke its record February temperature by a full 3°C to hit 46.8°C. This was also the day of Australia’s worst ever bush fires, with 173 people killed and 2000 homes destroyed. The Murray-Darling Basin (Australia’s food bowl, with nearly 40% of Australia’s agricultural production based around its waters) has been in so-called ‘drought’ since 2002. Flow levels are now down to 5% of their long-term average. As a result, it’s now assumed that the globally significant wetlands and lake system at the river’s mouth will face ecological collapse over the next few years.

And now there’s a new report out in Australia, featured in the Guardian on Wednesday, (‘Managing Our Coastal Zones in a Changing Climate’) which reveals that more than £80 billion of property is at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms – and that’s going to send a bit of a shock wave down the backbones of the 80% of Australian citizens who live along the coastline! The report’s principle policy proposal is that there should be a ban on any further development at beach level.

So what’s been the net impact of all these shocks on Australian politics? The victory of Kevin Rudd over John Howard in the most recent general election in Australia was attributed in part to his relatively progressive stance on climate change. But since then, there’s been one set back after another in terms of introducing appropriate policy interventions, with Australia’s mining and coal industries in full-on defensive mode, and its equivalent of the CBI acting exactly like our CBI did under the Neanderthal leadership of Digby Jones a few years ago.

The outcome of which is that Australia is still doing very little on climate change, and has no chance whatsoever of meeting its Kyoto targets. It still pursues its dreams of unbridled affluence, California-style, and is about as far from adopting a leadership role as it is possible to get.

Clearly the shocks to their systems just haven’t been bad enough – which gives us some sense of just how bad future climate shocks are going to have to be to drive any serious transformation.

Disruptive Innovation – competition now open

Chris Sherwin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:11:55 +0000

At Forum we’re always looking for innovative new ways to approach sustainability. We’ve just produced a tool to help innovators come up with game-changing, disruptive ideas, and are offering you the chance to win one too.

Our Disruptive Innovation cards each capture a different method of thinking ‘out of the box’ to inspire real change. You can win a set by telling us what you would do with them to disrupt for sustainability. The top five ideas will be featured here on our website and in Green Futures magazine.

I’ve been very lucky to oversee Forum’s team of innovators, working to help develop next generation of sustainable products and services with our partners. We’ve helped Dulux launch Ecosure, a high-quality paint with a greatly reduced carbon footprint, the launch of GreenHeart, the lower-impact phone range from Sony Ericsson and our i-team project used cutting-edge innovation techniques to help three UK local authorities develop low-carbon services.

The scale and pace of our emerging sustainability challenges has really ratcheted up in recent years. UK climate change targets alone have gone from 60% to 80% by 2050 with many calling for a 90% reduction in that same time frame. As a result, we’ve concluded that we no longer need ‘just innovation’ for sustainability, but disruption.

Innovation guru Clayton Christensen coined the term disruptive technology or innovation, as “that which improves a product or service in ways that the market does not expect” usually by new entrants overtaking incumbents. Examples include compact fluorescent’s overtaking incandescent light bulbs, the PC replacing typewriters, and digital overtaking print photography. They can also be innovative new partnerships like food conglomerate Danone teaming up with Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to produce a low-cost, eco-dairy product, or companies gate-crashing another market like Google entering the energy sector.

The sustainable economy of the future depends on just such disruptions to move us away from current unsustainable technologies and business models at the pace we need.

Here at Forum, we’re keen to catalyse these disruptions for sustainability and we’re putting together plans for Disruptive Innovation in 2010 and beyond, and our set of 12 cards is a first step. We’ve started to use these internally, with our partners and for larger projects, and initial feedback suggests we’ve hit on something rather exciting! To continue to catalyse these disruptions we’ve decided to open a competition to encourage innovative sustainable thinking.

Competition entry details
Send 50 word max entries telling us what you would do with our Disruptive Innovation cards to disrupt for sustainability, to: h.knowles@forumforthefuture.org.uk by 30 November, 2009. We will select the 5 top entries that use our cards to create the most change and publish the winning entries in the next edition of Green Futures magazine and here on Forum’s website.

Forum wins green procurement award

John Bishop — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:27:32 +0000

At Forum for the Future we like to think we know a bit about sustainable procurement, and our guide Buying a Better World is a buyer’s manual in many organisations.

It’s a simple concept, spending your money on goods which improve people’s quality of life and enhance the environment, but putting it into practice has its challenges, even for an organisation like us. So we were delighted to win an award for green procurement this week.

The Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code awards showcase the achievements of London businesses that have reduced carbon emissions, saved energy and diverted waste from landfill through their procurement activities. Forum took the title of best performing small or medium enterprise.

Our work is all about embedding the principles of sustainability in businesses and the public sector. On procurement, we offer support at both the strategic and operational level. Our Buying a Better World report explains the benefits of sustainable procurement and details practical steps to take. Our Sustainable Procurement toolkit is recommended by the UK Audit Commission and the National Health Service and has been requested by public and private sector organisations around the world including the UN.

That’s why it is so important for Forum to be seen to practice what it preaches and understand the practical challenges of developing more sustainable business practices.

Time for a retail revolution

Dan Crossley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:12:10 +0000

When you see the chief executives of five world-famous companies debating how to make the broader retail sector more sustainable, you realise a quiet revolution is underway.

The senior figures in question were the bosses of Tesco, Coca Cola, Unilever, SC Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser, responsible for combined sales of well in excess of £100 billion. The stage was the Sustainable Consumption Institute event –‘Consumers: the key to a low carbon world’ – held at the Royal Society in London this month.

These leaders acknowledged the major role their companies can play in helping their customers to lead more sustainable lives. They also talked about their responsibility to lead and to educate consumers – quite a change from the “we only do what consumers tell us” rhetoric that we might have heard in the past.

Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s chief executive, used the event to announce bold new climate change ambitions for the world’s third largest retailer.

Three commitments particularly caught my eye.

Firstly, Tesco will become a zero carbon business by 2050 (at the latest) – an aspiration that we would encourage others to strive for (obviously the earlier the better).

Secondly, it will reduce the carbon impact of the products in its supply chain by 30% by 2020 – meaning it will have to collaborate much more closely with key suppliers.

And thirdly, the retailer will work with consumers to help them move towards zero carbon homes – a big potential prize.

We have to rewind to early 2007 to see Tesco’s first big announcements on climate change – at the ‘Green Grocer’ event, hosted by Forum for the Future. It was there that Sir Terry first talked about the need for a new revolution in green consumption and pledged to set up the Sustainable Consumption Institute.

It was one of a flurry of bold retailer announcements on sustainability at the time, including Marks & Spencer’s Plan A and Wal-Mart’s Sustainability 360.

Since then many of our leading retailers, including Tesco, have taken some fantastic steps, particularly on climate change. In the grand scheme of things though, it’s been more of a rumble, than the revolution we really need.

Sir Terry reiterated the rationale for a revolution in green consumption at the recent event: “For Tesco [it]… is a fantastic opportunity: once and for all to break the link between consumption and emissions, and in doing so to satisfy a new consumer need, and grow our business.”

Tesco deserves praise for raising the bar, as the need for action is growing ever more urgent. That’s why we’ll be pushing our retail and branded manufacturing partners hard next year on enabling, informing and encouraging consumers to make sustainable purchasing decisions. We need more bold ambitions and – critically - we need to see them realised, in order to achieve a real green retail revolution.

US position on Copenhagen may be treaty-wrecking

Jonathon Porritt — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:05:26 +0000

You can’t fault our Government for its ongoing efforts to get people to focus on the Copenhagen Conference. Both the Prime Minister and Ed Miliband are out there emphasising the ‘make or break’ nature of the event: governments either seal the deal now, or we could be into drift for a couple of years.

Personally I’m not so sure about this kind of rhetoric. It probably wouldn’t be the end of the world if it took another six or nine months to get the right deal sealed – and that means a deal with the US on board. And that probably won’t happen until some kind of climate bill has got through the US Senate.

That, at least, was the prevailing view at the end of the most recent round of talks in Bangkok a couple of weeks ago. The Senate is bogged down in health insurance stuff; Obama doesn’t want to use his political capital to try and force it through the Senate prior to Copenhagen; and he absolutely doesn’t want a re-run of the Kyoto process, where Al Gore signed off on the Kyoto Protocol only to find that the Senate would have nothing to do with it later on.

And that’s the reason Obama hasn’t accepted the invitation to go to Copenhagen himself in order to bring his own personal leadership to bear on the negotiations.

Because the focus of a lot of this discussion is about Obama and most people just seem to have bought into this approach. That’s just the way it is: unfortunate timing and all that. America doing its best in difficult domestic circumstances.

I must say, I don’t quite see it like that. I think this represents a massive failure on Obama’s part. As the rest of the world raises its game (particularly in key countries like China, India and Brazil), the United States’ negotiating position, in essence, doesn’t seem to have advanced much beyond George Bush’s negotiating position.

US negotiators still refuse to acknowledge historical responsibility. They’re still trying to force developing countries to do what America itself has totally failed to do up until now – and doesn’t show much readiness to do it even now. They’re still trying to change the baseline date from 1990 to 2005 – and, in essence, want to tear up Kyoto rather than build on it by allowing each country to determine its own path to greenhouse gas reductions.

For US negotiators, read Obama. I don’t know why everyone (and particularly Government ministers) is being so ‘understanding’ about this. It’s a despicable, immoral, self-serving, treaty-wrecking negotiating position which, in the current context, where the need for action is so much greater, and so many other countries are now playing ball, is no better than what George Bush was doing during his eight poisonous years in the White House.

Mark Ellingham: Air travel must help cut CO2

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:37:57 +0000

Hurrah for Tourism 2023, airing so many issues that have been engaging so many of us involved in the travel industry. Is a travel industry sustainable? Can it in some way clean up its own act, or at least clean up its own CO2 emissions? And if climate is changing apace, what on earth might be in store?

I came into the travel industry in the early 1980s, when I set up Rough Guides. Although back then I must say that I hadn’t thought of travel, at least not its independent wing, as an industry. At Rough Guides we were just writing books to inform people about the countries they visited, while most of the small, independent operators we dealt with were enthusiasts first, business folk second, and often driven by a passion to get involved with destinations and communities where they felt strong bonds.

Nor had I thought very much about the travel industry’s effect on the environment, beyond the sorry over-development of mainstream resorts. For back in the 1980s, there wasn’t much observable effect in many of the countries we covered: even in countries like Peru or India or Morocco, where tourism is today a significant part of the economy. And crucially, there was no popular perception about climate change, or about the role aviation emissions play.

When a year or so ago, I was asked to take part in the discussions out of which Tourism 2023 was shaped, the landscape was altogether different. Although I had by then left Rough Guides, to set up an environment imprint for Profile Books, I had a sense of guilt, almost a feeling of shame, about having been a part of the travel industry for so long. And I think that sense is shared, in rather perplexed fashion, by much of the industry. Certainly among the independent travel sector, the sector I know best, which is populated on the whole by thoughtful souls, who care deeply about the countries where they organise trips and tours. People and companies who for many years have been trying to ensure that their brand of tourism puts something back into local communities, by encouraging genuinely local development, supporting local infrastructure, and often putting money into aid projects in areas they know there will be real benefit.

Which is why I think Tourism 2023 is so important – and why it is so good that it has had partners like ABTA and British Airways involved. We need to make sure that the future of travel becomes positive, delivering benefits to the communities we visit. And, crucially, we need to somehow find a golden bullet to make tourism a “low carbon, low impact industry” as the report sets out as a primary aim. That is a vision we must all advance. And perhaps it is one that tourism actually can deliver, to show other sectors the way forward. Aviation, of course, is the key, as an area that is currently unsustainable in its contribution to carbon emissions, and is potentially disastrous if it grows as governments predict.

We need an industry that sets out its store: to remove every gram of CO2 that we emit. Better than that: why don’t we set out to remove twice as much CO2 as we emit? Turn tourism into an industry leader in removing emissions.

There is enough money in the industry to make this happen, and there is evidence that the technology to do so is emerging. Klaus Lackner, at Columbia University, has developed a working prototype of a carbon scrubber that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere, anywhere in the world. If his technology were to go into production right now, Lackner estimates that it would cost around $200 to remove each ton of CO2. Some travellers would be happy to pay that cost today. But with mass production, Lackner estimates a CO2 removal cost dropping to around $35 a ton. That would add a very manageable extra cost to flights: $50 on a return flight from London to New York, $10 for London to Madrid.

We need to apply the pressure to make that happen – urgently.

Mark Ellingham co-founded Rough Guides and currently runs a green and ethical publishing list for Profile Books. He is a member of the Tourism 2023 Steering Committee.

Travel giants commit to sustainable tourism

Stephanie Draper — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:41:43 +0000

Today some of Britain’s biggest travel companies made a big commitment - to work together to create a strong and profitable future, which benefits tourism destinations and enhances the environment.

The launch of Tourism 2023 is a proud moment for Forum for the Future - the culmination of 18 months of helping tour operators, airlines, cruise companies and travel agents understand how they can be fit for the future – and a sustainable one at that.

It’s been a fascinating process, taking an idea born in a noodle bar in Soho to a launch to nearly 1000 delegates at this year’s ABTA Travel Convention in Barcelona. Its involved research, workshops, creativity and collaboration. But most importantly it’s been an exercise in recognising that the future is going to be different and that taking a sustainable approach will help industries like tourism prepare for that difference. It has been one of those really inspirational projects for me. We’ve been working with committed partners who are really engaged in understanding and preparing for their future. They have given their collective time, effort and intellect to working through the big issues that will shape their industry.

With the help of more than 100 industry experts, we have worked through those issues to produce a set of four vivid scenarios of plausible but very different futures for the industry and a vision of a sustainable tourism industry in 2023. The scenarios explore key questions, like how climate change and related regulation will affect mainstream tourism; the extent to which technology will deliver solutions; and whether people will change their travelling habits because of rising costs or disappointing holidays to degraded places.

Our partners have now signed up to the Tourism 2023 Vision, committing themselves, individually and as a group, to creating a sustainable industry by 2023.

It states, for example that the UK industry will deliver “measurable socio-economic benefits” to destinations and work with local governments to make sure tourism development is sustainable: “That way, our operations are welcomed by host communities and our business is sustained for the long term.”

It also pledges to use more renewable energy, conserve water, minimise waste and protect vulnerable ecosystems: “It makes commercial sense for us to commit to ambitious efficiency savings, to prepare for environmental shocks and to add to the natural environment that we all depend on, not detract from it.”

It’s not all been plain sailing, but over the years I have learnt that that is the nature of creating change. And there is still a lot to be done – next up is delivering hard performance improvements.

So well done ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents), Advantage Travel Centres, British Airways, Carnival UK, The Co-operative Travel, Sunvil, The Travel Foundation, Thomas Cook and TUI Travel on committing to be sustainable in less than 15 years time – this is really good news for the whole industry. I look forward to more inspiration in the coming months and years, as others join our pioneers and we see a reshaped, sustainable and more prosperous industry emerge.

For further information, to download the report and view the scenarios click here.

£10 million will fund best community low-carbon initiatives

Jonathon Porritt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:34:12 +0000

No sign yet (thankfully!) that the Government’s Low Carbon Investment Fund is at risk of ‘savage cuts’.

On Monday, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched its new Low Carbon Communities Challenge, which consists basically of a £10 million pot that communities can apply to for funding for their own low-carbon initiatives – which might be a housing retrofit scheme, a biomass plant, or even electric vehicle charging points.

Up to 20 communities will be selected as the lucky winners.

It’s a good scheme, underpinned by a ‘specialist support squad’ made up of partners with expertise from inside and outside government – including The Energy Savings Trust, The Carbon Trust, WRAP, and the Third Sector.

So let’s hope DECC is overwhelmed by applications!

Cadbury fights for "principled capitalism"

Jonathon Porritt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:28:29 +0000

The Cadbury versus Kraft takeover battle can be characterised in all sorts of ways: UK versus the US; medium-sized multinational versus mega-multinational; “brash and blousey” (as one commentator put it) versus lean and green. But the characterisation that matters most is what kind of capitalism these two companies stand for.

Forum for the Future has been working with Cadbury for a long time, on a number of pioneering sustainability issues. So there’s no doubt I’m just a bit biased. But there are few really successful companies out there that are so overtly values-led. And even fewer Chief Executives whose words make me get up out of my seat and shout “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

Todd Stitzer (the man in question) would be quite embarrassed at that idea. He doesn’t do over-the-top. Which is why his recent speech at a Fair Trade conference in London on September 24th is so important.

“Capitalism is characterised as a one-way relationship in thrall to profit margins and shareholder returns. But I have always believed that there is more than one type of capitalism. It is true that unbridled capitalism can be a destructive beast, not just to those it does business with but to the company itself. History shows that those who operate in this way inevitably come undone. They over-leverage and under-invest to the detriment of the whole enterprise. The recent past has presented numerous examples, which all business leaders and shareholders would do well to learn from.”

He didn’t spell it out in so many words on that occasion, but his fierce opposition to the takeover by Kraft arises out of that deep concern about the nature of capitalism itself – and the brutish acquisitiveness that drives so much theoretical “value-creation”. The Kraft bid is so transparently all about size, cash and clout, with little if any interest in heritage, culture and values.

Kraft has, of course, got a case to make on its own ethical and environmental performance. Any company that can market one of its many coffee products under the brand name of “Sustainable Development” clearly can’t be all bad. But compared to the way in which Cadbury has set about embracing Fair Trade (its recent accreditation for Dairy Milk is seen as a huge step forward in this regard) and committing to swathes of ambitious and community-based targets is just in a different league.

Stitzer describes this as “principled capitalism”, something which comes more naturally to Cadbury than to many companies, partly because of its extraordinary Quaker origins and progressive values:

“We see this principled capitalism, which has been woven into the very fabric of Cadbury over the course of almost two centuries, as fundamental to our ways of working and part of our identity and success. Take it away, or dilute it, and you risk destroying what makes Cadbury a great company.”

Despite the economic crash, despite the humbling of the arrogant, neo-liberal fanatics that brought the global economy to the edge of the abyss, and despite the recognition that the rapacious excesses of the last twenty years must now be driven out of the system, we just don’t hear many Chief Executives talking like that. Hardly any. Hardly ever.

More than ever, the world needs that kind of leadership. Capitalists need that kind of leadership. And Cadbury’s shareholders need to be mindful of that bigger picture as well as of the financial stakes involved.

Message from a dead frog

James Taplin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:08:47 +0000

I once had the good fortune to discover a new species of frog. It was neither large, nor flashy but was extremely rare, living only in a hectare of boggy grassland at the foot of a huge waterfall. Five years later it was extinct – a victim of man-made climate change.

The brownish-yellow frog just two centimetres long, had lived for time immemorial at the top of a steep gorge in the middle of a remote mountain range in Southern Tanzania. In this secluded froggy paradise it passed its days peacefully hopping about in the grass, or clinging in its thousands to the side of giant boulders buffeted by the driving wind and rain from the waterfall.

Its problems started* one afternoon, around tea-time, when the three giant turbines of the Lower Kihansi Hydropower plant were switched on for the first time to start providing power for the afternoon rush in Dar-es-Salaam.

When that happened, the river was diverted, the giant waterfall dried up, and the climate of the frog’s habitat changed dramatically. Rainfall instantly dropped to less than one percent of what it had been. Temperature immediately shot up a couple of degrees, then continued to climb several degrees higher over the following hours.

Standing there when it happened, the change was unmistakable, and came as a bit of a shock - not least to the frogs who died in their thousands. What was maybe more surprising** was the change I felt in the area when I returned a year later. The diversion of the river had affected the character of the entire gorge – not to the same extent as in the frog’s habitat – but the roar of the river had gone, and the air beneath the trees sat heavy, hot and still. I clearly remembered how the local microclimate had felt, and the contrast was unsettling.

The worrying thing for me is that the temperature change I experienced over one year is not so different to the one that the human species has experienced over the last couple of centuries. And it’s likely to be less than the one we’re going to endure over the next 30.

So why isn’t everyone as shocked by these climate changes as I was?

Of course, it doesn’t help that the transition has been so slow (in human terms), nor that our appreciation of subtle temperature differences is so rudimentary. Because the change we’re experiencing globally is largely gradual and incremental, we don’t notice it on a day-to-day basis, and so it gets subsumed beneath the endless daily concerns which clamour more immediately for our attention.

Another problem is that our thermal memories are rubbish as well. If we could feel the difference in what the average temperature was ten years ago in comparison with today maybe things would be different. But we can’t.

Instead, it takes rapid changes to jolt us into action. It’s the Hurricane Katrinas of this world that get things altered, precisely because we can clearly see and remember how things were before, and how they are after. No wonder that so many environmental campaigners, in the dark and slightly guilty secrecy of their unspoken dreams, hope for some zero-casualty but big-impact climate shock to shake people up a bit.

Of course, when that happens, it may already be too late, as it was for Nectophrynoides asperginis. They say frogs in cooking pots fail to notice the rising temperature. You can’t avoid the comparison as we sit here, slowly being boiled whilst contentedly blinking in the rising heat.

*Of course, their problems had actually started a couple of decades earlier with the Tanzanian hydropower capacity assessment study, but frogs don’t generally have access to that sort of information, and no-one knew they were there to consult them anyway, so as far as the frogs were concerned, the first they knew about it was when it was too late.

I should add that, technically, it was a toad rather than a frog, but having been plunged into the amphibian world, one of the first things you learn is that it’s always acceptable to call a toad a frog, but not vice versa. For the purposes of historical accuracy, I should also point out that my contribution to the discovery didn’t really stretch beyond asking “what are all these yellow jumping things” as another small cloud of them leapt out from beneath my descending boot. By that time the proper scientists in the party had already secured a couple of handfuls of them in the cloth bags hung from their belts. Thanks to their efforts, although the frog is extinct in the wild, a few survive in captivity in the Bronx and Toledo zoos.

**For me at least. Sadly the frogs themselves were somewhat beyond surprise by this point.

Video shows way to low-carbon lifestyle

David Mason — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:38:11 +0000

Health services make up a huge part of every developed country’s economy with a massive carbon footprint, so when you identify a way to cut emissions, save money and improve public health at the same time it’s of global interest.

So we’re delighted that the UK Foreign Office has posted a news video about Fit for the Future, our new report, which looks at a range of scenarios for future health services and gives guidance on how to create a more efficient, low-carbon system which delivers better public health.

The report focuses on the UK National Health Service, but we believe it holds lessons for every health service provider. It was jointly produced by Forum for the Future and the NHS Sustainable Development Unit, and will be sent to every NHS organisation.

In the video, filmed at the launch of the report, Neil McKay, the NHS Chief Executive with lead responsibility for sustainable development and Jonathon Porritt, founder director of the Forum, discuss the urgency of action and what the NHS needs to do to deliver low-carbon healthcare.

Health spending accounts for 16% of the US economy and 8.4% in the UK, according to an OECD survey. Across developed countries the average is 8.9% of GDP – and activities on that scale generate a massive carbon footprint.

The NHS is responsible for 18 million tonnes of CO2 each year which comes from various activities: energy used to power its hospitals; making and delivering medicines, equipment and other goods it uses; and staff, patient and visitor travel.

The World Health Organisation recently called for the health sector to take the lead in cutting emissions. "By reducing its climate footprint and moving toward carbon neutrality, the health sector can demonstrate the path forward in this age of global warming, thereby playing a leadership role in advocating for a healthy and sustainable future," said Maria Neira, Director of WHO's Department of Public Health and Environment.

Sarkozy launches crusade against obsession with growth

Jonathon Porritt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:51:11 +0000

I can’t help it, but I love seeing the Treasury discomfited. Through my nine years with the Sustainable Development Commission they set up so many barriers to promoting more sustainable economic growth, did so many foolish things, and missed so many opportunities, that I can’t help but feel a little bitter.

They were particularly obstructive in terms of the work the Commission did on economic growth, seeking to open up the debate about the completely irrational way in which the pursuit of GDP has come to dominate all economic policy debates.

The Commission’s report, ‘Prosperity Without Growth?’ was met with a combination of disdain and indifference that only the Treasury is capable of. The Commission was told, in no uncertain terms, that this just wasn’t the kind of advice that the UK Government needed.

So I had particularly good reason to celebrate the publication of a new report, authored by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen on the ‘Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’, commissioned personally by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, questioning the continued obsession of nations with conventionally measured economic growth.

“For years, statistics have registered an increasingly strong economic growth as a victory over shortage – until it emerged that this growth was destroying more than it was creating,” said Sarkozy, endorsing the report. “The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so”.

President Sarkozy has instructed France’s national statistics body to update its gathering and reporting of economic statistics in line with the report’s recommendations. Better yet, he will invite other world leaders to join his crusade against what the report describes as “GDP Fetishism”. “France will put this report on the agenda of all international meetings, including next week’s G20 Summit,” Sarkozy said.

I fear he’ll get very short shrift from Gordon Brown, who will see it as an irritatingly Gallic distraction from the serious business of getting the global economy back on track.

Inconveniently, that’s precisely the same track that has caused such devastating damage to the Earth’s life support systems that sustain us, has unleashed what could still prove to be irreversible climate change, has left between one and two billion people living in conditions of dire poverty, and has ruthlessly promoted private greed and avarice over social wellbeing and community cohesion.

In other words, exactly the kind of growth-based economics that “destroys more than it creates” – to paraphrase the French President.

Confident retailers take the lead on sustainability

Shannon Carr-Shand — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:27:28 +0000

This year we interviewed the great and the good of European retail to find out how they are tackling sustainablity. We were delighted to find a growing group with the confidence to demand high standards from their suppliers and to influence their customers’ behaviour.

Sustainability is high on the agenda for retailers across Europe, but their approach is determined by two important factors – their specific business environment and their perception of their power in the marketplace. The sector divides itself into contributors and leaders, depending on retailers’ confidence in their ability to influence consumers and suppliers

Leaders are more likely to impose strict sustainability criteria on their supply chains and consider the indirect, as well as the direct, impacts of their services. They are also more willing to take the lead with their consumers, supplying more sustainable products.

Contributors concentrate on managing down their direct environmental footprint and on working with own-label products to reduce impacts. They provide consumers with as much choice as possible, providing information on sustainability issues, rather than rationalising their product lines.

The findings are detailed in our report, Sustainability Trends in European Retail, sponsored by Coca-Cola Enterprises, which looks at the key trends influencing how retailers address sustainability and their ambitions on delivering sustainable consumption.

Overall, sustainability is high on the agenda for retailers across Europe – no surprise there. And whilst ambition and speed of progress may vary across the retail sector, there is little significant difference in the actual issues retailers focus on. Much work has been done in recent years by retailers on recycling and reducing packaging, and the carbon footprint of businesses is now fast becoming the headline priority for the sector.

But the key to delivering sustainable consumption lies in unlocking what sustainable value means for customers – not just in terms of price, but also quality and a wide range of other characteristics. Without consumers demanding sustainable options and rewarding retailers and manufacturers who can offer that sustainable option at a fair price, change will happen very slowly.

The future is flat

James Goodman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:43:19 +0000

What do crowd-sourcing, user-generated content and the microfinance revolution all have in common?

They’re all features of a trend that is moving power out beyond the control of centralised organisations, and into the hands of individuals.

This trend is nothing new – it’s as old as the internet - but it is becoming more and more important every day, eroding hierarchies and leading to flatter structures in business and the economy.

I was reminded of the trend recently when I joined the judging panel at a ‘hackathon ’ - a mammoth non-stop software programming competition to see who can come up with the best solution to a particular challenge. This one was the ‘ecomo’ (conflating ‘ecology’ and ‘mobility’), in which teams of enthusiasts worked through the night to come up with new, sustainable mobile applications.

The Ecomo hackathon was run by Vodafone. It’s a type of ‘open innovation’. The term – I’m told by Chris Sherwin, our in-house innovation guru – was coined by the US technologist Henry Chesbrough about six years ago. Up and coming creatives have a chance of fame and fortune and at the very least get to meet like-minded people. The hosts build credibility with an important set of stakeholders, and could get first dabs on the next big thing.

It’s a growing trend. IBM recently held an ‘innovation jam’ with 2000 students globally as part of their smarter planet programme. Electrolux have their Design Lab, connecting with students to design the products of the future. And Unilever was a sponsor of RSA’s Design Directions, in which design students came up with products using some of our own future scenarios. Companies are even sponsoring user-generated advertising.

The winner of the hackathon, from a team called The Wizards of the Digital Frontier, was a canny spin on the freecycle phenomenon – itself another manifestation of the flattening trend. Freecyle websites match up people who want something with people who have that something to give away for free. There are many different, but similar, services, most voluntary and most operating at a local scale.

It’s a simple idea that helps people save money and reduce waste, but it’s yet to reach the scale of an eBay or Facebook. Part of the problem is the need to sign up to multiple networks and continually check them to see if they have something you want. It’s time consuming and, because most operate on a ‘first come first served’ basis, it’s very easy to miss out.

The Wizards’ idea was to aggregate the data from all of the freecycle-type websites, so that instead of signing up to every service, you just go to one website, plug in, say, ‘sofa’ and your postcode and if there’s a decent sofa to be had, it’s yours. Better, if there’s nothing available when you check, it will text or email you when something suitable does come up.

The idea won because it identified a simple problem with an existing service and came up with an elegant solution. It could help the freecycle movement go from niche to mass-market, and have a real impact on sustainability. There’s no guarantee that Vodafone will take the idea any further. But I’m sure we’ll see its like on the web pretty soon.

Who knows how far could the open innovation trend will go? We could very soon see it replacing more traditional closed-door corporate R&D completely. With an optimist’s view of the future, this could lead to more sustainable innovation that fits better with meeting people’s needs, rather than creating new wants. Products and services designed by the people, for the people…? A new form of democratic consumerism…?

By the way, Forum set up something similar to this back in the heady days of the dotcom boom, with the thinktank Demos (Vitamin-e anyone?). Perhaps it’s time to revive it.