Posts Tagged ‘Environment’

‘Has anyone got a Nokia charger?’

‘Has anyone got a Sony Ericsson charger?’

There is nothing more annoying than trying to find a charger when your phone is on its last legs and nobody around has the one that you need, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was one charger that worked with all models of mobile devices so you could always have a way of topping up your battery life?

Well over the next year or so the majority of mobile manufacturers will be introducing the micro-USB connection as the standard means of charging your mobile phone. Nice one mobile phone companies, you have just solved one of life’s little problems.

The benefits of having an universal standard means that most people will be able to charge-up wherever they want through a micro-USB cable. It is also said to be beneficial for the environment as the GSMA estimates that the new standard will prevent 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers per year and will reduce carbon emissions annually by 13.6m tonnes.

The new standard charger was approved by the International Telecommunication Union, a branch of the United Nations after input from the industry body GSMA recommended that there should be an universal standard for charging mobile phones.

Although this new standard will not be mandatory to all manufacturers it is expected that the majority of mobile phone manufacturers will sign up to the standard as many companies are already using the micro-USB connection including, HTC and Blackberry.

Sony Ericsson has said that they will adopting the new standard on their new products, however other manufacturers such as Apple, may be reluctant to do so due to patents on their connections.

It is nice to see technology companies agreeing on a mutual way of working together for the benefit of consumers as well as a way of helping to reduce carbon emissions.

It will be interesting to see if the other manufacturers follow Sony Ericsson’s lead……. no pun intended!

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in man-made climate change and I think governments across the world need to make some hard decisions very, very quickly if we are to stave off a disaster with worldwide implications. And I can understand why some people think Governments are working too slowly to prevent climate change related chaos because, in my opinion, they are.

But, what are the Climate Camp and other organisations like Plane Stupid protesters trying to achieve? Sure, throwing green custard on Peter Mandelson was a little bit funny, managing to scale the House of Commons to unfurl their banner was a reasonably impressive publicity stunt and their earlier protests against the third runway at Heathrow and the Drax coal-fired power station had some merit.

But the fact is stunts like these are only going to start to really doing some damage to their campaigns. Blocking streets, stopping people from working aren’t going to make people sympathetic for their cause. In fact, it is probably going to start to really piss people off (pardon my French).

And unfortunately, we all remember the scenes of the G20 protests in April that saw police use excessive force, but let’s face it, not all of the protesters were totally innocent.

I also get the impression that even some of the more reasonable protests always seem to deteriorate into a festival atmosphere. That isn’t going to impress average working people who are the ones that need to be convinced increasing their taxes and cost of fuel bills will be worth it in the end.

Even Greenpeace, which has in the past been known to pull some pretty impressive stunts themselves (one of my favourites is below after the Pasha Bulker tanker ran aground on the beach of Newcastle Australia), haven’t really been publicly involved with the latest Climate Camp protests.

I’d be really interested in your thoughts as to whether the Climate Camp protesters are helping raise awareness surrounding climate change, or if they are just kids who are doing more damage than good.

Cross posted with Shot across the bow

Yesterday morning, the Environmental Audit Select Committee published their report Reducing CO2 and other emissions from shipping. While I grant, it hardly sounds like a page-turner, I was discussing it with a friend who works as a journo at Lloyd’s List, one of, if not the, leading maritime publications in the UK.

He said this report was a wake up call for the government and shipping industry, which have employed, until now, a highly successful strategy of hoping nobody would notice the problem of maritime industry emissions and ignoring what is, evidently, a significant environmental problem.

I admit, my knowledge of the shipping industry is burgeoning on the non-existent, but what interested me about this is, the shipping industry is going to face an identical problem other industries have faced in the past and many more will in the future. Clearly, the sticking your head in the sand tactic doesn’t work and more industries will be found out as the public and regulatory agencies become increasingly environmentally aware and active. Everything we consume has a carbon footprint and as a story in last week’s Independent pointed out, TVs and electronics are huge power vampires, but consumer demand is beginning to force the manufacturers to fix this issue. Sony has been one of the first TV makers to answer this call.

When the Phase III of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) begins in 2013, many industries will be in for a bit of a shock if they aren’t properly prepared, in particular the aviation industry, which, for the first time will be included in the EU ETS. Phase III is expected to be far more rigid and will include an annually decreasing carbon cap. More details will undoubtedly follow before the beginning of Phase III in 2013.

It is also desperately necessary for the Government to pull its head out of the sand and start investing more money in green technologies. The last budget was definitely greener than previous ones, but the fact is, much more money needs to be invested in green renewable technologies including wind, tidal, wave, solar as well as increasing the capabilities of the electricity grid. Indeed, the Government is criticised in some quarters for not doing enough.

Hopefully, industry and government will pay attention to what will befall the maritime industry as they are forced to update due to public and consumer demand and everyone will learn the head in the sand theory doesn’t hold up.

Everyone knows that we have to reduce our carbon emissions. You can’t read a newspaper or a blog post without coming across the words ‘climate change’ or ‘carbon emissions’, generally accompanied by a subtext of a flashing yellow warning light and an alarm. The UK’s target is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Things need to change, and if we are to hit the targets that we’ve been set, they need to change fast. But how is it going to happen?

Last week I attended Hot Property, a seminar on low carbon sustainable building. Organised by the Bath Ventures Innovation Centre’s Low Carbon South West network, Hot Property brought together academics, architects, engineers and businesses to talk about how to address the ambitious property sector target of 0% carbon buildings by 2016 (and 0% new build by 2019). In much the same vein as the recent eWEEK UK launch, there was much talk of the need for a fundamental paradigm shift – and the fact that it has to happen urgently. The country needs to change its attitudes and behaviour towards energy usage. No small feat when you consider exactly how huge a task this is across all sectors of society; individuals, businesses, public and private, and across all industry sectors; energy, manufacturing, property, IT, transport and so on.

A quick word about eWEEK UK. eWEEK UK is debuting at a time when one might question the sanity of launching of a new publication in an economic downturn. But as editor Peter Judge pointed out, there’s never been a better time. Online only, and employing a small team of permanent and freelance journalists, it can get news out as it happens, without worrying about the costs and turnaround time associated with a print publication. And the philosophy underpinning it has never been more timely: sustainable IT. Climate change and the economic downturn means that businesses, as well as individuals, need to embrace sustainability. This isn’t just green IT, but operating at a more sustainable level (both financially and environmentally) on a day-to-day basis. IT contributes towards carbon emissions, and if we are going to stand any chance of reaching the targets, then there has to be a paradigm shift in the way IT works.

Image royalty free courtesy of The Stock Exchange

I wasn’t sure how much relevance low carbon building might have for me, and perhaps that is telling within itself. We all live and work in buildings so it has relevance for everyone. Cities account for 2% of our landmass, but are responsible for 75% of greenhouse gases. New build can improve this, but retrofitting (improving the carbon emissions of existing buildings) is also just as, if not more, important. And that is down to the individual.

Here’s a few facts (if you know your green stuff, you’re probably aware of these):

• 30% of our topsoil is gone
• Acidification of the oceans, if it continues, could mean the bottom of the food chain disappearing – a truly scary thought
• If the US carries on consuming at the same levels, it would need 6 planet earths to support it. The UK would need 3 and Somalia one-quarter

The challenge is that lowering carbon emissions is complex, because it needs to be addressed at political, social, cultural, and infrastructure levels. There is a lack of ‘joined up’ thinking – no one is talking to everyone else. Fiscal and infrastructure policies are not connected with food and transport networks, for example, and this causes policy conflicts when it comes to trying to address carbon emissions. And of course everything is interconnected, at both a global and a local level. For example, if we were to use the Thames Barrier to stop rising sea levels flooding London, we risk drowning Holland. Every decision, big or small, affects someone somewhere.

The upshot is that capitalism needs to take responsibility. Whilst it is sometimes hard to talk ‘green’ without sounding evangelical, slightly mental or like a tree-loving hippy, the bald truth is that “the battle against climate change will be won or lost in towns and cities”. Whilst there are businesses, engineers and academics all conducting research into technologies and methods to lower building carbon emissions, the biggest question is how are these developments going to make their way into the market – and into the mainstream?

If people realise that by investing in home renovations to improve their house’s carbon emissions, they can cut their heating bills, would they be more inclined to put money towards this rather than buying a new kitchen? Or a new car? Is it the fact that the benefits are so intangible, that as individuals we will be forced to pay a price (rising energy prices anyone?) in order to rethink our energy use habits? And when is the government going to get involved and provide some kind of cohesive forum in which policy, planning, research and implementation can come together to start making things happen? It was refreshing to hear business people, designers and developers talking about how to save the planet, but when – and how – will they finally be heard? The problem is that no one seems sure how to make this happen on a national scale. Despite the fact that there are pockets of people talking, at the moment they are only talking about it to other people who are interested and who care.  There was no representation from the government or local authorities at the Hot Property seminar, which begs the question of how this forward thinking, and the technological developments that accompany it, will make the leap from discussion to implementation.

Kate Gordon, kgordon@ruderfinn.co.uk