How ungreen is Tony Blair? 10 January 07

is what this article ( http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=66413 ) says is needed to mitigate GW— based on Monbiot’s book HEAT. It’s a slam against people who say it will be painless.

I have several points:

(1) since we are (as households and businesses, esp here in the U.S.) very inefficient, way inside the “production possibilities frontier,” there is a good ten years of taking actions as fast as we can that could (a) save money, (b) reduce GHGs, (c) without lower living standards or productivity. By the time we trim all the unnecessary fat, making it even more economically acceptable to go onto alt energy (bec even if it costs more per KWH, our KWHs have been cut by 1/3 to 1/2, so no econ hardship), by that time perhaps new technology will come on line that will extend our “party” while reducing GHGs even further, so that the time for austerity might be postponed longer…though eventually we may have to actually sacrifice our material gluttony, and perhaps even some comforts.

(2) the austerity and loss of freedom will end up even much greater de facto if we do not reduce our GHGs significantly right now. (Denialist-alarmists, afraid of austerity and loss of freedom, are you listening?)

RE Blair, I think it’s good you’re pointing out his near American size footprint. Elected officials should be held up to higher standards, and hopefully they will lead the way, as JFK did with his 50 mile hike. (Bush, are your listening?)

Well, my thought fe this post is if Blair refuses to stop flying to the tropics, then the tropics may come to him.

(And as for Bush & co, they will finally get to go to that much hotter place than a globally heated world, since they seem to like hot, very hot, can’t get hot enough for them.)

The continued ratcheting up of expectations is a real problem. I had yet another piece of news re friends flying today. A bunch of them are off to Morocco to celebrate a 50th birthday. Treat yourself and punish the planet. Huh!

I often reflect on the year of my birth – 1950. How many people flew then? And how many were on the planet? 2.5bn!

And then, not that long ago, reflect on life either side of 1900. My great-great grandmother lived from 1831 to 1924. In her 93 years she never once left the island of South Lewis. Check it on your maps. (Outer Hebrides.) It is not a big place! She had, by all accounts, a wonderful, fulfilling life.

We’ve been on the wrong trajectory for decades now. 2006 was a significant year but I fear we’re heading for a very difficult and frustrating period where we squabble about the way forward. Residual denial, some despair, continued resistance from vested interests, rash claims about supposed silver bullets, pathetic politicians and the continued pursuit of excess by those still bedazzled by bling, bollocks and bulls**t!

Hey-ho.

Douglas Coker

That should be South Uist … !

Douglas Coker

Clearly Blair can’t get Too Much Heaven and probably sits there drinking Spirits (Having Flown), thinking, I’ve got nothing to be Guilty of... it’s a right I defend!

I have mixed feelings about Tony Blair, but I could certainly be persuaded that he is one of the most influencial people in the world in dealing with Climate Change. If he is, I am not going to be too hard on him about his personal carbon footprint. No-one is perfect!

I wrote something recently about this topic that just got published in “Research”, the magazine for UK market researchers (altho’ they cut down my article a bit) ... see below ..

Tactical and Strategic Approaches for Addressing Climate Change

With reference to your “Growth in Green” article in January’s Research, I was glad to see that Virtual Surveys had developed its own environmental action plan. This plan includes turning off lights and computers when not in use, using recycled materials, ensuring new office appliances are energy efficient and so on. Good for them; it’s something we should all be doing. The article also describes the three-part list of activities that the Carbon Trust has developed for research agencies – reduce direct and indirect emissions, and use high quality offsets.

Yet, are these measures really going to tackle climate change? They appear to be quite tactical activities which, on their own, can only hope to make some contribution to slowing down global warming rather than solving the problem.

The Carbon Trust sets out the problem very well in their publication – “The Climate Change Challenge; scientific evidence and implications”¹. It makes very gloomy reading! It really does seem as though the planet is in great danger. Could research agencies, perhaps through the Market Research Society, work with The Carbon Trust to develop a strategic review of what the research industry could do to best tackle climate change?

A suggested topic list for this strategic review would cover:

a) a vision of a low-carbon future

b) an assessment of where the market research industry is currently contributing to climate change

c) challenging research agencies to develop services which are low-carbon (and clients to demand them)

Taking these topics one-by-one, I believe we need to have a “vision of a low carbon future” to guide us in the decisions we make – such as that has been offered by Greenpeace² and Shell³ in the past. My impression is that it will involve a significant shift to an electrically-based infrastructure, with hydrogen fuel cells likely to be an important part of this scenario – though the detail of which technologies will be most viable remains quite unclear. What is encouraging is that so many companies are now developing products in this area, many of which have listed on AIM in the last year or so, including some past Carbon Trust Innovation Award winners. These include companies working in the field of wind turbines (e.g. Clipper Windpower, Vestas Wind Systems), wave power (e.g. Ocean Power Technologies, Ocean Power Delivery), solar power (e.g. SolarCentury, Solar Integrated Technologies) renewable energy (e.g. Novera Energy, Triodos Renewables), green electricity provision (e.g. Good Energy, Ecotricity), carbon trading (e.g. Climate Exchange, Trading Emissions) and fuel cells (e.g. CMR Fuel Cell, Ceres Power Holdings and Ceramic Fuel Cells). The DTI has published a useful atlas showing the scope of the marine renewable energy resources⁴ available to the UK that could be tapped. Yet, much of this new low-carbon infrastructure is not yet in place. As a Carbon Trust report shows, electricity generation currently contributes massively to carbon emissions⁵. What should we do during the transition phase?

We should also take stock of what emissions are caused by the current way that market research is being conducted. There are a number of sources here to assist us with the big picture which should probably be supplemented with further “carbon audit” data. For example, Medefield has been running an annual tracking survey of quantitative methods used in pharmaceutical research, which has showed a large shift from face-to-face research to online research in the last couple of years⁶. Within consumer research, Internet research has also become more dominant for quantitative research, according to the Research Industry Trends Report 2006⁷, though there is less evidence that it is at the expense of face-to-face. This report also shows that, for qualitative research, the use of focus groups still dominates but hybrid methodologies, and to a lesser extent, online methodologies are starting to emerge.

This leads us to consider what research agencies should do about it. For example, I could imagine that, based on the evidence, the Carbon Trust could advise Virtual Surveys to come up with this list of strategic actions:

a) develop your Research 2.0 qualitative methodologies such that they are seen as credible low-carbon alternatives to some other qualitative methodologies

b) consider opening a service bureau to offer these techniques to other agencies to enable quicker take-up of these approaches

c) undertake projects which help us understand what will really motivate people to adopt low-carbon lifestyles

This is not to say that focus groups and other methodologies are necessarily high-carbon – but each methodology should be measured for carbon emissions. A way forward is for agencies to calculate the carbon emissions involved in the methodologies they propose for projects. Perhaps these proposals could also provide a strategic statement as to how they are tackling their own carbon emissions. A major driver for making these carbon statements relevant to the cost of a project is the Emissions Trading Scheme, as well as the approach to carbon pricing advocated by the Stern Review⁸.

Different industries will have different challenges to adapt to the needs of a low carbon world – but few are not engaged with the challenge. For example, I could imagine a pharmaceutical company like GSK, which has been working with the emissions trading scheme since it was launched in 2005⁹, to move progressively to a low-carbon economy. As Peter Comley mentioned in the article, he felt awkward talking about the environment to British Airways, since air travel is likely to be at odds to the low-carbon economy for some decades (in time, some experts imagine planes being powered by hydrogen fuel cells¹⁰). Yet, British Airways are fully engaged with this issue¹¹ and are currently trusting to efficiency gains, emissions trading and using offsets. Although it is against the current British Airways vision, one could imagine that, like utility companies, a strategy they could adopt in future is to argue for an increasing share of a declining category (“If you must fly, fly with us!”).

I hope that this is an issue which the market research industry can embrace. It is encouraging to see that this year’s MRS Conference¹² has a sustainability theme, with Jonathan Porritt as a keynote speaker. Also, the theme of this year’s BHBIA conference is Climate Change¹³, with Bill Giles as the keynote speaker. I hope this is an opportunity to discuss how we can develop a strategy for the market research industry to tackle climate change.

The views expressed in this letter are personal.

Peter Winters,

Managing Director of Validation division,

Brand Health International

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[1] The Climate Change Challenge, Nov 2005, http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/publications/publicationdetail?productid=CTC502

[2] Lazarus, M. et al , Towards a Fossil-Free Energy Future : the Next Energy Transition Technical Analysis for Greenpeace International by Stockholm Environment Institute, Boston, Ma, USA

[3] Shell International Limited (1996), The Evolution of the World’s Energy Systems

[4] Atlas of UK marine renewable energy resources, dti, December 2004, http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sources/renewables/renewables-explained/wind-energy/page27403.html

[5] The carbon emissions generated in all that we consume, Carbon Trust, January 2006, p.11 http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/publications/publicationdetail?productid=CTC603

[6] The Medefield 2006 Pharmaceutical Market Research Trends Survey, p.1, http://www.medefield.com/AllNews.do

[7] Research Industry Trends Report, 2006, p.13, http://www.greenbook.org/RITreport.pdf

[8] Stern Review on the economics of climate chance, HM Treasury (2006) http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm

[9] GSK Corporate Responsibility Report, 2005, http://www.gsk.com/responsibility/cr_report_2005/environment/ec-energy-cons.htm

[10] See page 409, Renewable Energy, Godfrey Boyle (2004)

[11] Air Transport and Climate Change, British Airways, http://www.britishairways.com/travel/crglobalwarm/public/en_gb

[12] MRS Conference, The first 50 years, http://www.research-live.com/index.aspx?pageid=113&id=5

[13] BHBIA Conference, Climate Change, http://www.bhbia.org.uk/BHBIA%20Conference%20programme%202007.pdf