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The journalist complaining about the PR industry is an old whinge. But with greenwash all around, the overpaid and underskilled are finding new ways to make our blood boil. I receive an email from a member of the Camargue PR team about the
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"Most importantly," the pitch tells me, "for the first time it allows businesses across the
Well, this is clearly nonsense. While I, personally, would not be so bold as to claim Scott Wilson and Cameron Taylor's Pines Calyx (which won a Building Sustainability award) as the first 'sustainably-built' conference centre, it was, at least, another one that was built before our current unnamed one. A glance through the coverage on the Building website would have sufficed in nailing this.
Even more importantly than their important point, it turns out it is not, actually, possible for businesses to host 'carbon neutral events' or 'zero carbon' events. I cleared this one up myself with my own investigative news powers by asking whether the conference centre can operate off grid and asking, further, "Are you saying that I could set up an exhibition in there and run it with monitors, lights and what not and still not use any power from the national grid or from oil, coal or gas? "
I was told (following, I imagine, the PR person asking this question of someone within E... oops I nearly named it .... the conference centre company who knew what s/he was talking about) "The Centre cannot operate in an off grid fashion because of the fluctuations in the energy demands of the building. However, the company is developing ways of monitoring the performance of the energy sources so that they can evaluate their individual contributions and minimise carbon emissions."
The 'fluctations in energy demand' would, I suppose, be the, er, exhibitors exhibiting. So I suppose if the exhibitors had a very small exhibition with candles, coffee in a Thermos and slide shows rather than power-hungry LCD screens, they might, feasibly, be 'zero carbon.' Maybe not. Frankly, I lost interest at this point because I was always told that you could not minimise something that was zero. And we all know what we think of 'green' buildings that don't have power usage measurement as part of the build or, at least, as part of a two year plan ...
But perhaps a press release that read: "Acme Conference Centre has some solar panels on," would not have got as much 'traction.' And the sad fact is that Camargue can rely upon journalists not to know the right questions to ask or, if they do, don't bother to ask them.
There was talk a few years ago of introducing a "Sustainaballs Award" for green marketing puff like this. Phil -how about including a category in this Sustainable Buildings Awards for "Best Building Greenwash Campaign"? Clearly this would be a worthy nominee!
Posted by: Sotto Voce | 10 June 2008 at 05:25 PM
That must have been one of the many ideas I throw out on the blog that don't always transpire.
Yes, such an awards, similar to the ant-Oscar awards for films called the Razzies http://www.razzies.com/ remains a strong idea. Not sure whether many of the winners would make it to Park Lane to receive their boxes of green-washing powder. Perhaps an online award? Any other nominations out there?
Posted by: Phil Clark | 11 June 2008 at 08:55 AM
I didn't know there was an ant-Oscars. What about the woodlice!?
Posted by: Michael Willoughby | 11 June 2008 at 09:16 AM
Yes well said - in my experience there are practically no genuine zero carbon venues in existence. One of the best is the Munich New Trade Fair Centre and even with 21,600 solar panels generating 2.3MW and its Natural Gas CHP plant - it only just covers the electricity usage on non-exhibition days. see http://www.messe-muenchen.de/link/en/16629261
Posted by: Nadim Chaudhry | 25 June 2008 at 06:58 PM