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January 30, 2008 - Future Leaders Survey 07/08

I was trying to think the other day what it felt like to be 18 – back in 1968. A spate of 40-year on retrospectives covering the Paris riots and other events at that time have stimulated all sorts of dubious attempts on my part to re-capture the mood and the moments of that time. It was certainly bracing, and, for me at least, my first serious brush with radical politics – though a couple of rather well-behaved protests was about as far as it got in my case.

There would appear to be no such ‘new dawn’ mirages shimmering in front of today’s 18-year olds. The idea that students might take to the streets in their thousands, let alone engage in running battles with riot police for days on end, must be a completely alien notion.

But it was still very reassuring to see some serious anger bubbling through in the responses of the 25,000 university applicants to the second Future Leaders Survey – coordinated jointly by Forum for the Future and UCAS, and sponsored by Friends Provident. Bombarded as they now are on all sides, by uncompromising rhetoric about the likelihood of climate-induced meltdown, the inadequacy of the political response must appear breath-taking as far as they’re concerned. Whilst the majority of them would appeared to have resisted a collapse into apocalyptic despair (84% think it likely or very likely that human civilisation will last another century), their residual optimism is based on the prospect of radical change commensurate with the scale of today’s converging crises. And of that there is little sign, and that’s the source of their anger against politicians.

Surprisingly, there is also growing awareness that the cornucopian bonanza enjoyed by their parents’ generation may in fact be coming to an end – with 86% supporting the idea that material consumption must be reduced, and more than 50% subscribing to the heretical premise that economic growth should no longer be the government’s top priority.

Mind you, that kind of high-level response needs to be tempered by some of the specific responses. Perhaps not surprisingly, only 16% expect to avoid taking a flight that they would have taken otherwise for environmental reasons (happily, that is at least up on a 10% response last year!), whilst 82% are mustard-keen to get out there and visit as many exotic places as possible “before they disappear”!

Mind you, such ambivalence seems perfectly reasonable – especially given the fact that my generation probably wouldn’t muster anywhere near a 16% response to the same question!

But will the anger grow? What needs to happen to convert these reasonable plugged-in, compassionate people into cobble-stone heaving insurgents? Forty years ago, in 1968, the end of the world (for human civilisation at least) wasn’t even on the agenda – the greed, injustice and war-mongering oppressiveness of capitalism was quite sufficient.

Add eco-meltdown to that list (the rest of which has hardly gone away after all!), and who knows when that will create some kind of tipping point in gathering anger amongst the young.

For more information visit www.futureleaderssurvey0708.org.uk

Posted on January 30, 2008 10:45 AM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

March 7, 2008 - Procurement in the public sector

I know that everybody finds procurement really tedious. Even serious SD enthusiasts can’t seem to stop their eyes glazing over just as soon as the “p” word makes an appearance in any conversation. But from the Sustainable Development Commission’s perspective, how we spend roughly £160 billion of tax payer’s money is absolutely fundamental – so stop reading now if your eyes are starting to glaze over!

I have just come hot-foot from Defra’s second Suppliers Conference, where I found myself entertainingly sandwiched between Helen Ghosh (Permanent Secretary of Defra) and Ian Andrews (Second Permanent Under Secretary at the MOD), in the company of a whole host of pretty serious private sector buyers to government. It so happens that these two departments are the two departments that are doing best on sustainable procurement, and both have a very good story to tell in terms of their own engagement with suppliers on sustainable procurement – which the SDC will be featuring in its imminent (and very eagerly anticipated!) Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) report.

That can’t be said about all government departments, let alone all of Local Authorities or health bodies of government agencies. Two years ago, the UK Government committed itself to being a “leader on sustainable procurement in the EU” by 2009 – and, quite honestly, it’s going to be one hell of a stretch to get anywhere close to that leadership goal.

Indeed, getting most departments to start getting serious about sustainable procurement – to start implementing the governments own perfectly adequate Sustainable Procurement Action Plan – has been a bit of a nightmare. Data gathering in management systems have often been defective; there has been no proper leadership provided by most Permanent Secretaries; hard-pressed Procurement Officers are just left to get on with it, struggling against the grain of crude “lowest cost mindsets”.

Things that are already mandated by central government are not implemented (the Office of Government Commerce’s Quick Wins, for example), and Treasury have been utterly supine in enforcing the use of critical tools such as “Whole-Life Costing” for all major capital expenditure projects.

But the good news – the really good news – is that this is about to change. Gus O’Donnell (Cabinet Secretary), Ian Andrews and Nigel Smith (new Chief Executive at OGC) have spent the good part of the last couple of months interrogating the causes of this chronic underperformance, acknowledging that it’s no longer acceptable, and putting in place a host of changes across government that we believe will transform this whole area. At last!

Posted on March 7, 2008 4:29 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 30, 2008 - Fuel Tax Protests

PetrolPump_200.jpgThis all feels very much like one of those periodic crunch moments for the sustainability agenda. Fuel-tax protests. Rebellious backbenchers. The kind of febrile atmosphere we last saw in 2000. The Tory press on the war path. NGOs winding themselves up: “Stay green, Gordon, don’t be yellow”.

In 2000, the price of fuel was heading sharply upwards – not as sharply as today, but very uncomfortably. A motley consortium of some of the worst affected citizens (road haulage firms, farmers etc) took to their trucks and their tractors and blockaded key oil facilities in protest against the fuel tax escalator – a Conservative innovation which Labour was quite happily rolling on with. Within a few weeks, the Treasury caved in and agreed to decommission the escalator.

On the face of it, a minor blip. But a strong case has been made since then that it was this one setback that put paid to Treasury’s enthusiasm for the sustainability agenda. Ministers blamed both NGOs for not having come to their aid and the media for having hyped the whole thing into a massive crisis. The image of ‘Mondeo Man’, feral and unforgiving, was on display, virtually, the length and breadth of the Treasury’s corridors of impotence.

Roll forward eight years. It’s all stacking up again, with campaigns both to defer the projected increase in fuel taxes for the second time, and to reverse decisions announced in the budget on increases and vehicle excise duty. Ministers are ‘listening’; U-turns are widely anticipated.

And would that be so awful? Focussing for now on fuel taxes, just stand back for a moment. The essence of using fiscal instruments to change corporate and consumer behaviour relies on three things: transparency (so that people know what’s coming down the track at them); fiscal neutrality (so as not to piss everyone off by using green taxes primarily to increase revenues); and fairness (so that the less well-off in society are not further disadvantaged).

On those three counts, given the dramatic increases in the price of petrol and diesel over the last couple of years, everyone has been taken by surprise by the price hikes, apart from ‘Peak Oil’ campaigners (who have been telling us this was about to happen for years).

Moreover, the less well-off are being disproportionately hammered, and the hikes in fuel taxes are far from fiscally neutral and never have been.

So, economically, socially, ethically, what are the implications of all that?

Your thoughts really welcome. As the Government’s official advisers on such matters, what do you think the SDC’s advice should be?

Posted by JP on May 30, 2008 9:38 AM | | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

March 11, 2010 - M&S set a sustainable benchmark for the retail world

I spoke at the annual M&S Suppliers’ Conference on Tuesday, which took place in Kensington Town Hall. This venue has a particular resonance for me as it was where the votes for the 1979 and 1984 European elections were counted – and every time I’m back there, I can’t help but recall that sense of consternation that so few people seemed to be prepared, at that time, to put their cross in the Green Party box!

Twenty-six years on and it seemed as if the M&S Suppliers were all voting enthusiastically for the updated version of Plan A! And that was not just because Sir Stuart Rose made a very powerful pitch telling them all that this was their reality whether they liked it or not. By the end of the day, they would certainly have had an unnerving sense of bars being raised all around them, in terms of production standards, transparency, reporting, innovation and so on.

Plan A was launched three years ago, and instantly captured people’s imagination. The combination of carbon neutral and zero waste to landfill pledges, the 100 Action Points, the commitment to invest £200 million, and the sense of all this being at the core of the company rather than being grafted on made an immediate impact. It also gave Plan A the kind of brand profile that took it way beyond the usual corporate responsibility strategies.

Three years on, the £200 million cost has been turned into a £50 million contribution to profit. Forty-five of the Action Points have been delivered, and another 80 have been added on. The ambition level has been ratcheted up several notches, with M&S now committing to becoming the world’s most sustainable (major) retailer by 2015.

Forum for the Future has worked closely with M&S throughout this time, so we are not exactly disinterested parties, but Plan A does provide the benchmark for the whole of the retail world. It’s visionary, it’s applied, it’s comprehensive (as in covering all the sustainability bases), and it’s succeeding in getting whole-company buy-in, through the high level “How We Do Business” Committee, chaired (and driven!) by Sir Stuart Rose.

So it’s well worthwhile checking out the new version of Plan A, available at: http://plana.marksandspencer.com/media/pdf/planA-2010.pdf

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on March 11, 2010 11:50 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 12, 2010 - The Landfill Prize

I was sent this the other day by John Naish, author of Enough: breaking free from the world of more, and thought I might just pass it on. It’s really very entertaining! But also an indication of just how idiotically wasteful our world still is.

My favourites are the ‘Dryear Ear Dryer’ and the ‘organic cotton toilet tissue’! And quite controversial to see the ‘Kindle’ in there!


Reproduced from www.enoughness.co.uk, here are the most pointless, wasteful and needlessly complex gadgets for 2010…

1. Digital fridge magnet
Is scribbling notes with a pen on a whiteboard too complex, too onerous… too 20th century? Here’s the Digital Video Memo, a fridge magnet on which you can record a 30-second video message. Look into the camera, press the record button and start talking. You’ve only added a digital screen, a rechargeable battery system, a computer and a camera to the planet’s landfill potential. According to users’ reports, the screen is tiny and the volume’s too low, so you have to stick your mouth right near the camera… so all people get to see is a quietly talking ear.
Nominated by Karen Varga, who says, ‘You can just picture the workers in overseas factories going "What the **** are these for and why do these mad westerners need them?’

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/digital-video-memo/index.html

2. The Bra Dyer
The makers say the “Bra Dryer is a simple device which is based on the presumption that the best way to dry bras without ruining their fabric, wiring and padding is to dry them on a shape which resembles female breasts. That's why Bra Dryer is shaped like a female torso”.
Rea Cris, who nominated it, remarks: “What women is seriously thinking: ‘YES! Fantastic, this is what I have been waiting for: metalic dismembered hot breasts, they'll match the wallpaper perfectly!’”
Nominated by Rea Cris, Edinburgh.

http://www.bradryer.com

3. The Dryear Ear Dryer
Wave goodbye to towels (almost). Here’s how you can spend a lot of cash, use electricity and create lots of energy waste – with a battery-operated hot-air ear dryer. 'Drying your ears has never been simpler or more effective'. Or, at £69, could it be more expensive? The device slots into the ear canal and blows hot air. Oh, and the instructions advise you to dry your ears with a towel first.
Nominated by Anna, London

www.dryear.net

4. The Uroclub
Here’s one for the incontinent golfer in your life: it’s the Uroclub – a hollow plastic club in which you can urinate mid-round, instead of an eco-friendly bush or tree to pee behind in the time-honoured way. And that’s not all: there’s also a tie-on ‘modesty blanket’ which you can hide your putter behind while micturating. Imagine picking out a full Uroclub instead of a driver at the 11th hole. How your dampened playmates would laugh.

http://www.uroclub.com/details.html
Nominated by Robert Chamberlain

5. 100% organic cotton toilet tissue‘We can wipe our arses cheaply with something that is recycled from a renewable resource,’ says Julian Baggini. ‘So why set aside valuable agricultural land to grow cotton for us to do so? This is surely pseudo-green nonsense and not from some greenwashing multinational but an apparently lovely fluffy planet-friendly company called Spirit of Nature.’
Nominated by Julian Baggini

http://www.spiritofnature.co.uk/acatalog/5180.html


6. Cuisinart Soup Maker‘When I saw it in a friend’s catalogue my jaw dropped,’ says Stephen Watson, who nominated this. ‘It’s clear that there's a growing trend to these products, namely the “this does one thing well” item. Instead of using a saucepan which can be used for soup, stews, custard, sauces and much more, you buy a £149 soup machine to make soup. Then you have to find a place to store it. Presumably in the same cupboard as the waffle maker, sandwich maker, ice cream maker, yoghourt maker and so on ad nauseam.’
Nominated by Stephen Watson

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/cuisinart!REG-soupmaker/F/keyword/soup/product/13356

7. Reel Putter
A golf putting club with an attached fishing reel, so you can reel in your putts. ‘I think They copied this idea from a Bugs Bunny cartoon,’ says Blacknose.
Nominated by Blacknose

http://www.reelputter.com/

8. Operatic pasta timer
So, you want to cook pasta, you have no sense of time – or even a kitchen timer – and you’ve never learnt how to tell if your pasta’s al dente (i.e. throw it at a wall and see if it sticks). You may be the one person on earth who needs the Al Dente Operatic Pasta Timer. It's a pasta timer in the shape of a little man, which has an inbuilt water-activated timer. When the water has been boiling long enough, the timer sings with an electronic computer voice. It sings opera. After seven minutes, it sings The Triumphal March from Aida; after nine minutes, The Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, from Nabucco, and after 11 minutes La Donna e Movile from Rigoletto. Here at Landfill Towers, we like fresh pasta that cooks in three minutes. Guess it would be soggy.
Nominated by Philip Evans, France

http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/silly/odd-gadget-al-dente-operatic-pasta-timer-089395

9. ‘The Stig' merchandise‘Putting aside the environmentally cavalier antics of Top Gear, it just ends up a million miles from anything to do with a racing driver, with bubble bath and duvet sets,’ says Jeremy Wilson, who nominated this: ‘It’s the worst kind of lazy tick-box merchandising, for equally lazy present buyers whose imagination doesn’t stretch beyond the ‘gift ideas for men’ shelf of the department store. If you received a Stig item for Christmas, you’ve probably already thrown it away. The least we could do is put it all in the bin in China and save ourselves the shipping emissions.’
Nominated by Jeremy Wilson

http://www.officialproducts.co.uk/section.php/32/1/official-topgear-the-stig-merchandise


10. The Kindle‘Not only is it a completely unnecessary piece of electronic rubbish, it seeks to replace a design classic: the far-from obsolete, cheap and entirely reusable (ask any library!) book,’ says Ben Duncan, who nominated it. ‘It creates a whole new market in copyrighted material as it does so, meaning literature is reduced from being a pastime and an art form to being a piece of tradable intellectual property.’
Nominated by Ben Duncan, Brighton

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=gocous20&hvadid=4139393477&ref=pd_sl_1a1t9bh4e6_e
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=gocous20&hvadid=4139393477&ref=pd_sl_1a1t9bh4e6_e

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on March 12, 2010 10:49 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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