Carsons Post

I can say unreservedly that, as a single contained event, my senior year of high school was the most fundamental building block of the man that I am today. The second would be the first half of 2001. The two are connected: both were spent aboard the S/V Concordia in the Class Afloat programme. 

above: pledges relative to 1990 - from New Scientist

It seems that you have to be in Japanese or in Europe to make a commitment to a sustainable future. New Scientist reports that the pledges made to the Copenhagen Accord add up to 3.5C rather than the 2C the accord commits to. It seems we're still having commitment issues.

We've been recording our meter readings for a year now on The Carbon Account and have a whole 12 months of "visual" meter readings. Here is the current carbon profile of our household (two people and two cats).

Note that this footprint includes our old and new houses - the sharp drop in September - October represents our move from an old Victorian end of terrace without cavity walls and to our new semi-detached house which does have cavity walls. There are other differences:

• The old house had a gas hob. In our new house we have an electric induction hob
• We upgraded the boiler in the new house in November - it is rated at 92% efficient
• Both houses had loft insulation (the new house as of early November - when the cavity walls were also insulated)
• Even though the new house is much larger, most of the radiators have regulator valves so we aren't heating rooms we aren't using at 100%

An interesting note, I am quite proud that the old house had an Energy Performance Certificate rating of D (61). The new house a rating of E (45) when we bought it. However, having completed all the easy recommendations of the EPC the new house is likely a C (71) now - whereas the potential we left in the Croydon house was only up to a D - 63. However, I think the scores also show some methodological differences between the two reports, one of the more important criticisms of the UK's EPCs.

Also, the fact that a house - such as our old one in Croydon - can have an EPC that is reasonably good but also perform so awfully shows the limits of an asset rating (such as an EPC, BREEAM or LEED rating). These features of the sustainability landscape are best supported by operational ratings such as DECs or Upstream's Sustainability Benchmarking (a product that I work on).

The above footprint does not include transport. We are, for example, getting a new car next week and will undoubtedly increase that aspect of our household footprint. However, the elephant in the room is our trip to Newfoundland last year which was not on the above chart, but can be seen below:

Ouch!

Like the previous post with comments by McKinsey, KPMG also sees some positives coming out of the Copenhagen summit. Once again, we see the mix of carbon price, energy price and increased legislation provide a context for business to respond to the challenges of Climate Change.

This clip is very interesting and well worth watching. First the points on Copenhagen are important. It might not have been the package we wanted - the lack of legally binding targets is quite a disappointment. However, it is not a failure.

At about 3:30 the speaker, Jeremy Oppenheim, talks about challenges to business. The focus has been putting a price on Carbon but Oppenheim makes the point that there are two environmental concerns that business might find more pressing: that the price of energy is increasing and predicted to continue to rise and that the increased burdens of legislation means greater risk of non-compliance.