Terra Infirma - Environmental and Sustainability Consultants

News & Views From the Front Line

Thursday, 15 April 2010

Sustainability in the Service Sector - video

Here's an extended clip from the Service Network event I did back in February. This will soon be on permanent display on this site.

Labels: gareth kane, service sector, sustainability, terra infirma

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00 0 Comments

Friday, 9 April 2010

Sustainability Model

I've uploaded clips from my presentation to the Service Network back in February up onto YouTube - here's me explaining the sustainability maturity model - you can check out the rest here.

Labels: service sector, sustainability maturity model

# posted by Gareth Kane : 05:10 0 Comments

Friday, 19 March 2010

What a week!

Finally back in Terra Infirma Towers after a whirlwind week, particularly yesterday where I travelled from London to York, gave a presentation on the business case for sustainability and sustainability strategy to the Sustainability Committee of a major client, then got two hours at home before heading off to the business awards.

My hosts Muckle LLP were runners up in the CSR stakes - I was gutted for them as I thought they deserved to win and not just because I was sitting with them. Following the Service Nework event I did last month, I wrote a short piece on the business case for service sector companies to go green and featured Muckle as a case study. They're also featuring in the Green Executive.

The business awards themselves were very glitzy - all pounding music, video clips and sparkling, swirling lights. Keynote speaker was TV presenter Tom Gutteridge who told a fascinating anecdote about Jeremy Clarkson came within three inches of getting decapitated by a flying saw blade in the first series of Robot Wars (a guilty pleasure of mine - Robot Wars that is, not Clarkson dodging death).

Anyway, back to the grindstone - while I was away another project got the green light and I've pinned down another couple of interviewees for The Green Executive. Happy days!

Labels: green executive, seminar, service sector

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:01 0 Comments

Monday, 21 December 2009

Sustainability in the Service Sector

I now have the details of the Sustainability in the Service Sector event on 11 Feb 2010.

The event will run from 9 - 12 noon at the Newcastle Falcons Rugby Club. I'll be doing the main talk on sustainability in the sector and, as my conclusion is that branding is the key driver for the sector, my good friend Graeme Mills of GPM Network will go into green branding in much more detail. We'll have lawyers Muckle LLP and the Northern Stage talking about their experiences.

The event is hosted by The Service Network. They charge £30 for non members. Click here to register.

Labels: branding, seminars, service sector, sustainability

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00 0 Comments

Thursday, 21 June 2007

The Carbon Footprint of Offices

While there has been exhaustive analysis of the energy use of the manufacturing and transportation industry, there has been relatively little light shone on the service sector, despite the fact that it appears to contribute about a sixth of UK carbon emissions. Now Chris Goodall, author of 'How To Live a Low Carbon Life' (see my review here), has published a review of the carbon footprint of the service sector.

Goodall found that the average office based worker is responsible for about 2.26 t CO2 pa while at work. This is slightly more than the average British person emits lighting and heating their own home (2.21 t CO2 pa), despite the fact they only spend a quarter of their time at work. The main culprit is air conditioning - offices with aircon have twice the carbon footprint of offices without. The popularity of aircon is growing despite the fact that passive ventilation is cheaper both in terms of capital cost and (obviously) running costs.

This week I was contacted by the owner of a small business (SME) who wanted to make their offices 'green'. His frustration was that, like many small operations, they had little or no control over the services management in their workspace. This ruled out about half my standard 'quick wins', despite the fact none of them involved anything more substantial than changing a lightbulb. As the vast majority of companies are SMEs and few own their offices, this problem is widespread.

So while it is relatively easy to specify a low energy office new build (you just have to ask for "BREEAM Very Good" or "BREEAM Excellent"), the difficultly lies in all the existing blocks, and, importantly, influencing the person who has their hand on the temperature control.

Labels: BREEAM, carbon footprint, offices, service sector

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:02 2 Comments

By Gareth Kane

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