Green Futures

Four trends that are reshaping America

Martin Wright — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:07:33 +0000

For over 30 years, Lester Brown has been tracking emerging trends in energy and environment – and working out what they might mean for the future. Now he tells Martin Wright why coal is dying, wind is king – and America is falling out of love with the automobile.

1. “State-by-state, renewables are taking over”

Across America, coal plants are closing. They’re being replaced by natural gas and – increasingly – renewables. It’s all being driven by some demanding goals from state governments.

New York is shooting for 24% renewables by 2020; California for 33%. Maine is the most ambitious, at no less than 40% - most of which will come from wind. Thirty-five states in all have now set these ‘renewable portfolio’ standards.

Texas in particular is thinking really big. If you add up all the wind plants currently under construction or in development in the state, the total comes to around 50,000 MW. That’s equivalent to 50 coal-fired plants. It’s huge stuff – that’s more than the state’s 24 million people can consume! So Texas will actually become a net exporter of renewable power! [Republican Governor] Rick Perry’s really got behind it; he’s backing the creation of new transmission lines to help provide the capacity needed. It helps that Texas has its own grid. There are three in the country: eastern, western and Texas! So that makes it easy for them.

If you look at the US as a whole, we brought 102 new wind farms online last year (2008), with a capacity of over 8,000 MW. OK, it’s dropped a little this year [as the recession takes its toll], but I think it should rise again next. New wind capacity far exceeds that in coal. And there are virtually no limiting factors. There’s a team at Stanford University who’ve modelled US wind resources and electricity consumption. They concluded that, because America’s so big, there’s really no major problem with intermittency. If the winds aren’t blowing on the east coast, they will be on the Great Plains, or the mountain passes, or offshore in the Great Lakes…

It’s not just wind. Solar thermal [concentrating solar power – CSP] is taking off, too. One thing I’m really excited about is the new molten salt technology. This uses the sun’s heat to melt salt, and as it cools it continues to drive the turbines for another six hours, taking them through from sunset to midnight – a peak period of electricity demand.

Then there’s geothermal energy, and biomass, fired by woodchips. All of this has continued through the recession. Investment levels have held up pretty well. The rate of growth slowed a bit, but the growth itself did not. They’re still surging ahead at a hefty rate.

Meanwhile, 22 coal plants are slated for closure or conversion [to other fuel sources]. This is partly because they’ve come to the end of their life, and partly because they’re simply not meeting tough new pollution standards set by the states or by the Environmental Protection Agency. I doubt very much there will be any licenses issued for new ones.

2. Government is getting tough

All the attention at the moment is focused on the cap-and-trade debate - but there are a lot of other things going on behind the scenes. For example - and this is not widely known - for many years now, the Department of Energy did not translate congressional legislation on industrial plant efficiency standards into actual regulations that industry can use. They were basically stonewalling with the implicit approval of the Bush Administration. So, within days of taking office, Obama sent a directive to the department saying, in effect: “You guys had better get cracking!”. So now, every few weeks, there’s another standard released – on lightbulbs, on air conditioners, and so on. There’s a huge backlog there, and it’s all going to come at once…

Then there’s [EPA Administrator] Lisa Jackson’s order that every US business above a certain size must calculate and publish its carbon footprint on an annual basis. (This followed the landmark Supreme Court decision which officially classed carbon dioxide as a pollutant.) This will do two things: first, it will focus attention on the company’s environmental performance; and second, it will provide ammunition for campaigners, both local and national.

If you look at the policy pipeline, it’s surprising how much is there.

3. America’s falling out of love with the car

Car sales have slumped, from around 17 million annually in the mid-90s to about 10 million this year – when the total US automobile fleet is expected to shrink by about 2%. It’s not just the recession: I believe there’s a major rethinking under way, which is changing the place of the car in American culture.

For my generation, getting a driver’s license and a car was a rite of passage: everyone did it. A car was a means of socialising: all those kids driving around, checking each other out. That’s changing. For kids today, socialising isn’t centered around cars – it’s around the internet, and that’s a very different world. Young people just aren’t aspiring to own a car in the same way my generation did. I first picked up this trend in Japan – now you’re seeing it in the US.

Car sales are falling, but car clubs are becoming more common. People are realising that owning a car full time becomes a nuisance – finding parking, doing repairs, insurance, payments, gasoline price uncertainties…. I think the automobile industry realise that they are in the early stages of a really major restructuring of the transport system.

4. Local food from local farms

The number of farms in the US has been declining ever since the Civil War. At least, it had until very recently. However, between the censuses of 2002 and 2007, farm numbers started to rise. We’re seeing more small farms – of 20, 30 or 40 acres – producing food for local consumption. A disproportionate share of the new farmers are women. And these aren’t ‘hobby farmers’. They are making a living from it; it’s their prime source of income.

This is part of a trend that will see food production become more localised. This will partly be driven by the high price of oil and agricultural imports, but also through a growing desire on the part of people to have fresh food – whether it’s from urban farming or farmers’ markets…

The bottom line for me is that there are huge changes coming to America, and I don’t think we realise how substantial they are going to be - and how much the economy and society will be restructured as a result.

Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, is now President of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute. His latest book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, is published by W.W. Norton & Co. He has been described by The Washington Post as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers.”

Martin Wright is Editor in Chief of Green Futures.

Florida and Vegas – green makeover

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:34:32 +0000

Major eco developments create homes and jobs

Newbuild idylls designed with green energy, transport and space in mind are changing the face of major US tourism destinations.

In the ‘sunshine state’ of Florida, there are plans to build the world’s first solar-powered city. The state utility, Florida Power & Light, has partnered Washington-based property developer Kitson & Partners to build a 75MW solar plant on the outskirts of Fort Meyers. The $350 million project will power the new 17,000 acre city of Babcock Ranch.

The city will include some 20,000 homes, six million square feet of retail and light industrial space, and 8,000 acres of green space. The entire design is intended to promote a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, where people walk or cycle to and from work, and exercise in local parks and the Wellness and Fitness centre, a key feature of the downtown area. A study by consultancy Fishkind & Associates estimates the city will generate 20,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, a couple of thousand miles west, the Las Vegas Strip is getting a facelift in the form of an 18 million-square-foot sustainable development centre. The ‘CityCenter’ will be powered in part by an 8.5MW natural gas generation plant, and will employ new water conservation technology estimated to save up to 40% within the buildings and 60% in outdoor landscaping.

In keeping with the feel of ‘The Strip’, the development will also have a fleet of stretch limos on hand, powered by compressed natural gas.

While these initiatives are laudable, Martin Hunt, Head of Built Environment at Forum for the Future, thinks the effort may be misplaced. With 80% of existing building stock expected to be standing come 2050, “the priority for any city should be retrofitting existing communities to low carbon standards, rather than building new ones”. – Tricia Holly Davis

The cleantech revolution sweeps through America

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:20:48 +0000

The wind of change is sweeping America – literally. Take Texas. Synonymous with the nation’s oil boom era, for the past century its wealth has been powered by gushing geysers and giant oil companies. But green gold is now competing with black, as Texas establishes itself as a powerhouse of wind energy.

“From heartland Minnesota to the crowded northeast seaboard, giant wind farms are part of the landscape”

And the Lone Star State is not alone. During 2008, the US wind industry almost doubled in size, reaching 25,369MW, and passing Germany as the world leader. Across 30 states, from heartland Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas to the crowded northeast seaboard, giant wind farms are becoming an accepted part of the landscape.

Nor does this clean energy revolution end with wind. America’s solar power sector has tripled in size since 2000. And with a dozen large concentrating solar power (CSP) plants under construction around the country, the industry aims to provide half of all new electricity generation by 2025.

Investors, meanwhile, are betting on a cleantech future. Bucking the recession, venture capital investments in cleantech soared to a record $7.6 billion in 2008, double the 2007 tally, with solar and algae-based biofuels among the big winners. “Only a few years ago, cleantech was barely a sector at all,” says Joel Makower, Editor of GreenBiz.com, in The State of Green Business 2009 report. “Now it represents 20% of the entire venture capital asset class.”

It’s not just start-ups and VCs. Some of the country’s household name corporations are also jumping on the bandwagon. General Electric is now the biggest wind turbine manufacturer in the US, and the fifth biggest worldwide. Duke Energy, a Fortune 500 coal company which has not exactly been the darling of the green movement in the past, has built nine wind farms around the country and is planning more. And the likes of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are racing to produce the first mass market electric cars [see ‘Spark plug’]. All of a sudden, corporate America seems to be surging towards a new frontier of innovation.

So just what is generating all this enthusiasm? Can it reach critical mass? And does President Obama’s outspoken advocacy of clean energy and climate action really mean America is poised to lead the world down the sunrise path?

The first question is easiest to answer. The relentless rise of concerns over energy security, peak oil and looming carbon curbs, means cleantech is both smart business and smart policy.

Many of America’s leading corporations now see a clean energy future as inevitable – and they want to be sure to have a share in it. Take the list of companies supporting a ‘cap and trade’ approach to regulating carbon. It reads like a litany of corporate America: GE, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Shell, BP America, Ford, General Motors… They have lined up alongside the green lobby in a titanic PR battle with the coal industry and the Republican Party, who claim a carbon cap will cost jobs and raise energy bills.

A second ingredient feeding green industry growth has been the steady trickle of action at state level. In the absence of federal leadership under President Bush, many states quietly took steps to facilitate cleantech development, drawn by its potential to generate jobs and reduce fossil fuel dependence. They typically did so through a mix of carrots (tax breaks, and grants for energy efficiency and clean energy projects) and sticks (mandatory targets for renewable generation, and regional cap and trade programmes). Now such efforts are starting to bear fruit.

In Massachusetts, for example. Here, a solar rebate programme launched a year ago is pouring $22 million into 539 new photovoltaic projects. Combined with a Green Jobs Act, which provides taxpayer funding for R&D, business start-ups and workforce development, this has spurred a quadrupling in statewide solar installation contractors – from less than 50 a year ago to nearly 200 today. One company, Evergreen Solar, has taken on 700 new staff alone. Massachusetts has now set itself a target of becoming a green industries hub, with 250MW of solar generation by 2017 and 2,000MW of installed wind power capacity by 2020 – up from a mere 7MW at present.

Philip Giudice, Commissioner for the state’s Department of Energy Resources, makes it all sound very simple. “We created market opportunities, and companies responded. Some are regular electrical contractors who expanded their business model [to include solar or wind]. Others are contractors that used to build people’s porches and now also install solar panels. It’s the natural evolution of emerging markets, and it’s very exciting.”

“It’s not a choice between our environment and our economy; it’s a choice between prosperity and decline”

A third key factor powering America’s green enthusiasm is long overdue federal action, boosted by Obama’s characteristic clarion call to action. “The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy”, he said. “It’s a choice between prosperity and decline. The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

Fighting talk, which prodded Congress into allocating $112 billion of economic stimulus spending to green programmes (compared with a meagre $2 billion spent by Britain). By 2017, nearly $20 billion in tax incentives will be poured into the wind and solar industries, along with $54 billion into direct support for energy technology schemes. A large chunk of the latter will be spent improving the country’s ageing electricity grid to support renewable energy transmission and electric cars.

Investors have particularly welcomed the rollout of federal loan guarantees for green energy projects. “These should provide a real starting gun to get renewable schemes, which have been stalled by the credit crisis, off the ground all over the country,” said Jennifer von Bismarck, President of renewables financier Towpath Partners.

Introduced with less fanfare – and less cost – a second presidential initiative may prove almost as effective. By 2016, national fuel economy standards will be raised significantly to 35.5 miles a gallon, forcing the car industry further down the road to leaner, cleaner vehicles. According to the White House, the greenhouse gas savings will be equivalent to taking 177 million cars off the road.

So what does all this amount to? The US economic juggernaut is undoubtedly greening – but how far and how fast?

Short term, the news is good. Thanks mainly to the dramatic economic slowdown, but also to state and federal green stimuli, US carbon emissions fell by 3% last year and are predicted to fall a further 5% in 2009. This should present an enormous opportunity for the world’s richest country to start the transition toward a low carbon economy.

But hold on. The bulk of the American economy remains resolutely ‘grey’. Almost 90% of US electricity is still supplied by fossil fuels, primarily coal-burning power plants. And while clean energy companies are finally receiving sizeable federal subsidies, so too are the coal plants and other smokestack industries. Unlike the European Union, the US has no carbon cap and trade programme, however flimsy, in place to stimulate green investment. Unlike China, which has set a target of 15% renewable generation by 2020, the US has no national Renewable Energy Standard. Only one of the world’s five largest wind turbine manufacturers is American (General Electric), and only one of the top ten solar panel makers.

“The US is in danger of being left behind”

“The US is in danger of being left behind in the new global economy,” concludes Jennifer Morgan, Climate and Energy Director at the World Resources Institute (WRI), and she lays the blame squarely on Washington. “Business hates uncertainty, and the Federal Government’s failure to act is holding back US business innovation and leadership.” Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, agrees. “Right now, the US has no long-term market signal to tell companies and consumers that it values low carbon energy. But good policy can flip this dynamic.”

But what form will or should such “good policy” take? The American Clean Energy and Security Act, narrowly approved by the US House of Representatives in June, would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Based around a cap and trade programme similar to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the bill would regulate utilities, coal plants and other outlets accounting for 85% of US greenhouse gases. By putting a price on carbon, says WRI President Jonathan Lash, this would send “a clear market signal… The President’s signature on a cap and trade bill would unleash a flood of investment in, and deployment of, clean energy technologies across the United States”. Or as one seasoned observer put it, could “transform the steady stream of clean energy funding and R&D into a tsunami”.

But prospects for the next steps required to make such a bill law – Senate passage of sister legislation, reconciliation with the House bill and the President’s signature on the dotted line – are looking uncertain at best. A Senate vote may be postponed until 2010.

“The President has a trump card in his back pocket”

Should Congress ultimately reject cap and trade, however, the President has a trump card in his back pocket. The Environmental Protection Agency has already laid the groundwork to regulate and cap greenhouse gas emissions as an air pollutant, under the Clean Air Act. While such a move would raise furious cries of foul from Republicans and the coal industry, environmentalists are confident the President will order the EPA to act if he has to.

A critical complement to an emissions cap – and politically easier for either the President or Congress to implement – would be a national Renewable Energy Standard, setting a baseline for the proportion of electricity to be generated renewably. According to the Sierra Club, sourcing 20% of US energy from renewables by 2020 would create 820,000 jobs and generate a whopping $66.7 billion in capital investment.

So will America “lead or lag in the world’s next great global industry, green technology?”, as Jeff Immelt put it in a recent New York Times editorial. Certainly, the groundwork has been laid for US leadership. But will industry and, especially, Government demonstrate the steely political will required to follow through? Will black gold win or green? The jury is still out.

Billions ventured

Leading cleantech recipients of venture capital (VC) investment, 2008:

•    concentrating solar power
•    ‘thin film’ solar photovoltaics
•    next generation biofuels (especially algae-based technologies)
•    geothermal and tidal energy
•    fuel cell applications.

Atlantic divides

The British have the policies and commitments, says Peter Madden, but the Americans are stealing a march with the action

On this side of the pond, there is also great excitement about the benefits of moving to a low-carbon economy. The Government recently launched its ambitious and interventionist ‘Low Carbon Industrial Strategy’, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just promised that “we will create over a quarter of a million new green British jobs”.

Britain has a much firmer policy framework in place than the US. As well as the European Emissions Trading Scheme, the UK has a ‘Low Carbon Transition Plan’ and a Climate Change Act setting firm carbon budgets for the economy as a whole and for individual Government departments. However, despite the blizzard of policy initiatives, rather less is happening on the ground. The credit crunch has turned off the financing tap for many big projects, and this has not been offset by the kind of sizeable green fiscal stimulus package seen in the US. And planning difficulties and delays have stymied major projects and led to big investors putting their money instead into the US and continental Europe. The UK will really have to raise its game to turn the fine words into deeds – and give some substance to Gordon Brown’s recent claim that “we are already global leaders in wind power, green cars, clean coal and carbon capture”.

Peter Madden is CEO of Forum for the Future.

Polly Ghazi is US correspondent for Green Futures and writer/editor for the World Resources Institute.

What to look forward to in the Low Carbon Transition

Roger East — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:19:35 +0000

UK government sets out transition plan to meet 2020 carbon target

The UK has published details of its Low Carbon Transition Plan, setting a mandatory carbon budget to limit each Government department in their use of both carbon and cash.

When it comes to Britain’s future energy mix, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband is standing by his ‘trinity’ of renewables, nuclear and coal with carbon capture. These three together are supposed to provide 40% of UK electricity by 2020. Renewables will be the biggest element in this, with a target of 30% of electricity (and 15% of all energy), compared with just 5.5% of electricity at present. The Renewable Energy Strategy White Paper, announced alongside the transition plan, spells out the key measures:

a new Office for Renewable Energy Deployment within the Department of Energy and Climate Change
a new regime for grid access, with government funding for ‘smart grid’ development
major promotion of wind and tidal power, with funding for up to 3,000 offshore turbines, and creation of a special marine technologies economic area in the south-west
consultation on the details of a 'clean energy cashback' scheme, a feed-in tariff incentive for small-scale generation
1.2 million green jobs.

At Forum for the Future, energy and climate expert Iain Watt describes the proposals as “suitably ambitious”. He’s only too aware that “we’ve got the best Government in the world for setting targets”, but he does see “some real substance” in there too. One good example is the ‘clean energy cash-back’ scheme for small-scale generation, starting next year for electricity and the following year for heat. The uptake of this kind of feed-in tariff incentive, in countries such as Spain and Germany, has produced an impressive surge in renewable microgeneration, and Watt is pleased that the UK is now following suit with “proper rapidity”. – Roger East

A place for PVC in a sustainable world?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:23:14 +0000

When it comes to greening the bad girl of plastics, consensus is key

It’s cheap, durable and so versatile you’ll find it in your clothes, your garden hose, your raincoats and your Barbie dolls. It wraps electric cables and it roofs your garden shed. No wonder global demand for polyvinyl chloride, better known as PVC, is over 35 million tonnes a year.

But it’s also the bad girl of the Barbie world. Its long life has traditionally depended on heavy metal stabilisers, such as lead, that do not degrade in the environment and so become global pollutants. And it owes its flexibility to phthalates – plastic softeners which are linked to a range of health concerns, including asthma, allergies, developmental difficulties and cancer.

But the chemical industry has set out to prove that this particular leopard can, indeed, change its spots. “There are no sustainable materials, just as there are no non-sustainable materials,” says Karl Henrik-Robèrt, one of Sweden’s foremost cancer scientists and founder of The Natural Step (TNS), a non-profit environmental education agency. “There are only sustainable and non-sustainable management practices.” Now TNS has joined up with the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) to run a course entitled ‘Leading Change for a Sustainable Chemical Industry’ – and the PVC dilemma is at its heart.

It’s not the first time that TNS has wrestled with the issue. It originally grappled with the stuff in 2000, when, with the support of the UK Environment Agency, it investigated whether PVC could have any place in a sustainable society. The answer was a cautious ‘yes’ – providing the industry addressed some of its most pressing challenges. In the same year, Vinyl 2010 was launched: a sector-wide commitment to cut energy consumption, improve waste management, and minimise the environmental impact of resin and stabilisers. The collaboration has grown to include all 27 EU countries, the European Commission, trade unions, consumer organisations and industry representatives.

Such a broad approach sounds unwieldy, but it’s essential for any chance of progress, says TNS Chief Executive, David Cook. “PVC is a very complicated material with a complicated supply chain and customer base,” he says. “We analysed it at a time when it was being attacked by Greenpeace and the like, and found that there is no one person responsible for [any particular] problem. You need to talk to the whole system.”

Creating change in an industry of this size is no mean task. It employs over half a million people in Europe alone, working in 15 companies dedicated to resin production, 11 specialising in stabilisers, eight in plasticisers, and a mammoth 21,000 converting PVC into consumer products.

“It is not possible to make just one company out of a whole supply chain ‘sustainable’,” says Fiona Wright of BTH. “Ultimately a lot of cross-company collaboration is needed. [You have to] build relationships and trust between the individuals working within those companies. It’s all too easy to forget the time and effort this takes.”

The relationships may be hard to chart, but the results aren’t. Amongst the original EU-15 signatories, the use of lead has been cut by 50% in favour of calcium-based stabilisers, and it’s set to be phased out completely in all EU-27 countries by 2015. Post-consumer recycling has reached nearly 195,000 tonnes, largely due to financial incentives offered by Recovinyl – whose establishment was one of the outcomes of the Vinyl 2010 exercise. PVC is 100% recyclable, and can be broken down mechanically (ground into small pieces that can be reprocessed) or chemically.

As for phthalates, risk assessments have now identified two key areas for attention: their use in medical equipment, and the effect of emissions on ecosystems and populations located near PVC conversion plants.

But do all these results make PVC all right? For Cook, the next step is to look beyond the material itself to the products and services in which it’s used, and how they can be changed to drive down energy use and unnecessary waste. “Innovation for unsustainable products is a complete waste of time, and a tragedy,” he says. What he wants to see is “deep transformation” across the plastics industry – which will require consensus on a much greater scale. – Iain Aitch

The Natural Step is a Forum for the Future partner.

Click here to learn more about distance courses for the chemical industry.

Solar ship takes to the seas

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:01:40 +0000

World’s first PV-powered container ship launched

When the car container ship Auriga Leader chugged into the Californian port of Long Beach, it was greeted with a torrent of positive press reports – as the first freighter to be partially powered by the sun.

The Auriga, which can carry 6,400 vehicles and makes bi-weekly trips from Japan to California, has an impressive array of 328 photovoltaic (PV) panels stationed on its top deck. The panels – connected to the 440V onboard electricity grid – represent an investment of around $1.7 million for ship owners Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Nippon Oil.

The panels are touted to have a peak capacity of 40kW, when conditions are optimum (think sunny days at high noon) and the ship is docked. This will cover about 0.3% of the engine’s energy requirements, and 7% of other power appliances, such as pumps and lighting. It is estimated that the PV system will save a total of 13 tonnes of fuel over one year – reducing CO2 emissions by up to 40 tonnes.

Surprisingly, the panels have generated 1.4 times more electricity at sea than on land, leading to suggestions that the cool sea breeze improves efficiency.

With the sector’s fuel costs and carbon emissions increasingly under the spotlight, there has been a flurry of activity investigating alternative power systems for shipping. They include the cargo ship MS Beluga’s Sky Sail – a kite towing-system – and Solar Sailor’s hybrid solar/wind power solutions, as well as simple solar arrays as on the Auriga. But none comes cheap. The ‘small bang, big bucks’ is hard to justify in an era when fuel prices are not quite high enough, and the economy not quite strong enough, to make a solid business case for investment.

But Christer Ågren at Sweden’s Air Pollution & Climate Secretariat, who has much experience in the maritime industry, is loathe to pour cold water on any renewable technologies that reduce the fuel consumption of ships: “Solar cells, kites… all these are good – and the more popular they become, the more they’ll be used,” he says. However, Ågren adds that the most cost-effective, money and pollution-saving measure container ships can take is simply to slow down.

“It is incredible, but a 10% reduction in speed equals about a 20% reduction in fuel use,” says Ågren. It’s an approach already adopted by shipping lines such as Maersk when fuel prices are high. But the complexities of docking systems means most ship owners still want their cargo to reach port as quickly as possible.

As yet, shipping has managed to stay outside international emissions reduction frameworks, although research by BP and the Institute for Physics and Atmosphere suggests that the sector’s annual emissions make up 5% of the global total – around twice that of aviation. And according to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), a business-as-usual scenario would see these more than double by 2050.

Responding to growing pressure from the EU, the IMO advocates a range of what it terms ‘cost-effective’ measures including speed reductions, Beluga-style towing kites, upgrades to hulls, engines and propellers, and policy instruments such as emissions trading and a fuel tax. Taken together, says the IMO, ships could cut their emissions by 75% by 2050. – April Streeter

Algae biofuels race hots up

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:55:08 +0000

Cape Cod refinery could produce one million gallons per year
The race for algae-based biofuels is heating up across America, with new biorefineries planned across the country. In the largest announced so far, Plankton Power of Massachusetts has formed a public-private consortium to build a new plant in Cape Cod that could eventually produce one million gallons of biofuel per annum – or 5% of the state’s diesel and domestic fuel demands.

It’s part of a strategy which has seen it team up with the Regional Technology Development Corporation, the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Cape Cod Commission with the aim of developing an industry that will be cost-competitive with petroleum and with vegetable-based biofuels.

Algae have been hailed as an important source of ‘third generation’ biofuel: one that would not otherwise be cultivated for food or other commodities, such as timber. Nor do they compete for space with food crops on arable land or in freshwater. Thought to be the most efficient organisms on earth in terms of growth, algae can produce over 2,000 gallons of biofuel per acre per year of production – compared to just 50 gallons for soy, according to research by ExxonMobil.

For algae to flourish, all that’s required is a constant optimum temperature, water and plenty of concentrated CO2. The cost of equipment for large-scale production is the key limiting factor.

With global biofuel use to double by 2015, according to Hart Energy Consulting, Massachusetts could be well placed to lead the game. – Ed Gould

Major transport alliance backs buses

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:36:51 +0000

Fancy knocking a billion car rides off Britain’s roads? Then get on board Greener Journeys.

Private cars puff out 60% of all the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions from domestic transport. Improved efficiency, and a switch to hybrid or electric models, can help to shrink that figure – but if we’re to see a real shift, we need to tempt people out of their cars and onto the bus.

That’s the mission of Greener Journeys, an alliance of Arriva, First, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach, in partnership with Forum for the Future. It has the modest sounding goal of switching people from car to bus for just one journey in 25. Even making such a minor shift would mean one billion fewer car journeys – and a two billion tonne reduction in carbon dioxide over three years. If successful, the project will deliver an additional 50% more savings in transport CO2 than is planned under existing government policies.

But will people make the switch? It’s no secret that there is still a stigma attached to bus travel – famously summed up by the saying (wrongly attributed to Margaret Thatcher) that “any man over the age of 26 still riding the bus can count themselves a failure”.

More positively, a recent YouGov poll found that people see using public transport as one of the main things they can do to help the environment. Other research shows that a fifth of motorists now find driving increasingly stressful and would prefer to reduce their car use. They’re a prime target for Greener Journeys. Or, as Forum for the Future’s Rupert Fausset puts it: “We’re trying to reach those willing to change. We’re not trying to get Jeremy Clarkson onto the bus”.

There’s some promising signs. Easy-to-use Oyster cards and shorter waiting times have helped drive a 58% increase in bus patronage in London over the past decade. Ever rising ticket prices remain a challenge, however. Fausset hopes getting people onto existing buses will drive down fares, adding that awareness of the true cost of car travel is quite low. “People are not terribly rational when going on a car journey. If they’re not filling up with petrol, they assume that particular journey is free. [And yet] its share of overall car costs can easily exceed the price of a bus ticket.”

Meanwhile, particularly when it comes to pricing, there’s only so much the industry can do alone. As Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future, puts it: “The industry is showing real leadership with Greener Journeys. Now it’s time for the Government to act”. – Anna May Shamoon

Can finance save forests?

Martin Wright — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:08:24 +0000

If rainforests are so valuable, why can’t we make them pay? For years, that was a rhetorical question. Not any more. Martin Wright on our last, best hope of saving forests – and the climate.

It’s a gorgeous June day, 2040, deep in the Amazon rainforest. Peering through the clouds, you can see your pension plan – the vibrant greens of the canopy, reassuringly intact. Panning left, you can just make out the line of the last logging road, long swallowed up by the jungle. To the south, at the forest’s edge, the new growth springing up, high-yield plantations buffering the jewel…

As you watch, a bubble appears out of the trees: a few lines of text summarising the latest carbon / hydro cycle stats. It’s good to know that the Forest Monitors are out and about – two Kayapo elders in this case, uploading new data before retiring back to the longhouse in time for the football. Sometimes you envy their simple life – and their subsidised satellite sports.

Then you switch off the screen and head out into the London streets, secure in the knowledge that your investments are safe, that the rain will keep falling, the climate will carry on settling down…

It’s the same story across the Atlantic, in Cameroon, Congo, even Indonesia … Around much of the tropical belt, in the mid-21st century, rainforests are recovering, even expanding. Why? Because an awful lot of people are making money, serious money, from the simple fact that forests left standing are worth more, much more, than forests cut down.

Standing forests are soaking up carbon, stabilising the climate, smoothing out the water cycle. They’re providing a steady, sustainable harvest of medicines, even a little high value timber. All vital, and so all immensely valuable services. And thanks to some sophisticated financial products, these services are yielding an income to everyone from forest tribes to governments north and south to … you. It’s mammon and morality hand in hand, under one canopy.

Markets not philanthropy

It may seem a long way from today’s reality, but it’s entirely plausible. And there’s a ferment of activity under way now trying to bring it about. Ever since the 1980s, campaigners have been insisting that it’s economic madness to liquidate irreplaceable rainforest ‘capital’ in return for the relatively paltry revenue from logging or cattle ranching. The alternative – cash for conservation, or so-called ‘payments for ecological services’ – is not a new idea. It’s been tried before, on a relatively small-scale [see ‘How much do you want this forest (in millions)?’], with mixed results. But now there’s an urgency and an excitement around it, driven by everything from the looming climate negotiations, to financiers’ endless appetite for coming up with new ways to make money. And you can add to that the widespread acceptance that pretty much everything else we’ve tried – new laws, protected areas, ‘extractive reserves’, pious international declarations – has failed to even slow the pace of destruction.

The loss of tropical forests is by far the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions after energy, contributing up to ten times as much as aviation. Indeed, burning forests – the commonest form of destruction – produces a particularly nasty double whammy of warming. As they burn, they send vast swathes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And once they’re gone, they can’t soak up the carbon emitted from other sources, like industry, cars, power plants. The Stern Review, no less, warned that rainforest loss alone would, in the next four years, release more carbon into the atmosphere than every flight from the dawn of aviation until 2025.

Faced with this, many are increasingly convinced that only money will talk. Among them is Andrew Mitchell, founder of the Global Canopy Programme and now an adviser to the Prince’s Rainforest Project (PRP). “At the moment”, he says, “you can only make money out of forests when you convert them to something else – timber or beef, soy or palm oil... So in global markets, forests are worth more dead than alive. This is what we need to turn around. Philanthropy and governments won’t do it. You have to look to markets to overturn what is in fact a market failure… What we’ve got for free, we don’t pay for.”

Carbon as currency

Meanwhile, unless you pay people not to do something, they’ll carry on doing it, says Tasso Azavedo, Director General of Brazil’s Forest Service. “Say you want to close down an illegal logging site. You can do so in 15 minutes. You just send in the police or the army and lock everything down. But 50 people will lose their jobs.” And unless you create better-paid alternatives, they’ll soon be back cutting trees, there or elsewhere. “We have to put something else in place to keep the money flowing. We have to create a new economy.”

“We spend more on binge drinking than the amount needed to save the rainforests”

And the most obvious currency to fuel that new economy, given forests’ role as climate stabilisers, is carbon. Cutting forest destruction by half, says the Stern Review, would cost around $10 billion-$15 billion a year. “That’s about the same amount that we in Britain spend on wine, beer and champagne”, Mitchell exclaims. “We’re spending more on binge drinking than we the total amount we need to save rainforests!” Others put the bill a lot higher, but the benefits still hugely outweigh the costs. Johan Eliasch, who led a review on the subject for the UK Government, has put a number on it. Compared to taking no action at all, he says, “the mean global net benefit of halving forest emissions is estimated to be $3.7 trillion”.

It sounds like the mother of no-brainers. “In effect”, says Tony Juniper, former Director of Friends of the Earth, who now works with the PRP, “it comes down to paying countries for either reducing their rate of deforestation, or not starting it in the first place”. In practice, that means providing cash as compensation to loggers, ranchers, farmers and so on, in return for them laying off the forest; and paying others – from enforcement agencies to tribal communities – to ensure existing forest remains intact.

That principle is provided for, to an extent, in global climate agreements, and is expected to be firmed up at Copenhagen in December 2009. It’s covered under the arcane sounding REDD (‘reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation’) and REDD+ (which covers new planting and the management of existing forests). The devil is in the detail – and there is no shortage of that. To the uninitiated, it seems easier to plot a path through impenetrable jungle than pick your way through that little lot. But in very broad terms, it works like this.

Virtual tree huggers

Forests store carbon. If you’re a rich world government, you’re facing some challenging carbon reduction targets. One of the most cost-effective ways of meeting those could be to pay upfront money to keep forests in being, so soaking up ‘your’ carbon and preventing further emissions that would be caused by their destruction. And as and when the world finally has a functioning carbon market, investments made now could prove lucrative in the future. Hence the appeal of raising billions of dollars through ‘rainforest bonds’ and similar instruments.

“Satellite mapping can zero in on tiny sections of forest”

Technological advances play their part, too. Until recently, you couldn’t be sure just what was happening in a remote corner of a rainforest. But now satellite mapping can zero in on tiny sections of forest, almost down to the scale of individual trees; radar can ‘see’ through clouds. (You can log, but you can’t hide.) Sophisticated software can calculate the carbon storage capacity of any given area. It is, as one observer put it, like having a combination of global CCTV and a high-tech sniffer dog. On the ground, meanwhile, local people wielding ruggedised icon-based touchscreen gizmos – like a sort of chunky iPhone - can map and monitor the health of their surrounding forest literally tree-by-tree. Microchips inserted into selected trunks can report instantly if they’re felled – and then track the timber as it’s transported, electronically fingering everyone involved.

But before we all get carried away with optimistic talk of shiny new technology and billion dollar bonds, perhaps we need a reality check. Simon Counsell, Executive Director of the Rainforest Foundation, is ready with one: “It’s completely unclear how the forest carbon is going to be measured or monitored, it’s not clear who owns it, what role the government would have, how funding payments would be distributed… These are deeply political and, as yet, highly intractable problems. The evidence so far has been that if you throw something as potentially lucrative and uncontrollable as these vast markets for forest carbon into the very unstable governance mix in most of these countries, it’s going to make things worse”.

“Before lunch, the Minister wanted $1 billion to save his forest; after lunch, it had gone up to $2 billion”

Counsell has first hand experience of inflated expectations. “I witnessed this very closely with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Minister of Forests said (to paraphrase): ‘We are going to cut all our forests down unless you give us a billion dollars to protect the carbon in them’. Later on, after lunch with the World Bank, he said: ‘We are going to cut all our forests down unless you give us two billion dollars’. I believe it’s now gone up to three or four billion…”

Other reports speak of ‘carbon cowboys’ descending on unsuspecting tribal communities in Papua New Guinea, waving bogus carbon certificates and persuading landowners to sign away their rights. Even without corruption, a sudden surge of ‘forest carbon’ could in effect flood the market. Result? The price would collapse, making any mitigating action outside forests uneconomic, so putting the decarbonising of the industrial world’s economy back years, if not decades.

Billion dollar bonds

Maybe, but meanwhile, the world’s most effective carbon sinks are going up in smoke, and we’re throwing money at unproven alternatives which may not, to stretch a metaphor, even hold water. Like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Mention of which has Andrew Mitchell spitting with indignation. “Forests are an incredibly effective free machine [to absorb carbon]. And what are we doing to that machine? We are tearing it down and trying to build a new one – CCS – in 15 years with technology no-one has tried before and which will cost us at least $150 per tonne [of carbon stored]!”

Talk of carbon markets may in any case be a red herring, says Alice Chapple, who co-ordinates Forum for the Future’s work on forest investments. Under global climate agreements, governments will be committed to carbon reductions. “Say you’re a bond issuer in the London market, you can see these cash flows that are completely committed over a period of time, you know the Government is absolutely on the dotted line for doing this, so you say, ‘OK, well I’ll issue a billion dollar bond because I know that I’m going to get repaid on an annual basis by the government over a long period of time.”

And forests do more than store carbon. They have a host of other benefits, not least rainfall. Much of Latin America’s agriculture depends on rainfall generated by the Amazon forest. There’s billions of dollars in commodity earnings dependent on those trees staying put – and that means there’s potential for bond-style investment there, too.

It’s heady stuff – but meanwhile, there’s consensus we need to ensure that the essential basics of good governance and capacity building are in place, and that needs developed world funding. We need to act now, because any deal reached at Copenhagen won’t kick in till 2013, and will need time to have an effect. As Juniper says: “It may or may not involve markets, it may involve some kind of fund mechanism, it probably will be a hybrid of the two. It may or may not be linked into global carbon markets, fungible with industrial carbon markets in the North. All of that is controversial and complex and will take time to sort it out. But the money needs to be stumped up now through a very simple, straightforward arrangement, where countries are paid for the hectares of forest that they don’t cut down”.

“The one thing you have to keep in your head”, says Mitchell, “is that doing nothing is not an option. If we stand back and do nothing for another decade, we will lose half our rainforests, and we will lose the fight against climate change.”

Further reading Forum for the Future’s report, ‘Forest Investment Review’, contains in-depth analysis of the debate around rainforest financing, with detailed recommendations for the ways forward. Download a copy here. Green Futures will be publishing a series of articles on the latest breakthroughs in forest financing and conservation during 2010.
Martin Wright is Editor in Chief of Green Futures.

From catch to caff: companies great and small achieve MSC accreditation

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:33:19 +0000

Small is beautiful, but is big necessarily ugly? If you’re looking to dine out on sustainably caught seafood, the answer is probably no. The fish pie you eat in your staff canteen, using haddock bought in from a food-service giant, is as likely to be ethical and fully traceable as anything in an eco-chic restaurant.

That is the conclusion of Caroline Bennett, Managing Director of the Moshi Moshi sushi chain – one of seven small, independently-owned restaurants licensed to use the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) logo on their menus. All have achieved MSC Chain of Custody certification, meaning fish and shellfish marked with the blue logo can be traced back to the fishery – and often the boat – that caught it.

Given the workload and time pressures that small restaurant owners face, that’s no mean achievement. Bennett admits that “adding an extra layer of paperwork and wastage reporting” – on top of various procurement hurdles and safety standards – can be a stretch for people who are used to taking a more informal approach to business. “In larger organisations,” she adds, “they are probably doing a lot of routine paperwork anyway. [So for] big contract caterers, where they are so specific about margins, achieving MSC Chain of Custody might be less onerous”.

Neil Pitcairn, fish and seafood buyer at Compass Group – the world’s largest food-service provider – agrees. Last year, the Group became the first contract caterer in the UK to achieve MSC Chain of Custody – a milestone on account of Compass’s sheer size, influence and outreach. In fact, it was the company’s size that made the achievement relatively easy. “We already had an audited supply chain; we had strong, rigorous purchasing systems in place,” says Pitcairn. “It’s basic stock and order.”

What this means in practice is that any of Compass’s outlets – including 1,400 state schools and 1,500 private companies, as well as NHS trusts and universities – can order MSC products through a centralised buying system and know exactly which fishery it came from. “We have more than 30 lines of frozen MSC product listed, and half a dozen lines of fresh,” says Pitcairn.

In addition, a number of Compass Group units (among them Oxford Brookes University, Bristol Zoo and 42 schools in Westminster) hold MSC Chain of Custody certification in their own right. This allows them to use the logo on their menus and in marketing literature. “It’s the beginning of a journey,” Pitcairn stresses, “but we are looking to roll this out to other units.”

And just as Bennett stresses the hard work that smaller restaurants put into good practice, so Pitcairn stands up for the big guys. “Being a large organisation, there is this misconception that we are happy to supply just anything.” That said, changing the culture of such a large company has been hard work. “There’s a lot of education to do,” says Jane Wakeling, Compass’s regional sourcing manager. “We regularly promote what we are doing through our internal magazine. Being an MSC partner is about commitment at all levels, from the board right down to the front-line team – the waiters who serve the fish.”

The reward has been public recognition of a policy that had largely gone unnoticed. “Because we can use the MSC logo, people are becoming more aware of what we are doing on the sustainability front,” says Pitcairn. “We do a lot of work that people don’t see, and now they are starting to find out.”

Moreover, Caroline Bennett believes that the Compass Group’s commitment to the MSC is driving change in the small restaurant sector too: “People are saying, ‘Well, I’m getting MSC-certified fish in my canteen at work. Why can’t I get it in a restaurant?’ That has a huge effect”.

Andrew Purvis is principal investigative writer on food issues for the Observer Food Monthly, and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph.

London’s ‘low zones’ to make carbon cuts for Olympics

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:32:58 +0000

Ten London boroughs will be dipping into a £3 million coffer for low energy development, following successful applications to the city’s Development Agency. In a scheme launched by Mayor Boris Johnson, the ‘Low Carbon Zones’ will aim to create jobs and reduce carbon emissions by a catchy 20.12%, in time for the London Olympics in 2012.

The scheme is part of Johnson’s drive for a 60% cut in London’s carbon emissions by 2025. The areas will showcase varying methods of carbon reduction, including development of innovative local energy systems for housing and businesses, as well as basic improvements such as insulation or glazing.

Around £200,000 will be available from the London Development Agency to kick start each project. Local authorities will lead the projects, but applicants will be expected to team up with energy suppliers, businesses and community groups to ensure the financial future of the zones and to foster support.

The zones may be as small as a couple of streets, but no larger than 1,000 buildings, and could adopt very different styles of carbon reduction. Outer London areas might focus on developing renewable power solutions like solar, wind or other micro-renewable technologies for homes, alongside basic energy efficiency improvements. Others – particularly those in inner London – could look at innovative methods such as communal heating or combined heat and power (CHP) systems for homes and municipal buildings. Waste technologies which reduce carbon, such as gasification and anaerobic digestion (biogas), might also be an option.

“A fund to develop flagships is definitely a good thing, particularly as it focuses on existing buildings, not just new build,” says Martin Hunt, Head of Built Environment at Forum for the Future. However, the development of restricted zones is “only a drop in the ocean”, he warns: “The key to long term success in cutting emissions will be creative finance solutions for large scale carbon reduction projects”.

The initiative draws upon existing models, such as the charity-led Warm Zones initiative, which tackles fuel poverty in 13 areas throughout Britain, and similar low energy regeneration areas in South Wales and Shropshire.

What will tourism be like in the twenties?

Anna Simpson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:57:40 +0000

Is long and luxurious replacing the no-frills minibreak as the tourist trend of the future? Anna Simpson packs her bags.

Two drifters, off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
(Johnny Mercer, 1961)

There’s something gloriously slow about the sort of tourism evoked in Moon River. It’s impossible to sing the song at a lick, with its lyrics stretched out over long bars towards the distant dream of a stylish, ‘some day’ trip. You imagine the two 'drifters' on their newly touched-up dinghy, carried by the lilting current through mangroves, past villages, over days, months…

Tourism has a different pace today. Many more can afford it, many more times a year. And in our frenetic world, only the very rich – or poor – have time to drift. Instead, we ‘trip’, and we consume.

In 2008, an estimated 924 million of us flew off for a month, a week, a long weekend, a stag night… The recession pressed the pause button for a season, but already growth is resuming. So can we expect ever more packed-out departure lounges, crowded skies, heaving beaches and breathless hype over ‘new’ destinations? Not so much Moon River as a thousand sun cities?

Unlikely. Tourism as we know it could be about to experience its greatest shift since Benidorm was a sleepy fishing village. And it won’t be so much changes in tourist appetites that drive it, but external pressures. There’s oil, for one thing, with prices inexorably rising. Then there’s the stop-start progress towards a functioning carbon market; looming conflicts over energy, water, crop land – not to mention the pressure brought to bear by a changing climate. And tourism, of course, is in turn having a bearing on that climate. All that fuel, all those flights…

So, what will holidays look like in the 2020s? Will carbon quotas limit us to one flight a year? And at the expense of what will we keep on flying at all? Will some of the ‘hottest’ destinations – the Maldives for one – still be on the map…?

These questions are at the heart of 'Tourism 2023' – a new investigative partnership between Forum for the Future and some of the biggest names in the sector, such as BA, Thomas Cook and ABTA. Its task: to create a vision in which international travel works for the environment, the economy, and of course, the tourist.

The starting point is a set of scenarios that address the combined challenges of population growth, climate change and peak oil. [See ‘Postcards from the future’, right] And we’re not talking distant challenges: they’re already here.

Take overcrowding. Some destinations are adopting radical measures to cut back on mass, short-stay tourism, doubtful that the fleeting economic boost visitors bring makes up for the burden on resources and the long-term impact on local life. Bhutan famously led the way with its ‘low volume, high value’ policy: all welcome if they pay a minimum of $250 a day. Now vulnerable Venice is planning a ban on ‘one-day tourists’ who rip through the city without so much as a gondola ride or a plate of zucchini.

If quick-fix visits don’t ‘do it’ for our destinations, how about longer holidays? By 2023, the Easyjet weekend may well be a thing of the past. An increasingly plausible scenario is that of the long vacation – a couple of months at least, but only every couple of years. More people want extended trips like these to be part of life’s rhythm, and companies are beginning to find that supporting staff to do so improves motivation and makes them more likely to stick around. Missing out on a few mini breaks in order to justify that longer haul makes sense in carbon budget terms, too.

And the destinations love it. Hoteliers and resort managers find it easier to secure bookings for weeks at a stretch; less turnover is less work.

So, you have breakfast in bed, load the latest Booker shortlist or sci-fi trilogy onto your iRead, and board the ‘comfycarriage’ of the high speed train to Tirana. Your ticket lets you stop off at any point on the way for as long as you please, so you’re hoping to have a few days with old friends in Munich en route. Or, with all that time on your hands, you decide to go further afield. You pack your laptop and camera and drift over the Atlantic on a sleek, silent airship. You spend hours gazing at the 360° views, catch up with friends in the virtual chat booth, dine well, sleep well, and use up just 20% of your carbon budget for the year.

It all sounds good, if that’s the only budget you have to worry about. But could such tourism ever be affordable, as well as sustainable? By 2023, carbon pricing has caused fares to rocket, making flights the preserve of the rich. Super-efficient overland travel, by contrast, is effectively subsidised. Trains and ships come complete with solar panels powering the lights and the in-seat cinemas, while, with commercial production reaching new heights, the cost of algae-based biofuel has finally begun to fall.

So is this the death of the jet set? “Overland travel is still not seen to be as ‘cool’, luxurious or glamorous as flight,” says the Forum’s expert on transport, Rupert Fausset. But what if your high speed cross-continental train also carried a Michelin starred restaurant, luxury office space complete with virtual conference facilities, and a crèche? These premium-rate pleasures would subsidise standard fares, where you would slum it in a lounger, with a flatscreen TV, and a view of the hills.

It’s an alluring picture, but as the Forum’s Vicky Murray, a key player in Tourism 2023, admits, “we’re only just starting down the right path. However, the industry now has a shared vision of how the future could be – on everything from jobs to transport to conservation”.

And Murray’s own vision of the perfect holiday?

“It’d be really long for a start,” she laughs. “I’d take my time to get there – preferably by train or a really comfy bus – and take even more time to get to know the place, try the food, explore the sights. And I’d come back knowing that my trip had done more to enhance local life than to harm it.”

Like the drifters in the song, we might all cross the world in style someday…

Anna Simpson is Deputy Editor of Green Futures.

A recipe for sustainable retail

Sally Uren — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:47:15 +0000

Carbon is most definitely king. That’s the message coming loud and clear from European retailers. We interviewed the top names in the sector – including senior individuals from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Carrefour and Dutch giant Albert Heijn – to find out about their priorities and where they think sustainability is heading.

The good news is that the ‘S-word’ is high on the agenda of all 14 companies we spoke to as part of this research commissioned by Coca-Cola Enterprises. And the fact that carbon is at the top of the list is encouraging, because the radical decarbonisation of stores and supply chains certainly ought be a priority for all retailers.

That doesn’t mean they all agree on how to tackle the issue...

Take carbon labelling, for example. The ‘pro’ camp sees it as a way of promoting consumer awareness and exerting pressure on suppliers to drive down carbon intensity. There’s no doubt that companies such as Tesco and Pepsico – whose Walkers crisps were the first consumer brand in the world to display a carbon label – are doing great work in using the whole process to identify carbon hotspots in their supply chains. If they can now share their experiences through trade associations, they could play a key role in helping the sector deliver bold cuts in emissions.

The ‘anti’ camp argues that an on-pack figure can’t meaningfully convey something as complex as a carbon footprint. I have to agree that just slapping on a number is not the best way of communicating these issues to consumers. It would make more sense to print a message about a brand’s commitment to cutting carbon, and reinforce this with in-store information on how to do your bit.

But I fear this debate about numbers is distracting attention away from the more fundamental question of whether we should, in fact, be relying on consumer engagement to strip carbon out of retail operations. I think this ‘choice-route’ – pitting low-carbon products against high-carbon products – will take too long and expects too much from the consumer. Retailers must simply take these carbon villains off the shelves.

A few we spoke to said they were “actively promoting” product lines with sustainability credentials. Could this be ‘choice editing’ through the back door? Whatever they call this tactic, it’s definitely a good sign. As is many retailers’ recognition that water is becoming just as important an issue as carbon. Currently a ‘poor relation’, this will rapidly change as both water shortages and flooding cause disruption in supply chains. Now is the time for manufacturers like Coca-Cola Enterprises, which has been busy on water for years, to work with retailers to share their learning on ‘embedded water’ in products.

Ultimately, it’s only if the two collaborate on common issues that we’ll see the step-change we so need in the industry. Throw in a bit of futures thinking, to help them understand the risks they could soon face, and a mature approach to consumer engagement, and we could have a recipe for sustainable retail.

Sally Uren is Deputy Chief Executive of Forum for the Future.

To download a copy of ‘Sustainability trends in European retail’, please visit http://www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/sustainability-trends-in-european-retail

Wind, woodchip and farm waste to power universities

Hannah Bullock — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:36:13 +0000

Higher education switches on to renewable power

Motorists on the M6 might catch a couple of giant wind turbines out of the corner of their eye, if plans go ahead to construct two 2.3MW machines at Lancaster University’s Hazelrigg site early next year.

The wind power project is one of three initiatives this year to receive a slice of the Revolving Green Fund, which was set up by the Higher Education Funding Council of England. Run in partnership with Salix Finance, the scheme is awarding £10 million to the trio, and another £20 million to smaller projects at around 40 other higher education institutes – which will need to provide match funding.

Others benefitting this year are the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Harper Adams University College. In Norwich, where a conventional combined heat and power (CHP) plant has been running since 1998, UEA is introducing a woodchip-fuelled biomass gasification CHP plant – one of the first in the country – to provide a third of the university’s power. While Harper Adams – the agricultural college in Shropshire – is hoping to convert its own farm and catering waste into renewable energy in an on-site anaerobic digester.

Lancaster’s turbines, which are expected to provide about one-third of all electricity for the 7,000-bed campus, would be the first large-scale devices installed at a British university. Essex University introduced a smaller ‘urban’ turbine – the Quiet Revolution – at its Colchester Campus last year; the University of Reading has erected a mast to monitor the potential of one of its sites, and windy St Andrews in Scotland is in consultation with the community about a possible ‘wind cluster’ on university-owned land.

The cash-strapped higher education sector seems to be embracing the energy-saving agenda with open arms [see ‘How low can you go?’, and ‘The future by degrees’]. “As well as the obvious environmental and financial benefits, this initiative will help universities innovate – and show the citizens of the future just how they can live more sustainably,” comments Jane Wilkinson, Director of Forum for the Future’s Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development. – Hannah Bullock

‘Bacteria batteries’ for energy storage

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:10:09 +0000

Methane technology mimics chemical process found in marshes

A breakthrough in battery technology, which combines waste carbon dioxide with tiny microbes, could help provide an answer to intermittent wind power.

Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are pioneering a method whereby electrical energy is stored as methane, which can then be burned to release power when it’s needed.

The system’s active ‘ingredients’ are a combination of tiny microbes and CO2. Placed under an electrical current – for example from an off-grid renewable power source such as wind or solar – the microbes convert the CO2 into methane. Professor Bruce Logan, head of the research team, explains that they work in a similar way to the natural process found in marshes.

He suggests that the initial carbon dioxide needed for the chemical reaction could even come from industrial sources: “CO2 is soluble in water, so the gas stream could be bubbled or transferred” in pipes from factories, for example. The ‘battery’ is designed to work as a closed loop, capturing and reusing the CO2 that’s released when the methane is burned.

The energy conversion is about 80%, Logan claims, but admits that “a lot more research into scaling up these systems is needed” before commercial viability could be assessed.

Gaynor Hartnell, Director of Policy at the Renewable Energy Association, agrees that it’s early days, but adds that “if it were cost-effective and could be used on CO2 from power generation, then it would appear to be a dream come true”.

The most advanced trial of renewable energy storage is under way at a Minnesota wind farm. The batteries use sodium sulphur chemistry and operate at temperatures of more than 430ºC.

In May, General Electric announced the opening of a factory in New York to develop sodium-based batteries, which will help power the company’s hybrid rail locomotives, and could also be used as storage for intermittent types of renewable energy such as wind power. – Ed Gould

German Army mounts offensive on carbon emissions

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:51:37 +0000

Biomass to power barracks

The latest phase of the German military’s carbon-cutting campaign is a biomass-powered barracks featuring a state-of-the-art combined heat and power (CHP) plant.

Baumholder officers’ barracks in the southwest of the country – which house 300 personnel and can hold up to 2,500 soldiers in training – are to get their entire heat and electricity from wood grown in forests at the base. Just 10% of the standing trees will be enough to power the 250kW ‘Enercarb’ plant, and they will be replanted each year, so reabsorbing the carbon generated by the system.

Due to be up and running by the end of 2009, the technology will capture the heat given off by the burning wood chips, as well as the gas, which will then drive a generator and create electricity. Simple biomass boilers will also be installed at the barracks to supplement the generator at peak times in energy and heat demand. The plant is being developed by Alfagy, whose Managing Director, Peter Kindt, claims it will operate at 80% efficiency: “the highest of any plant of its kind”.

Green initiatives have already cut carbon emissions by over a third between 1990 and 2007, according to the German Ministry of Defence’s figures.

The war on climate change…
The German Army is also introducing:
• ‘Mission E’ – a project to reduce electricity consumption in military buildings, by turning off computers and introducing energy-saving light bulbs and appliances
• a plan for all new buildings to include low-energy features such as insulation, photovoltaic panels and modern heating controls.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) launched its own three-year Climate Change Strategy in 2008, aiming to hard-wire sustainable principles into all areas of defence. Top-line plans are:
• procuring more energy-efficient equipment, buildings and services
• reducing aviation emissions and developing alternative aircraft fuels
• reducing emissions from the MoD estate and cutting down on business travel through more efficient ICT.

The US Army, meanwhile, is developing a range of green technologies to cut fuel bills (which came to some $150 million a month
in Iraq alone last year) and reduce the
security risk of transporting the stuff through hostile territory.
These include:
• organic waste from landfill sites to be turned into aircraft fuel
• lighter, hybrid-electric armoured vehicles, which use a third less fuel than the current stock
• solar PV rucksacks that power surveillance cameras on rooftops
• wave-powered intelligence-gathering ‘PowerBuoys’.

– Rebecca Schischa

Weak signals from the future

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:19:30 +0000

A cornucopia of climate solutions, or a tangle of unproven techno-fixes? As part of a series of visions for the future, ‘Weak signals’ tunes in to the debate over geo-engineering.

On the pulse Digital devices to monitor your body and its surroundings could be the next must-have gadgets. Among them is the Body Check Ball that picks up data – about body fat, bone density and muscle ratios – via electric currents as it lies in your palm. Others include a blood-pressure cuff that plugs into your iPhone, and a wireless Bluetooth sensor you can clip onto your clothes to keep a check on local air quality and noise pollution. All that remains is to integrate this sensor into a GPS system for cyclists and you could soon be choosing your route for maximum fresh air.

Solar soakThe next generation of solar cells – dubbed ‘organic’ because of their carbon compound base – will be more affordable thanks to a low-cost manufacturing process that avoids metals such as lead and mercury. Made using solutions like inks and paints, they can be ‘washed’ onto flexible films and fabrics over large surfaces, turning anything from your television screen to your t-shirt into a PV cell. Until recently, this ‘flexibility’ had also been their flaw – with weakly linked molecules prone to drift apart – but a team from France’s national scientific research centre (CNRS) has found a way to restructure the cells, making them less vulnerable to daily wear and tear.

In the fast lane

The US is leading the way with a high voltage superhighway to bring electricity from energy rich backwaters to buzzing metropolises. The 765 kilovolt (kV) Green Power Express will bring up to 12,000MW of power from wind farms in North Dakota to load centres like Chicago. The project’s costs top $10 billion, but if it succeeds it could be a model for other long distance, high capacity connections – of the sort that would be needed, for example, to bring power to northern Europe from vast desert solar stations in the Sahara. Such developments could even challenge the cherished pursuit of ‘energy independence’.

Read Peter Madden’s views on the extent to which geo-engineering should shape our future here

Paint it white: what role should geo-engineering play in tackling climate change?

Peter Madden — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:19:23 +0000

Peter Madden asks how much we should manipulate our future.

Might we be living in ‘white cities’ in future decades? Will our quest to cool the planet see us constructing large-scale modern versions of the traditional Greek and Spanish villages, whose pale colour reflects back the sun’s rays?

It may sound far-fetched, but that’s the vision of Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, who recently suggested painting all of the world’s roofs white.

He’s not the only one looking to geo-engineering as a way to tackle climate change. Two years ago, Richard Branson launched a $25 million prize for technology to remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon a year from the atmosphere – which is still looking for a winner. And, as new data shows emissions reaching a dangerous tipping point, governments around the globe are paying much more attention to the potential of such ‘techno-fixes’.

If we see some of these proposed geo-engineering solutions taking off, our world could look very different. Our coastlines could be dominated by huge carbon dioxide capture towers, which pump CO2 down into saline aquifers or into greenhouses to encourage the growth of fruit and vegetables. Solar powered robot ships might traverse our oceans, spraying a fine mist of seawater into the air to create clouds, which reflect back sunlight, so shielding the oceans from the sun.

Behind these ‘sci-fi’ technologies lie two approaches to tackling climate change:

removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale (eg seeding the ocean with chemicals that absorb CO2 in reaction)
reducing global warming (eg by growing specially bred, light coloured crops).

The methods don’t all involve high-tech manipulation. Biochar, for example, is a simple way of making charcoal to sequester carbon in soil – and interest and investment are proceeding apace [see ‘Burn the trees to save the world?’].

But it’s no surprise that the appropriateness of geo-engineering is hotly contested. Advocates believe we should intervene forcefully to control our already destabilised climate, whatever it takes. Opponents argue that tinkering with natural systems could backfire – and worry that endorsing the concept might scupper international climate negotiations.

I’m sure we will see geo-engineering happen in some form. Technologies to sequester carbon will no doubt be deployed if the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere overshoots a critical point. These techniques could buy us critical time in the face of feedback cycles, where increased heat in the atmosphere further increases greenhouse gas emissions from natural sources, such as methane from melting permafrost.

We just need to make sure these enticing new technologies don’t divert attention and resources from existing, if less exciting, approaches that are already proven to work.

White carrots, anyone?

Peter Madden is Chief Executive of Forum for the Future.

Wanted: cool roofs for hot-and-bothered town

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:18:06 +0000

With urban green space at an absolute premium, Groundwork is taking it to the rooftops.

High above Hammersmith’s frenetic high street sits an oasis of calm. Right there on the top of the Lyric Theatre is a living, breathing roof garden [right], where locals can enjoy a much needed retreat from the concrete jungle.

It “offers a gentle idyll – such a contrast to everything else nearby”, explains Adam White, Principal Landscape Architect for Groundwork West London. Situated next to a social housing estate, the garden can be accessed by residents, weary shoppers and theatre goers via a street-level staircase.

But the Hammersmith garden is for wildlife, too, he adds. “We’ve deliberately used elements that are good for encouraging biodiversity – for example, a big proportion of flowering plants, as well as timber and evergreen trees.”

Creating inner city green space has been at the heart of Groundwork’s projects for the past 25 years. It’s clear that urban communities find such places invaluable, says the charity. People use parks, nature reserves and gardens to get fit, to get to know one another, or simply to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. As it gets harder to squeeze in any more of these places at street level, there’s no reason why people can’t enjoy the same benefits on rooftops.

Green roofs aren’t only useful in maximising land; they’re a great way of adapting to, and helping mitigate, climate change. For example, they cool cities, which can be a staggering 7ºC hotter than the countryside, by reversing the ‘urban heat island effect’. And in doing so, they reduce the need for artificial cooling systems, such as air conditioning, in hot weather, thereby helping cut carbon emissions. They also retain rainwater, so reduce run-off and the risk of flooding.

Cities desperately need more rooftop gardens, says Anna Cooper, Green Roof Development Officer at Groundwork Sheffield – for the sake of environmental justice. “Deprived urban areas are more likely to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as increased flood risks and temperatures,” she points out. “Communities in these areas will be most affected by its impact, yet less able to cope with its effects.”

She’s heartened by recent recommendations from the UK Green Building Council urging the construction industry to recognise the benefits of green roofs and to have the confidence to fully embrace them. But she’d like to see more public acknowledgement of their role as a climate change solution.

That’s one of the missions of the Green Roof Centre, which was set up in 2007 by Groundwork Sheffield, in collaboration with the university and several local authorities. “When people experience green roofs for the first time they instantly see the benefits they have to offer and how they fit into the UK’s green infrastructure agenda,” Cooper says. But the word still needs to spread.

The construction industry also needs better technical guidance. “As every green roof is unique, it must be installed to a high specification to reap maximum benefits,” Cooper explains. British builders currently have to rely on European standards, such as those designed for Germany, because there are none issued in the UK. This is problematic, because each country has different climatic conditions.

But now, the Green Roof Centre is working to create a Code of Best Practice that will raise the standard of green roof design and installation. It’s a £640,000 EU-funded project run in partnership with Groundwork Sheffield and the University of Sheffield.

The UK has a lot to learn from Germany, believes Cooper. There, it’s a legal requirement to include green roofs on new flat-roofed buildings – and, to help developers along, there’s a generous grant system that typically pays up to 50% of the installation cost. Fortunately for the Hammersmith garden, private sponsors and non-profit companies came forward, including Marks & Spencer and Hammersmith London.

Cooper hopes the Code will become the ultimate standard for these vital spaces and be a first step towards their wider recognition as a solution worth significant investment. “We want green roofs to become a national phenomenon.”

Garry Campbell works for Groundwork UK.

Groundwork is a Forum for the Future partner.

Pedalling the wares

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:36:12 +0000

Is the old-fashioned delivery bike back? Almost. Waitrose has launched a fleet of electric bicycles to carry online shopping to customers in the Poole, Droitwich and Lichfield area. The bikes, which can travel 30 miles on each charge, tow a chilled trailer with space for 20 bags – although staff can turn off the electric boost button and pedal them further. The supermarket, which scrapped delivery charges to encourage online shopping, wanted to avoid increasing lorry miles, and is extending the scheme to Bath and Brighton in July.