Best Foot Forward

The continued rise in popularity of product carbon footprinting has caught the attention of the 'traditional' Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) community. In the editorial of the latest edition of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment the editor of their new section on carbon footprinting makes some interesting points on the threats and opportunities this latest 'fashion' presents to the LCA community.

Defra has launched The Quality Assurance Scheme for Carbon Offsetting - an new initiative aimed at increasing consumers’ understanding of the role of offsetting in tackling climate change and helping them to make informed purchases of good-quality offsets.

From BFF's point-of-view, whilst offsetting should not be the primary contributor to a carbon reduction strategy, it can be part of the equation.

From April 2010 around 5,000 businesses will need to comply with the ‘little known and complex’ (according to the FT) piece of legislation – the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). It is a mandatory ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme which will apply to any business using more than 6,000 MWh of electricity. It means that businesses will have to carry out a ‘carbon footprint’ of their operations, buy enough ‘allowances’ to cover those emissions, then try to recoup a percentage of that cost by being placed high in the CRC emissions reductions league table. To encourage action, by year 5 of the scheme, the best performers will get back their allowance expenditure and a 50% bonus - while the worst will only get back half their money.

BFF has expanded the training courses we offer, to provide guidance to delegates on some of our other core knowledge areas. This week saw the successful delivery of ‘Understanding Product Carbon Footprinting’ – based around the recently released PAS2050 guidance – and ‘Building the Price of Carbon into Decision Making’.  Although the titles could be snappier, these new courses offer succinct training on specialised applications of carbon accounting.

The RIBA-award winning ZEDBook, co-authored by BFF Director Craig Simmons, leading green architect Bill Dunster and energy expert Bobby Gilbert, is to be translated into Chinese. Cited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) judges as "a serious body of work well researched and documented", the book takes a broad overview of sustainable development and design.

Billed as ‘the ultimate environment handbook for businesses of all sizes’, the new Green Guide for Business is packed full of advice for cutting carbon and costs right across your business or organisation. Written by Chris Goodall, with contributions from Best Foot Forward, it is authoritative yet accessible, and features numerous case studies to demonstrate how others have succeeded in making a difference.

There is no doubt about what the media are currently obsessed with: the collapse of the global economy. Quite rightly this is generating tremendous coverage and commentary. However, if we step back from the news of redundancies and repossessions, there are interesting theoretical questions to be answered on the potential for a new economic paradigm.

We’re finally blogging again! The reason for the long break: BFF had a very busy run up to Christmas, and there’s been no change of pace in the first few weeks of 2009. Since the last post we have won a large project with a County Council to assess GHG emissions across its entire operations - and have started the development of new calculators for two high profile clients (more details to follow). The release of our Event Footprinter application for conferences, events and concerts has also prompted a large number of enquiries. The footprinting tool will be showcased alongside other sector-specific applications on our new look Footprinter website, going live in the coming months. Happy New Year to all, and good luck with pursuing a low-carbon-and-economically-stable 2009!

When setting out to write The ZEDBook: solutions for a shrinking world (recent winner  of a RIBA Presidents Award for Research) in 2005, we could find no credible, detailed studies which set out a comprehensive sustainable energy policy for the UK (or indeed anywhere else).  We were somewhat surprised by this. Surely, without an understanding of how much renewable energy we potentially have, how can the Government set standards, targets and guidelines for industry, new buildings, vehicles, material supply chains, existing housing stock and so on?

BFF Technical Director, Craig Simmons, has been appointed to one of the Technical Working Groups looking at expanding the international Greenhouse Gas Protocol to include products and supply chains. The new standard is being progressed under the guidance of the World Resources Institute and World Business Council on Sustainable Development. Craig already acts as an adviser on PAS 2050 (recently launched in the UK by Defra, BSI and the Carbon Trust) which is being considered as a model for the WRI/WBCSD guidance.