zerochampion

Should we carbonize interest rates?

Inflation is much in the news. In fact, in the past two or three weeks it’s come to take centre stage in the discussions about where interest rates are headed and what we should do about it. The Bank of England is charged with keeping the inflation rate down below 2%. Currently it’s much higher, and seems to be headed higher still.

But the published, official inflation rate is a strange beast and it’s not at all clear exactly what it measures. It’s based on the idea that there is a shopping basket of goods that represents what Mr and Mrs Average Briton might spend their money on.

Political and artistic principles

We live in unusual times. It's somewhat disconcerting to find unanimity between Bristol group Massive Attack and former shadow home secretary David Davis. I witnessed the former communicate their anger at the erosion of civil liberties on our shores last night at a show they performed at the Royal Festival Hall. And this morning I watched Davis proclaim the same message passionately on the Andrew Marr show. He appears to have blindsided everyone at Westminster by a decision to resign this week and call a by-election in his constituency that he stresses is based on pure principle. Cue continued head scratching amongst colleagues and commentator alike as to quite why he's taken this course of action.

We salute Alan Simpson

To the launch of the Existing Homes Alliance yesterday at Portcullis House. The new coalition lobbying for urgent action to refurbish completed properties had hoped to attract housing minister Caroline Flint to the event, but she was a no show. Perhaps a relief for a packed audience of over 100 passionate professionals, academics and lobbyists, who have heard precious little proper policy with regard to this agenda. In stepped Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson to the breach. Quite a performance.

Thoughts on oil

Have oil prices gone up of late? It's a story that has created something of a frenzy amongst commentators and now with hauliers in France and the UK. Newsnight presed the panic button last night, linking oil prices with the collapse of the green agenda in a pretty-poorly constructed lead item to add fuel to the fire. A more intelligent and better argument may be that while we may have not reached peak oil the oil industry has reached a turning point, as author Daniel Yergin does in this morning's Financial Times.

Green business site

I've as yet not been keeping close enough tabs on the London mayoral election as yet, barring some of the knockabout stuff on the radio and TV. Picking up Friday's Standard I noticed a rather inconsequential but handy antidote to the political mud-slinging. Green Party candidate Sian Berry has launched a site called Green Means Business which is a directory of sustainable companies. Not world-changing but a significant shift to encourage more of a mainstream approach to environmental issues.

The BBC Online Edit that is talk of the climate sceptic's blogs

Climate change deniers are everywhere on the web, challenging the fact that man causes global warming, chuntering on about the climate of Mars, the medieval warm period and sun spots. One has learnt to ignore them because the world is warming up. Isn't it?

Not according to a BBC story from ten days ago, which illustrated that, in fact, there had been no warming for the last decade.

Sir Bob Kerslake spotted

He's the man dubbed by Building in February as "Britain's busiest man", but I think I spotted Sir Bob Kerslake, the incoming head of the Homes and Community Agency, on a rare night off. I'm pretty sure he was in the crowd watching reggae musical The Harder They Come at the Barbican on Friday night. The performance ended with the crowd on its feet for an encore of tunes and getting down to the beat but I was unable to spot Sir Bob jiving away.

Where's the Peace in Greenpeace?

So E.ON have postponed the introduction of Kingsnorth, coal-fired Power Station in Kent until the Government has sorted out its Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plans. A responsible decision has been made by the power generator. In fact, I think it's pretty exciting that such a promising technology and one so potentially lucrative to the UK (we have empty coal and gas fields a-plenty) and sensible (we have coal in this country for energy security) has been given such a thumbs up by a major player. It also demonstrates that public opinion (and legislation) has succeeded in forcing E.ON to do the right thing and cut CO2 emissions. Of course, it might want to do the right thing, too.

Gore news, or not

News from American environmental site, Grist, that Al Gore is planning to run for president as an Independent had us all of a flutter in the Building Sustainability office. "I can't believe he would split the vote like what happened to HIM, like eight years ago!" I fumed (I was in the US at the time; it brings back bad memories.) "Mention on your blog that he spoke at Think! last year," said Phil, as ever slaying narrow self-interest for the bigger picture. Of course it was an April Fool.

Fools Cap-and-Trade

I've been trawling through the Government's response to the consultation on Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme. This will mean that firms that pay more than about £500,000 for energy a year will have to purchase allowances to a set Government cap and have to buy allowances beyond that. The idea is that 'polluting' companies will have to buy credits off 'clean' companies.

Hips fiasco

It seems that in spite of warm words from the Government in recent months on the "successful and smooth" introduction of Home Information Packs news from the ground is somewhat different. Last week's article by my colleague Michael Willoughby in Building, and just as importantly the attendant reader reaction, gives the profession perspective, whilst an excellent piece in this month's Which magazine gives the consumer viewpoint. Both are pretty dreadful.

Where's Winston Churchill?

Very good meeting this morning with Robert Kyriakides from Genersys. He offered an interesting take on the war footing/climate change analogy which has been doing the rounds for a while. Kyriakides reckons the current political climate is similar to the 1930s, where only a tiny minority of MPs were truly convinced of an imminent threat to our security and safety coming around the corner.

George Monbiot has an off day

Certain things which we cannot do without have become uncool - carrier bags, cheap flights, fruit from far afield. We must use them but vocalise our distaste. Surely there is something we can all agree to get rid of? Something that we can consign to the past? Coal seems a likely candidate. Coal is bad because those naughty Chinese are building two new power stations a week. It's far more polluting than gas. It involves digging up the ground. We don't produce it in this country any more. Activists want us to wear blue for World Earth Day on April 20th and call Congress and say, 'no new coal power stations!'

George Monbiot certainly seems to think so.

Plastic policies

Consumers take one, carry it around for a bit, then drop it. Thin, disposable, flimsy, people pleasing, but ultimately rubbish, they never quite disappear. Why can't we have lasting, sustainable ones, well made, which achieve their purpose and deragade or last the course, helping people into the future?

Of course I'm talking about environmental policy.

Weekend Review, 8-9 March 2008

Turbines are back with a vengeance this week, especially in the Sunday Telegraph. Climate Tsar, Lord Turner suggests bulding more of them in the central reservations of motorways, brownfield sites or other places where there was already 'visual intrusion.'  He thinks the country needs to do more rather than less to cut carbon emissions. His committee is due to report back to the PM before the end of the year to suggest whether or not a 60% cut will be needed by 2050.

Weekend Review 23 - 24 February

The Independent bagged the scoop that all buildings will have to be zero carbon by 2020. Caroline Flint will apparently announce that the country will join France and the US to make plans for zero-carbon commercial buildings in just over a decade. Paul King of the UKGBC says the industry is ready to go and that several developers can go zero carbon pretty pronto. Dan Labad of Lend Lease said that waiting for the Government was a mistake.

We love Vince Cable

Both Michael and myself wrote parallel posts on Vince Cable, without telling each other. Weird. Here's mine first, then his:

Mine: You wonder whether there is now some momemtum building behind equalising VAT for building refurbishments, which has been lobbied for long and hard by a cross section of the construction industry for more years than I can care to remember.

Weekly Green Gauge

Green ... on a screen

Way in advance of the WWF's world's greenest city in Masdar, Abu Dhabi, the initiative for which was formally announced last month, Greenpeace has unveiled its town powered purely by renewable energy. A turbine on the football stadium feeds into a grid meeting power generated by woodchip biomass plant down the way and wave power. Unfortunately, this city is nothing but a SIMS-like animation up called Efficiencity (population 124,500). To be fair, nearly all the examples of CHP-powered hospitals and power generating sewage are based on examples in the real world.

In defence of Rowan Williams

I've been trying for a few weeks to get the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak at this year's Think08 event. He seemed to me one of the finest thinkers we have. Unfortunately getting him to the event is an even unlikelier prospect today after the almighty ruckus he's kicked off in the last 24 hours. Yet witnessing the shouting match that his speech on Sharia law inspired on Newsnight just now made me even surer of my belief in his standing.

The Green Gauge February 8th

A trawl through the web this week has revealed the Government's new plans for water usage, green gadgets and the new Housing Minister's first banana skin

Government will fluff zero-carbon homes, report warns

As found by Jo Will in the Society Guardian, a report in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, says that the Government should be making Code Level 6 mandatory for all new homes if it wants to deliver zero-carbon homes by 2016. With only housing associations required to reach Code Level 3 at present and no current obligations at all for commercial housebuilders, this is a problem. Another one is 'user error.' Where malfunctioning enregy systems, residents removing the technologies and installing 'low performance alternatives to suit their colour scheme' might be an issue.

Boris Johnson - green warrior?

Not sure what to make of the current race to become London mayor. Ken is being portrayed as rather less than scrupulous, whilst Boris is a buffoon. The latter is interviewed in this month's Regenerate magazine, which is dubbed the sustainability issue. He comes out green, although it doesn't quite feel like it's from the heart.

Weekend Review, 2-3rd February

There was no overriding green story in the weekend's papers, but great men, such as Prince Charles and Adair Turner featured. The former's sixitieth birthday wish is to be remembered for saving the rainforests, he has disclosed to Gordon Brown. He will be lobbying world leaders through his birthday year.

Bring back John Prescott

I never for the life of me considered I would write such a headline but I'm beginning to miss John Prescott. No, really. Having spent years during my time as a construction hack lambasting and ridiculing him (in cahoots with the rest of Fleet Street) I'm now having pangs of regret. Former construction minister Nick Raynsford was forced to write to Gordon Brown this week to voice his disquiet at just how all over the place things are at present in Whitehall. It makes you wonder whether Prescott actually did a good job as deputy PM.

Letter from Brussels

EUSEW and So

Back from a very wet Brussels, dodging in and out of extraordinarily named buildings (Berlaymont, Breydel, Charlemagne) and each one down a different rainswept traffic-ridden street from a central roundabout, it was clear that the EU's Sustainable Energy Week would take more cracking than just one day. The requirements to show passports, remove outwear and pass through scanners whenever entering a building slowed the whole thing down somewhat and made me pine (extraordinarily) for the NEC. Getting into the enormous Berlaymont, where the Commissioners commission for a press briefing, involved registration of passport numbers and took about half an hour.

Adair Turner interview on targets

The Government's new climate change watchdog Adair Turner turned up on Radio 4's today show this morning. Adair announced that the committee he chairs will be getting immediately stuck into a report on whether the 60% reduction for 2050 is enough. "We will report in December whether that
is adequate or whether a higher figure may be required," he said. Adair said that the "more stretching target" was the 26-32% reduction by 2020. "The difficulty is to do it with existing technologies," he said. Turner also defended the rolling five year targets that are part of the climate change bill as emissions will vary from year to year.

Hutton hits out

Strong stuff from Will Hutton in yesterday's Observer taking to task the structure of our banking system for the collapse in the markets over the past week. He's stinging in his criticism of the inherent greed at work that has taken economies to the brink of all-out recession. "We need the financiers to serve business and the economy rather than be its master," he writes. There is a one-sided bargain between banks and the rest of the economy, according to Hutton which sees the form profit to ridiculous degrees when times are good but then look to Government, the taxpayers and the rest of business to bail them out when things go pear-shaped.

In defence of the precautionary principle

A lot of anger and tired, tired arguments and fighting on Guardian comment is free site reporting on Yvo de Boer's speech at Davos. Give it up, one might say. All of us who are concerned with climate change have had to grapple with difficult science and decide what side we are on. I've been on both (it's a nasty thought) and often in the middle.

Morals and measurement

Interesting lead report on last night's Newsnight. It was raising the question "Is growth good?" in the week that the recession word reared its head. Up popped Andrew Simms from the New Economics Forum and Paul Ekins from the Green Fiscal Commission to question fundamental economic tenets. Simms made the distinction between growth and development, in the sense that the former gives no indication of happiness and worth whilst the latter allows for meeting the needs of populations. Economists are not measuring enough, argued Simms. I wonder how this argument transfers to construction. Can we cost for good development rather than bad?

Events and Ken

A quick scan of the homepage of mayor of London's website tells its own story. The left hand column flags up policy, namely the launch of his budget to green the capital. The rest of the page is dominated with his battle with the media, from Channel 4 who screened a critical Dispatches documentary on Monday night (that has a whole column) to the Evening Standard and the BBC. Oh, and there's two pictures of the man himself staring at you just in case you weren't quite sure who the mayor is.

The R word and sustainability

I don't know about you but it's been pretty gloomy year so far. And now the R word enters stage left. Yes recession appears on the cards. So where does this leave clients, both in the private and public sectors, and their decisions on future sustainable budgets? Will the talk be cheap or will the rhetoric really turn to reality?

The Weekly Green Gauge

Just say POE

If there's anything we can learn from the "Princess Diana is Still Dead" court case (I presume it's a court case although it could quite easily be a strange dream someone had after eating too many Cheezy Wotsits) it is surely that hopes and reality - both ours and Diana's - are often sharply at variance. "Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be," she once said with some understatement.

Post occupation evaluation, the defence

Trust an engineer to perform a close reading of a House of Commons committee hearing. Iain Fraser, environmental engineer, from Chapman Bathurst has responded to my recent report that only 9% of Government buildings meet eco-standards saying that the thinks it most unlikely that the BRE will consent to a BREEAM-lite since it is so well-established and "as they see it fit for purpose." It was the suggestion of the committee head, Edward Leigh MP who had noted that smaller projects were more likely to lack BREEAM rating.

Witty Wicks

To the House of Commons last night for a birthday bash in honour of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, which is a quarter of a century old. Very well attended, not least by a barrage of politician keen to display their environmental credentials. I spotted quiet a few Liberal Dem MPs and Lords, deputy mayor Nicky Gavron and a sprinkling of Tories and former ministers, including former energy minister Elliott Morley. Guest of honour was current incumbent Malcolm Wicks, who's been having a rare old of time of it of late.

Zac Goldsmith on nuclear

Powerfully argued article in today's Evening Standard (which very annoyingly I'm unable to find on their site) by Zac Goldsmith on the upcoming decision to go-ahead with a new generation of nuclear power station. The campaigner-cum Tory party candidate for Richmond Park picks apart the argument for pressing ahead with nuclear. "If nuclear power genuinely offered a solution, we would have to embrace it. But it doesn't, and nor does it address the looming energy crisis we face in this country," he writes.

Wicks and "momentum"

Plenty of coverage over the weekend on energy, from the upcoming government announcement on nuclear expansion this week to soaring gas/fuel/electricity prices. The Westminster Hour on Radio Four ran a report on the struggles facing the renewables sector currently last night, from getting planning permission for large scale wind farms in the first place to connecting such facilities into the grid.

Uninspired New Year message

One unofficial resolution I set yesterday was to stop being so negative about the Government's record on sustainability. So that lasted a day then. The announcement yesterday that they had handed out a measly £25m in grants for renewable energy grants under the the Low Carbon Buildings Programme was hardly something for them to crow about given the vast distance the UK needs to travel to really establish an viable renewable sector.

2008 - Is a backlash on the way?

I can't help feeling that we may face something of a backlash to the drive to go sustainable this year. A little pessimistic, perhaps? Am I being overcome with the general gloom over politics/the economy/international instability etc? Time will tell but the trend of 'Green fatigue', as the Observer described it on Sunday, has plenty of credibility.

Some seasonal cheer

After doling out a whole heap of grief to the Government this year I'm glad to report a positive step forward today. According to the Guardian, ministers will be required to attach a "carbon price" to all future decisions. Apparently a shadow price for carbon has been set for every year from now to 2050. It will be set at £25.50 a carbon tonne for 2007, rising every year to £59.60 a tonne by the middle of the century and will cover investment in transport,construction, housing, planning and energy.
 

Zero carbon schools masterclass

Having slated Ed Balls' plan for zero carbon schools by 2016 without really examining the detail too much, there is an opportunity for more sober reflection on the practicalities via a new webcast/productcast/whatever techno jargon you want to use on this issue. Speakers include Andrew Thorne from the Department of Children, Schools and Families and Ian Butterss from Faithful + Gould.

Balls to Balls

Martin, who has a natty new look, has flagged up Ed Balls' intention for every new school to be zero carbon by 2016. Er, joined up thinking anyone? This statement comes out on the same day that The UK Green Building Council say it's possible, I repeat, possible ,that zero carbon non-domestic buildings can be achieved by 2020. That's four years later. It appears that Balls and his pals over at education may not be talking to the team over at the Department of Communities. Or else he's after a cheap headline.

And the next Code is

So we end 2007 with yet another report and yet another major piece of future legislation for the industry to grapple with. This one's for non-domestic buildings and the report has been worked on for government by the UK Green Building Council. Although the code is some way off the UKGBC is talking 2020 as the date when zero carbon buildings can be achieved. It would be easy to dismiss as another document with heady ambitions leading to botched delivery but I see the report somewhat differently.

A sceptic speaks

It's always interesting to hear from a sceptic on the consensus that has built around climate change and what needs to be done to tackle it. One such voice is broadcaster David Cox, who was interviewed in the Westminster Hour last night on Radio 4. His line is that our current drive to cut emissions is doomed - he voiced a similar opinion in the Guardian back in 2006.

Bali thoughts

Hard to know what to think and feel after the Bali agreement that was struck early this weekend. I viewed the surreal soap opera on the TV wondering whether this was really the best way for us to strike such a critical deal, or as it has now been unfortunately and ironically dubbed "a roadmap". And I couldn't help but agreeing with a leader in yesterday's Telegraph (in spite of its hint of denial, confirmed by some typically loopy commenters) that such a process is far from effective or instructive, that such a deal should be negotiated in different circumstances and with the critical role of scientists as well as politicians.

Sustainability and PFI

This is a bit of a hornet's nest, and one that has received scant attention. Is the PFI process inherently unsustainable as it is such a long, inflexible and complicated process? Or as LibDem member of the London Assembly Mike Tuffey says in an excellent report in today's Building Design: "These 30-year PFI deals are like supertankers.. We are calling on the Treasury to issue a changed protocol.. it needs to come forward with a way to bring flexibiliy in." The London Assembly issued a report, called Emission Creep, yesterday on the public sector and sustainability and it claims that PFi is preventing on-site renewable energy being installed on new hospital sites, such as the new Barts & Royal London scheme.

Wrong priorities

Last week I highlighted David Strong's piece in Building Services Journal on renaming the building services engineer, which provoked lively debate. The same edition also has a thought-provoking letter from chartered environmentalist Bruce Latimer. It's probably an argument that's been highlighted many times before but Bruce puts it clearly and succinctly: that in calling for lifestyle changes amongst individuals/businesses we will create "savings in theory only".

Per capita measurement

Good coverage on some of the issues currently floating around in Bali at the minute on Newsnight last night. The report looked at valuing carbon footprints per capita and how it radically changes the respective responsibility of different nations. It introduced a family from Dubai and their energy and water use to underline the immense problem there is in the Middle East. It concluded that there needed to be "fairness in climate change with regard to the way of measuring and comparing emissions". Environment secretary Hilary Benn mirrored this, adding: "The fundamental question is how we are going to each take responsibility to reduce emissions in a fair and equitable basis." Sounds like a key issue for business as well as countries.

Thom Yorke on green taxes

As a fan I'm always interested in what Thom Yorke has to say on most issues. Here's his views on the current political climate in an interview in the Observer's Music Magazine yesterday. He thought the Conservative Party's green report was going to be exciting "but then it got quietly shifted to the side". "That was a downer," he says, before adding: "But maybe, you know, Gordon Brown's now on the case and maybe things are looking up. Unless you have laws in place nothing's going to happen.. It's a bizarre form of rationing that we're all going to have to accept, just like people did in the Second World War."

Fear and greed

I'm in the middle of Master & Commander, the first book of the Patrick O'Brian series of historic seafaring novels, and a passage stood out for me. It comes during a dinner-time conversation from a banker name Mr Ellis, discussing the need for man to be disciplined. "... for the two great motives in the world were greed and fear, gentlemen. Let them look at the French revolution, the disgraceful rebellion in Ireland... all greed, and to be put down by fear". The two words Ellis homes in on are ones we are are often quoting in our office, but clearly in a pretty different context.

Sponge debate

Rather arse about tit day yesterday. To a business exhibition, The Thames Gateway Forum, to see a politician (Gordon Brown, with no sign of Yates from the Yard in tow) in the afternoon and then to the House of Lords in the evening to take part in a debate with a bunch of business professionals on off-site renewables. The debate was held by the Sponge group in the splendidly ornate Moses Room and was to discuss the motion "This house believes offsite renewables have an essential role in delivering the Government's zero carbon building targets". Motion was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly passed.

What a week, so many questions

Phew. It's been quite a five days. Lots of questions: Will housebuilders stick to their Code targets if the market crashes? Can New Labour refocus on delivery? Will there be a pronounced downturn? If so where does that leave environmental concerns - dismissed as non-essential and non-critical or moved even further up the business agenda? Will binding emission reductions ever be agreed by the international community? Is carbon rationing ever going to be a reality? Can micro-renewables ever make the grade?