Best Foot Forward

Take transport emissions: despite their caveat that the figures should be taken with a 'pinch of salt', it's easy to see a hole in the calculations as big as the Premier League wage bill (£1.3billion/year). The article reckons international spectator travel is c. 33% of emissions - equal to that of competitor travel. This doesn't pass a sense check. To explain here is a quick Fermi estimate:

There are expected to be c. 500, 000 spectators, with 150,000 from Africa. So lets say 400,000 international travellers.  A back of an envelope estimate of players & staff is as follows: 32 teams x 23 per squad. Lets double for support staff. Heck, let's quintuple it ... That makes 3,500 players & staff. So, the question is: how does the international transport emissions of 3,500 people equate to 400,000 spectators (as their pie chart suggests)? We know emissions per passenger km are higher for 1st class air travel ... but this wouldn't make up the difference! A private jet for each player perhaps?

One potential answer is that the analyst has not allocated 100% of those spectator travel emissions to the World Cup event (spectators will be travelling for other reasons too - a nice safari perhaps). This argument is less strong for 'destination events' such as a World Cup or Olympic Games as they would be considered the primary motivation for travel.

Interestingly, a guest on Radio 4's Today Programme this morning predicted a limited increase in total visitors to South Africa this year, hundreds of thousands below expectations. If this is the case then transport emissions will not have increased much against an average year. Whether this is because of the economic downturn or non-football fans shunning the country is unclear. It it was the latter then there is a strong argument for including only the increase in transport emissions above a baseline scenario.

As you can see there are many competing approaches to take in environmental accounting, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

We're not trying to be pedants and really welcome the advent of more numbers in discussions about sustainability. However, in order to retain the value of environmental accounting, all practitioners need to make sure the numbers stack up - or at least explain their assumptions.

This research measures the risk retained within the UK economy by the various party’s targets using the government’s own methodology for carbon pricing. The slower or lower the abatement levels, the higher the level of risk retained within the economy. But the question remains, what is a reasonable level of carbon risk, and how much should we be investing to abate carbon? For more information see our short report.

In addition to less controversial issues such as water supply and materials recycling, the report uses food production as a case study, tackling issues such as land scarcity and the need for nutrient recycling.

Since the mid 1980s, humanity has been demanding ecological services faster than the planet can regenerate them, a condition known as ecological overshoot. “Our demand for natural resources is, quite simply, outstripping supply.” Says BFF’s Technical Director Craig Simmons. “The evidence is all around us; the concentration of pollutants in our atmosphere is increasing, forests are shrinking, fish stocks are being depleted, potable water is becoming scarcer and top soil is being eroded.” As a big consumer of natural resources, the UK economy went into overshoot much earlier in the year; May 22nd. Less that six months into the year, more resources were consumed than the UK could sustainably provide throughout a whole year.

The film can be viewed for free online at www.home-2009.com.

The Prince contrasted interdependent natural systems that work bottom-up by developing strong roots to support the whole, compared to the current globalised economic model that imposes a top-down economic and cultural monoculture. The Prince proposes that this dominant model is contrary to the more complex ecological balances developed by nature, and therefore poses a significant threat.  

UK residents can watch/listen on BBC iPlayer here.

The Bill only passed by the narrowest of margins (219 to 212 votes) and was opposed by many leading environmental groups. Greenpeace called it “a victory for coal industry lobbyists, oil industry lobbyists, agriculture industry lobbyists, steel and cement industry lobbyists, among many others.” Friends of the Earth similarly highlighted the hijacking of the complex 1,300 page Bill by big business; “the House of Representatives remains so corrupted by special interests and special interest cronies… that it is thwarting the will of the American people”.

Maybe all is not lost. By publicising the Bill’s serious flaws environmentalists are clearly aiming to secure amendments to the Bill  in the Senate. To have backed the original text would have weakened their case and sent the wrong message to legislators.

As it stands the Bill has so many concessions that it cannot hope to deliver the promised carbon savings; a 17% reduction on a 2005 baseline by 2020 and 83% reductions by 2050. When the scheme is introduced in 2012 a carbon permit will cost an estimated $13 per tonne, the equivalent of adding somewhere between $15 to $40 on to an individual’s annual motoring costs – hardly dramatic.

Arguably, the more fundamental issue is whether a market-based system can effectively deliver change full stop. After all, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme has hardly been a success with carbon prices falling at just the time when they should be incentivising efficiency improvements. Since the damage of one tonne of carbon dioxide remains the same regardless of its market price, isn’t it more appropriate to tax carbon at source rather than leave pricing to the whim of the market?

Most leading environmentalists agree. It is the politicians who need convincing.

As the article rightly points out, the basic concepts behind carbon fooptprinting have been around for decades - but have just been called something different (i.e. "the result of the life cycle impact category indicator global warming potential"). However something about the carbon footprint - in combination with the rise of climate change as the number one environmental challenge - has brought this subset of life-cycle analysis to the masses.

BFF has applied the principles of LCA but not the popular models and software packages which often mask often unjustifiable assumptions. With the focus of some in the LCA community being on the ‘7th decimal place’ of accuracy, it tends to miss the point that if we are needing to cut carbon emissions of 80%, even the first decimal point is largely irrelevant.

The author correctly highlights many of the methodological issues that have dogged the development of carbon footprinting standards, such as PAS2050 (many of which have not been satisfactorily resolved) ... but he also admits that LCA practitioners might learn something from this new breed of life-cycle thinkers. In short, it could encourage a re-assessment of some of the fundamental assumptions which have become accepted and unchallenged.

As environmental accountants - but not 'traditional' LCA practitioners, BFF welcomes this dialogue between the two approaches and is certain that both groups can use their common aim - to capture life-cycle impacts - to strengthen both disciplines.

The article can be accessed via SpringerLink.