The UK's Committee of Public Accounts has criticised the Carbon Trust's ability to cut emissions as 'pretty small beer'. The committee has listed a number of reasons why the Trust can't be more effective (reluctance of senior executives, EU rules), but, in my opinion, they miss the big one.

The Carbon Trust, along with Envirowise and other similar business support organisations, works on the model of an 'expert' walking into a business, spotting a number of potential improvements, writing them up with some signposting to other help and sending the business the results. This is bound to fail for the following reasons:

1. The 'expert' spends most of the visit trying to understand the operations and has limited time to get under the skin of the business. As a result, savings opportunities tend to be drawn from a generic list.

2. The 'expert' is given no opportunity for trial and error, pilot projects or doing anything particularly innovative.

3. The business has little or no ownership of the solutions and is unlikely to implement them.

This doesn't just go for Government backed schemes, but much traditional consultancy. So what can be done differently?

OK, how about:

1. The 'expert' carries out a baseline assessment of the business's operations.

2. The 'expert' and the client put together an team drawn from the client's staff.

3. The 'expert' briefs the team on the baseline and trains them on what a low carbon business would look like (check out this month's Low Carbon Agenda for a generic model).

4. The team meets over an extended period of time to develop solutions, piloting them and monitoring their implementation.

5. The 'expert' gradually hands over the process to the team so it becomes self sustaining.

Trust me, that would beat the old model hands down. If you want to try it, give me a shout on 0191 265 9850.

Labels: carbon trust, change management, envirowise, low carbon agenda

Out With The Old...

Unfortunately, due to the budget settlement, Envirowise has withdrawn their free 'FastTrack' and 'DesignTrack' visits, so we will no longer be able to offer these services to our customer base.

The eagle-eyed may also have noticed that references to the North Tyneside Resource Efficiency Club have been removed from this website. We had been waiting for a year to launch the Club, but circumstances outside our control have led to funding cancellation.

In With The New!

However, we are pleased to announce our own new services:

1. The Low Carbon Business Programme

2. Lean, Mean & Green

These are similar, but with the first focusing more on the carbon agenda, while the second is more general, covering energy, waste, raw materials and toxics. They will engage your staff to develop solutions embedded into your processes and will build capacity for you to make improvements into the future. This is a world away from the usual 'write a fat report, submit the invoice and walk away' approach to consultancy. Prices are on a sliding scale depending on the number of employees in the organisation. please Contact us for more details.

Labels: envirowise, lean mean and green, low carbon business programme

I heard yesterday from good sources that the Government is going to slash the funds distributed through the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme by 50%.

BREW is hypothecated cash from the landfill tax escalator. For the last three years has been used to fund organisations that help reduce industrial waste going to landfill such as Envirowise (waste minimisation), WRAP - the Waste and Resources Action Programme (recycling and markets for recycled materials), the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (connecting companies who can use each other's 'waste') plus a number of related ventures such as the Carbon Trust (energy efficiency) and a variety of regional bodies. The idea is neat: take money off the biggest producers of waste (providing the 'stick' to reduce that waste) and use it to fund enabling mechanisms to reduce barriers to change (carrots).

As I understand it the national bodies will have their funding cut and there will be nothing for the regions.

Terra Infirma has benefited from the BREW programme: we have a contract to deliver Envirowise work, have obtained subsidies from Midas (the BREW funded North East resource efficiency brokerage) for our clients, and have attended Carbon Trust training, so I admit we do have a vested interest. However it is difficult to understand the logic of diverting landfill tax away from environmental programmes and into the general pot (or the Olympics if you want to be really cynical). It certainly plays into the hands of those who see green taxation merely as another stealth tax. A bad move all round.

Labels: brew, carbon trust, envirowise, midas, nisp

The ENDS Report is, well, reporting that the Environment Agency in England and Wales is planning to make the reporting of Resource Efficiency data mandatory as part of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) reporting. Only a lack of funds is stopping them doing it sooner.

Resource efficiency* is about getting the most out of every unit of physical input (eg materials, energy, water) into a system. Car fuel consumption in miles per gallon is an everyday example of a resource efficiency measure - miles travelled (output) for every unit of input (gallon of fuel).

The UK Government is extremely keen on resource efficiency as it is very business friendly - increased efficiency will lead to a reduction in operating costs. They have created the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) fund which recycles money from landfill tax into schemes that improve the resource efficiency of, well you guessed it, UK business. The schemes include Envirowise (waste minimisation), the Carbon Trust (energy efficiency), WRAP (recycling) and the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme - NISP (industrial symbiosis). The model is quite neat - industry pays for its sins (landfill) and gets 'free' advice on how to stop sinning as a result.

However, there are concerns about how far Resource Efficiency can take us towards sustainability. The high targets required (a Factor 10 improvement over 1990 is the best guess) are extremely challenging on technical grounds, and then there's the dreaded 'rebound effect' which I will discuss at a later date. In the meantime, with it being flavour of the month, British business had better get its head around resource efficiency PDQ and the organisations above are a pretty good place to start.


* Resource efficiency is also known as eco-efficiency

Labels: carbon trust, eco-efficiency, envirowise, industrial symbiosis, nisp, resource efficiency, wrap