Aber Environment and Ethics

Monthly goings on.....

2007-11-10T16:34:00.000Z

Hey Everybody!
Here's what has been keeping me more than busy up to November; any comments or questions more than welcome.....
Thanks for visiting this page! However pretty soon there shall be a link here to a new webpage that the Guild shall be providing all officers with.....hopefully by end of next week I have been told.
Til soon....
Jenny.

Ethics and Environmental Officer Monthly Update:

Over the last month (and during summer and end of last year) I have been investigating the feasibility of using corn starch, non oil-derived, fully compostable take-away packaging for use predominantly in The Underground. I have emailed Steve Pickup and Geraint Edwards with the prices and shown them examples in the flesh and provided them with the website link: http://www.vegware.co.uk/products.html

There is no immediate rush as Steve does not expect to reorder anything before Christmas.

At the fresher’s’ societies fayre I held a stall raising awareness that the position exists, collecting emails of those interested in maybe helping out with anything, informing students of what I hope to achieve and what the university already does and displaying eco-friendly gadgets/products.

I researched good value organic and fair trade hoodies/t-shirts that societies and sport clubs could use for their club garments. At fresher’s fayres I spoke to every society, trying to encourage them to do so, using the information I provided them with from a company I had found. I have copied the lists of society and club contacts from the Sports and BOS Officers and shall email them to find out any progress on this.

I have distributed leaflets to encourage people to buy from the Fair Trade section of the union shop.

I have participated in a short recycling documentary for a group of Media students for use in their studies.

I have participated in a small press release with Arthur Davis, Alan Stephens and a member of staff from the county council regarding the Lilac Bag scheme.

I have attended meetings such as the Water and Energy Management Subgroup and the Waste and Recycling Subgroup, as well as smaller meetings with members of staff such as Glyndwr Humphreys and Nigel Owen from the Estates Office. Also with Angela Jones about the catering department; learning more about it, where their products are sourced from, investigating how much vegetarian/vegan options there are and about where sustainable packaging could be used for example coffee cups. I also asked about having an organic meal option available; I was told it had been tried in the past and was not bought.

I met with Organic Centre Wales to hear their side of the story to the past when an organic meal option was sold. They are supporting me in my aim….even if not in an organic meal option…..just more organic products/single ingredients. I am waiting to hear back from Jim Wallace for a meeting with him and a representative form Organic Centre Wales.

I have worked with Nigel Owen on the Waste-wise website and organised to work together for the launch of the Waste-wise Initiative and for a student travel survey to commence in December.

I have provided Steve Pickup with Fair Trade leaflets, which he has agreed to put into the bar menus.

I have been organising the Greenest Flat competition with the Halls Officers and the BOS Officer. We have begun to do ‘clinics’ at each halls of residence, where we ring on a flat’s door, introduce ourselves, advertise the competition, give them a lilac bag (if they are not in then we slip a leaflet advertising the competition under the door). We have done the Seafront so far. The results are to be released as part of a hopeful combined event with the Ethnic and Environment Officer in February as part of a Go Green week (Feb 16^th to 24^th).

I am working with Phil MacDonald on the Go Green campaign of People and Planet. We have a meeting with the VC on Monday.

I have begun research on how ethical the university’s investments are; I have just received the results of a Freedom of Information Request and shall take if further in due course……making sure to leave the results with the next Environment and Ethics Officer as there was a complaint that they get the same question each year.

I have done lots of research into the feasibility of having some form of student composting available. There are many legal restrictions to individual ones in each flat due to Foot and Mouth. It looks promising though that students (as well as catering outlets) will be able to use the soon-to-be-constructed ‘Rocket Composter’. Alan Stephens has kindly invited me to be involved with the introduction of the rocket composter as well as the new bike shelters that area appearing around campus.

I have got replies from many departments regarding whether they use recycled paper or paper form a sustainable source in their ‘behind the scenes’ printers for staff. None have come back positive. I have got prices and information from one company and shall investigate further in due course. Some departments would like some free samples to see if their printers can cope with the paper. This will be arranged.

I wrote a motion for the GM but then was informed that a similar thing is happening next year anyway.

I have emailed many lecturers, asking if they’d be willing to display a ‘Go Green’ or ‘Fair Trade’ advertisement power-point slide before their lecture slides as students are entering the lecture theatre. I received about 13 positives and have sent them the slides.

I have organised the Environment part of Fair Trade and Environment Day.

I have created my webpage and helped out at as part of Headway.

I have distributed just under 2500 free energy saving light bulbs!

2007-09-15T13:07:00.000+01:00

By the way! hehe.....this is me!....feel free to stop me in the street and ask/tell me things in the street......even if i have headphones on, listening to music; I don't mind......the music being powered by rechargable battieries of course....and solar powered batteries when there's enough sun!

Jenny Mace; the new Enviro and Ethics (E+E) Guild Officer.

2007-09-15T12:09:00.000+01:00

Howdy All !!!!!
Firstly I would like to say (and I'm sure on behalf of you all as well) a big THANK YOU to Nick Chan (the former E+E Officer) and GOODBYE and GOOD LUCK....though I am sure I shall see him via People and Planet events and talks we may request for him to do....as he is now a Campiagn Advocate in the organisation.

Before I go further I would just like to say that I am very committed to this role and will to my absolute best to achieve what I said I would in my manifesto....as well as any other extra things I can manage in the time I have.....this is detailed (as well as commending the university on what it already does (many are new this year; which is marvellous! Now I can do more in my role as some things already done! Yay!) below......

What the university already does:
-at least a few Fair Trade products in all establishments
-a few fair trade products in some vending machines
-we have a fair trade steering group striving to gain 'Fair Trade' status for the university
-use a lot of locally sourced ingredients in the catering outlets
-stock fair trade (as well as normal) hoodies, tshirts (they are actually"organic in conversion too") and some fair trade food in the union shop
-a composter for the catering outlets is being created behind the artscentre
-programmes exist whereby the levels of gas, water, temperature andelectricity are monitored and alarms sound if they go above a certainlevel
-last year the university had a 6 month contracted, part time energysupervisor and it looks promising that the university may employ a fulltime energy supervisor
-there is a waste-wise campaign with the intention of raising awarenessabout the issues of waste and to encourage recycling among students
-public computers can now be (or are in progress to be) switched off overnight
- Information Services Department are to adopt the use of special plugs,that allow all PC peripherals to be turned off when the computer is shutdown
-recycled paper is now used in all printers and by default everything isprinted double sided.
-the new 'Visualisation Building' has lights that go on when somebodyenters a room and turn off when someone leaves a room-a corn starch, biodegradable cup is to be used in some catering outlets
-water is being saved by an automatic flushing system
-there is now an easy recycling system in place in every halls ofresidence; including Brynderew and Sea Front. Students are supplied withlilac recycling bags in which they can place plastics, cardboard and tinsetc....glass can be recycled in the glass recycling banks dotted aroundcampus and town.
-the swimming pool now has new environmentally fridnly lights, theventilating system has been changed to reduce heat losses, there is newlining that reduces leakages, there are new windows offering improvedinsulation and there is a pool cover, which helps to save water and mainly heat

What I hope to achieve:
-increase the number of environmental and ethics guild officers
-'all-waste composters' to be present in every university flat
-many university clubs and societies using fairtrade and organichoodies/tshirts
-as many departments as possible to be using reycled paper/paper from asustainable source
-catering outlets to offer an organic meal choice
-all catering outlets to be using takeaway packaging and cutlery made frombiodegradable corn starch
-for Brynderew residents not to have to go to Sea Front Residencereception in order to obtain more lilac recycling bags
-progress on People and Planet's Go Green campaign
-supporting the People andPlanet Society in gaining Fair Trade Status for the university.
-as well as much much more if time allows!

I shall be updating this site now and then......if you would like more info before it is updated or would like to ask me questions/get involved and help me, please do not hesitate to contact me!
You shall receive a very quick answer!

Ok everyone......make most out of life til next time! I Plan to update at the end of next week after some key meetings.
cheerio!
Jenny.

Disingenious

2007-07-11T21:32:00.000+01:00

Sorry, thought I was done with the last post, but still me (Nick) here - I've been cleaning up all my papers and files to hand on to Jenny, but came across this recent change to the Energy & Water Management policy that was slipped in without me realizing at the time:

A section of the final policy statement reads, under a general 'Energy and Water Management' section:
"Reinvest a proportion of annual savings into future saving initiatives."

However, the first draft that was presented, discussed and commented on at the first meeting of the E&WM group read:
"Reinvest 50% of any annual savings into future saving initiatives."

Now, this seems to me like some serious backtracking on a policy even before it formally comes into operation! Fifty percent is a concrete number, and we know that if the university saves £X it will end up with £Y to definitely be invested into a further program of action. With this change, the university can waffle and fudge and well, only spend 'a proportion' of savings into future initiatives and justify spending only a ridiculously low amount of money with this policy.

What I'm incredibly angry about is how this change, which is by no account insubstantial, was put in without being brought to the Energy & Water Management group as a whole. Part of me is extremely annoyed at myself for not spotting the change, but a bigger part of me is annoyed at university management for not highlighting that the change was made in between the two meetings.

Pro-Vice Chancellor John Harries, introducing the final document, said that only minor, wordsmithing changes had been made, and that is true for the rest of the policy - consolidating headings and word changes that don't affect substance - except for this one. I asked him if he would go through the changes that were made and he reassured me that they weren't substantive ones (so we didn't need to go through them), and I took him at his word. Trusting him was quite clearly a mistake on my part, and I've learned my lesson.

Quietly making this shift amidst a raft of other wording changes is disingenious and dishonest at best, and seriously calls into question the university's alleged commitment to student engagement with environmental progress if they weren't willing to at least discuss the change.

Final Words to the VC

2007-07-11T09:00:00.000+01:00

Sorry, Nick here again - I promise my last ever post here, and I'll definitely shut up from now. In drawing a close on my year, I wrote a final letter to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Noel Lloyd, focusing (as ever) on the Go Green campaign and I've reproduced it here:

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

Re: Will the University Go Green?

As I formally complete my degree here in Aberystwyth, I thought that I should take a few moments here to offer some concluding thoughts on the university’s environmental performance as it relates to my year on the Guild of Students’ Executive.

An Environmental Manager

You will be personally aware of the messy situation regarding the Wastewise waste awareness campaign’s distribution following Ben Gray’s communication with you in the spring. I am sure you agree that there are better uses for Pro-VC John Harries’ time than the minutiae of putting up stickers and door hangers. This has been perhaps the most glaring example of where communication and management on environmental issues continues to fall through gaps. As further work on waste management and travel, for instance, continues to develop in the months and years to come, simply put, an increased staff capacity through a full-time environmental manager is needed to ensure the optimal use of resources.

At its most basic level, this is about matching your verbal commitment to environmental progress with new and additional staff time dedicated to making change happen. The Wastewise episode exemplifies the risks of doing otherwise. Bring the various strands of energy and ideas together and we could have a great future ahead of us. When a few student colleagues and myself met you in February, you promised us that the current part-time energy consultant would be closely reviewed when his contract ends around now, and it would be regressive if there was no further commitment made in this regard. If you still do not feel that a full-time environmental manager can be employed, I would at least ask that you set out your reasons for this in writing.

A Refreshed Environmental Policy

Technically speaking, the University has an environmental policy as part of its broader Health, Safety & Environment Policy. This policy statement, however, has not been updated recently and its environmental assertions are extremely general and vague. When you put the existing HSE policy next to the newly-introduced Energy Management policy, the former is almost embarrassing to read in terms of the strength and clarity of its commitment. In my view, this needs to be substantially redrafted to reflect the obligations, responsibilities and targets that are, for instance, expressed in the Environmental Strategy document. A substantive, rather than merely procedural, student contribution to this process is also essential.

There has undoubtedly been progress over the past year, and I will be the first to acknowledge that. For all the methodological quibbles that you may put to People & Planet’s Green League 2007, however, there is no disputing that in broad terms other institutions have stolen a march on becoming a truly environmentally sustainable university. You can be sure that these issues are here to stay, and I very much hope that the pace of progress is only quickened.

Thank you for your time, and I trust and ask that you will direct your response to my successor, Jenny Mace, at the Aberystwyth Guild of Students.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Chan
2006/07 Aberystwyth Guild of Students Environment & Ethics Officer

Signing Off

2007-07-09T19:33:00.000+01:00

So as the academic year formally comes to a close with graduation week, it's time too to finally sign off on my year as Environment & Ethics Officer for the Aber Guild of Students, and pass on this blog to my successor, Jenny Mace (jnm5[at]aber.ac.uk). So future references to 'I' should be read in a different context, reflecting different priorities and interests. But a few concluding thoughts and observations here on what my year has been...

What progress has been made? This is a difficult one to judge, because while I know I've certainly been busy (as the long and tedious process of cleaning out my e-mail inbox demonstrates) on a personal level, actual forward movement for the university as a whole is a bit more mixed.

I've developed good relationships with management staff in the areas of both energy and waste, meaning that the lines of communication have been open and frequent and that I've been able to monitor the progress in these over the past year. The first meetings of dedicated groups for energy management and waste management have taken place over the past year, to consider directly and more effectively how these issues impact the university and what action can be undertaken. Some university staff have, naturally, been more cooperative and interested than others. There have been the requisite moments of frustration where things simply fall through the gaps, but also the quiet satisfaction of slow, but momentum-building progress. I guess it will always seem like the big breakthrough is going to come next year (when I'm no longer here, obviously) and part of me wishes that I will still be around to see it through! It goes without saying that I've lost track of the number of times that coursework comes second to firing off emails to students and staff on green issues.

I've made the Go Green campaign a priority, which has seen an 800-strong petition, a meeting with the Vice-Chancellor, quality local press coverage and getting the UCU staff union involved. A full-time dedicated member of staff to environmental management is still needed, as is a complete overhaul of UWA's environmental policy statement. But the issue is firmly on the VC's table, and students will continue to demand the changes that will set in wet cement (it'll take a while to dry, of course) an institutional commitment to sustainability.

I have happily seen People & Planet members take the Fairtrade university campaign many steps forward and have my greatest optimism in this regard for success in and Fairtrade status in the very near future. My one regret has been an inability to take up a proper campaign on the university's continued staff pension investment in BAE Systems (and other arms companies), all the more galling given the recent BBC/Guardian investigations into corrupt business practices and bribing foreign officials. I very much hope that staff members will finally get off their bums and want do something about their own contributions to a trade focusing on violence and destruction.

I was elected to serve as a Aber delegate to both NUS Wales and NUS UK annual conferences, and at both of them contributed to highlighting sustainability and environmental concerns that had largely been absent from the agenda. A personal interest in the NUS has grown out of these experiences and something that I hope to be able to continue at my next stop. The NUS is a massive organisation in its resources and reach, and must be absolutely involved in greening and 'ethicalizing' our universities, demonstrating our solidarity with students of all stripes, home and abroad, and engaging students in the political challenge of making the world a better place.

The year ended with UWA's 97th placing in the Green League, and while this year has seen the beginning of environmental-related activity at various levels, it is just a beginning and in relative terms highlights how many other institutions are much further down this road. Current momentum will see UWA move up next year - the question is, how much? It'll have to run simply to keep up.

It has been a pleasure offering my thoughts on this blog, and providing some kind of link between the Guild and 'regular' students, a connection that definitely needs deepening. Simply putting this information out there is an important step, a place on the internet to be caught up in Google searches and the passing student. My own interest in blogging has been stimulated by the process of running this blog, although I now realize that there are also plenty of things that I should have included throughout the year that simply slipped right through my mind. But at least it's a start.

This is very much a niche blog - not a full-on commentary about environmental and ethical issues, but neither a full-on litany of observations about the work of the Aber Guild of Students in general. A rough average of ten hits a day, I think, is fairly respectable. From that perspective, I'm well pleased with the 3,500 hits to the site over the past ten months and while I don't know what my successor has planned for this blog, I hope that there'll be many more to come. But do check out my new project - Nick Thinking Aloud - to exactly take on the role of a more general, but also personal, commentary on the events and experiences that shape my world.

Thank you for reading.

Last Meetings

2007-07-06T18:55:00.000+01:00

For a blog that I initially thought of as a way to provide updates on the meetings and discussions that I've had with university staff, there has strangely been little of that. So as I wrap things up on my part, just a quick update on the two set-piece meetings that I've had with the university bureaucracy.

Health, Safety & Environment (early June) - The draft UWA Environmental Strategy was brought to the meeting, after it had been pushed back from the previous meeting due to snow! I raised one point regarding the university considering ISO 14001 environmental management certification, and why it was noted that the issue would be considered by Finance group instead of through the Strategy group or the committee, and I was told because of the financial implications such a move would involve. This seemed a bit strange given that all the various items from the strategy do have financial considerations of their own. No further points were raised in this regard, although other members of the committee appeared to demonstrate more interest when discussing other agenda items - namely fire alarm statistics and parking issues.

Energy & Water Management (end June) - The group met to look at progress on this front and to finalize the new energy & water management policy. While further changes to the policy had been made since the last meeting, I was told that these were not substantial ones. There was a discussion of how to bring the policy document and other reporting to the wider university community, including the Wastewise waste awareness campaign. Tenders for the projects that the part-time energy management consultant has been working on have been invited, and part of the work towards a proper building energy management system (BEMS) has already highlighted a £1K monthly saving in heating for the building at Blaendolau playing fields, which is surely only the tip of the iceberg for future savings to be made. Additional energy-saving ideas for future consideration were also invited - including plug meters and vending machine time-switches, for example.

That's me done on that score. The only thing that I missed out on was a meeting for the Waste & Recycling Management group, which first met in April and won't meet until later on in the summer, well after I've signed off.

Visualising Green?

2007-06-28T23:24:00.000+01:00

In the midst of clearing out all the bits and bobs from my year as Guild Environment officer, I came across the trail of investigating that I did around the environmental credentials of the Centre of Excellence for Visualisation in Wales, currently under construction on the Penglais campus (shown and scheduled for completion by the end of the summer. I've taken a bit of time to sum things up here and include excerpts where apropriate:

I began by asking, under a Freedom of Information request, for minutes from meetings discussing the Visualisation project that had to do with the BREEAM building standards. I recieved a copy of 'Visualisation Centre Building Group' minutes from the 6th of April 2006 and the following is agenda point 3.14:

"An initial BREEAM assessment will be done to find out the likelihood of obtaining an excellent rating. "Keith Lewis noted that he understood that WEFO [Welsh European Funding Office] had required a BREEAM rating of 'excellent'. Diana Bain confirmed that it was not included in the WDA offer of grant. [Since the date of this meeting, Diana Bain was able to confirm that neither it is a requirement of the WEFO offer of grant.]

"An excellent BREEAM rating will be difficult to obtain due to the glass facade on the main floor and the air-conditioning requirements of the HPC and projection equipment. Options for improving the BREEAM rating will be considered if needed."

A further FoI request, asking for a specific cost assessment for the BREEAM assessment, produced the following response:

> The decision regarding the BREEAM assessment was made in the light of an
> initial cost plan received from the contractors of £3,917,000. This was
> against an available budget of £3,600,000. Discussions with the
> contractors confirmed that the pursuit of a very good or excellent BREEAM
> rating would add significantly to this cost overrun and that it was by no
> means certain that a very good or excellent rating could be ever achieved.
> This is due to the nature of the building and in particular the amount of
> energy consuming HPS and visualisation equipment that it will contain.
> This uncertainty, combined with the budget overrun resulted in a decision
> not to pursue this avenue.
> 
> There was no further discussion in the Building Group minutes regarding
> the BREEAM assessment, following those released to you from the meeting on
> 6 April 2006.

So in the end no BREEAM rating was achieved at all. A £300,00 pound difference to achieve a BREEAM rating is not small change, but for a building whose design life is 60 years, I'm not sure if the math was actually done to take into account savings in running costs. I've certainly not seen anything to that end.

What was most striking to me, however, was how initial requirements highlighted its supposed environmental credentials. The 'Employers Requirements' tender documents, published on the 12th of May 2005, stated as the very first item 1.1: "The building aims to be an exemplar in terms of sustainability."

The Centre also happily recieves £4.3m of European Union Objective 1 funding out of its total 10.4m budget. In the final version of its application form for this EU grant (signed off by Vice-Chancellor Noel Lloyd sometime in 2005), which I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the main part of the section on "Environmental Impacts" reads as follows:

"The project complies with all relevant EC and national environmental directives (with particular reference to Sections 1-4 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990). It has no significant emissions to land, air or water. It will not require LAPC or IPPC consent. The building would be built to modern environmental standards and would not use any outlawed susbtances in its construction or operation. A BREEAM audit will be undertaken of the building design in accordance with BRE guidelines, and it is anticipated that this will show a good or excellent rating. The building will be designed to fit in naturally with, and complement, the surroundings on the University campus.

"The Centre will liase with the WDA to incorporate the principles of its Sustainable Development Policy 'Learning to Work Differently', which has the goal of delivering economic growth and improving both living standards and the quality of the environment through the sustainable use of natural resources."

A later section goes on to describe the contribution that the actual purpose of the Centre will make to the environment:

"Visualisation technology has a vital role to play in helping to maintain and enhance the environmental assets of the region. For example, it can be used to model and display the effects of any proposed changes to the environment, such as the construction of on-shore and off-shore wind farms...Although these will help reduce carbon emissions significantly, the visual impacts of such projects are serious considerations. Using visualisation/VR technology, all interested parties - e.g. developers, planners and residents - will be able to better understand the effects of proposed developments."

Indeed, this particular environmental benefit is explicitly made clear as one of the five broad aims of the entire project - coming under the heading of "to improve environmental performance through the adoption of clean technologies" (the others are 'to create a culture of innovation, to create more technology in knowledge-driven firms, to increase R&D investment, and to stimulate demand for and adoption of ICT).

I obviously have no quibble with this part and I fully appreciate the benefits that it provides in this regard towards planning for renewable energy development and so forth. But it goes without saying that environmental projects are held to a higher standard than 'conventional' development. Its functional elements (what the project is for) are perhaps no more or no less important than its operational elements (how the project runs).

If the supposed environmental benefit of the project is played up, it would indeed be a travesty, if not contradictory, that the prospect of ensuring that the building is as eco-friendly as possible has been given short shrift despite initial expectations.

To Brussels by Bike

2007-06-27T21:08:00.000+01:00

To drive up (no pun intended) support and public awareness for his proposals for carbon trading as a way of addressing climate change - snappily summed up as Cap and Share - Dr. Will Howard, (who earlier this year came to speak at a People & Planet meeting) is travelling from his home in Machynlleth to the EU Commission in Brussels to lobby European Union officials on the ideas behind the scheme.

While it is an electric bike, which provides the user with peddling assistance, 500 miles is still a bit of a long way to be travelling at 15mph.

"The first message really is who has the right to have the emission permits, because at the moment they're being given to the big companies.

"What I'll be saying is in fact, they should be given to citizens. The government's got no right to give away our emission rights."

How Green is My Hospital?

2007-06-25T20:29:00.000+01:00

A report from the NHS Confederation may seem a bit of an odd subject for this blog, except for two reasons - it's about the NHS' contribution to climate change, and it's Wales-specific.

The report, Taking the Temperature, was co-authored by the NHS Confederation UK and the new economics foundation, points out that not only is the NHS at the frontline of addressing the impacts of climate change upon humans (warmer temperatures, spread of disease, etc.), but it is also one of the largest and most resource-hungry public-sector institutions there is.

The report highlights good practice from across the UK, from power supplies to more efficient transport solutions and local food procurement. It ends by listing ten key questions for NHS boards to consider to make a difference, in these areas: leadership on climate change, a strategic response, setting targets, partnerships with local organisations, energy consumption, building construction, procurement practices, green transport, waste management and staff management. None of these are, however, specific to the NHS, and can be just as easily applied into say, the higher education sector.

These questions need to be asked, and this report highlights how effective environmental management must take place across all sectors of society. All of Wales' hospitals are, for instance, running on green electricity. Its target is to cut carbon emissions by15% by 2010.

Will we soon see universities and HE funding councils undertaking a similar sector-wide study?

Causing a Fuss

2007-06-21T22:32:00.000+01:00

News of the Green League hits the press this week, as student newspaper The Courier features UWA's 'fail' on its website, while local paper Cambrian News covers the joint-97th (how coincidental is that?!) rankings of both UW Aberystwyth and UW Lampeter in the table, including a quote by me:

Nick Chan, Aberystwyth Guild of Students’ Environment and Ethics Officer, who works closely with People and Planet, said he was equally disappointed. He said: “There is no reason why Aberystwyth should be falling so far behind other universities, particularly when you consider the excellent environmental-related research at the university, the closeness of the Centre for Alternative Technology and the relatively good environmental record of the town.

“Just last week a Carbon Trust report highlighted Aberystwyth as the town having the lowest amount of CO2 emissions released by business in the UK, but this quite clearly does not apply at a university level.”

Note: The Cambrian News link, while reproducing the text, isn't the easiest to read - if you can get the print edition it'll be well worth it.

In the immediate wake of the Green League's publication two weeks ago, Aber People & Planet sent off a letter to the Vice-Chancellor to draw Aber's performance in the table to his attention. Incredibly a reply has already come back at the beginning of this week. (I say incredibly because my initial letter to the Vice-Chancellor last November which first raised the concerns of the Go Green campaign didn't recieve a reply for five weeks...).

Both letters are around two pages along and perhaps too long to reproduce here but do email if you want a copy of the letters and they can be sent to you. The following are excerpts from the Vice-Chancellor's response:

"Firstly, I want to emphasise that the university places high importance to environmental issues. We are committed to the continuing improvement of our environmental management systems and performance, and a wide range of initiatives are being implemented.

"We are disappointed that the progress we are making is not reflected in the information contained in the Green League: this may be because of timing and the way that some of our initiatives are reported....

"...I am determined that the university establishes a cohesive and integrated approach to these important issues.

"I should also like to emphasise that the university has very considerable scientific expertise in Environmental Science generally, and we have the opportunity to make a very significant contribution through our research and knowledge transfer activities."

The main chunk of the letter put in more detail about work and progress on recycling, the university's 'environmental policy' and green transport (through the AHA bus pass). No word on employing a full-time environmental manager though.

Cans, CDs and Composting

2007-06-18T22:06:00.000+01:00

Just a quick, routine update on new developments with things coming along nicely for recycling and waste management on campus...

- The nice people at Ceredigion County Council have donated more wheeled aluminum/tin can deposit banks to be placed around campus, making it ever-easier for staff and students...

- There'll be a dedicated drop-off bin in the Hugh Owen library to recycle CDs and DVDs (including their packaging) safely and securely, so keep an eye out for this...

- A couple of funding bids are being put in by House Services to the Welsh Assembly Government's public sector waste disposal funding stream, to hopefully introduce separate recycling sack holders in residences and a kitchen composter. Even if these bids aren't successful they are a good sign of the thinking going on towards waste reduction!

Forced Out

2007-06-17T15:22:00.000+01:00

Protestors at the Brecon campsite against the gas pipeline being laid across Wales have been evicted following a court order against them about ten days go granting the National Grid immediate possesion of the occupied land and shutting down their protest camp in the pipeline's route. Even the news that an ancient Roman road has been found in the pipeline's path won't appear to halt it any further - the prevailing mood seems to be that we simply have to hope for the best that the National Grid will take care of ecological and archaeological concerns.

The issue of tunnelling across a national park was brought up at last month's Hay-on-Wye festival - the pipeline, of course, coming close to the iconic town on its way to Gloucestershire. Apparently the subject caught Environment Secretary David Miliband off-balance, which goes some way to show how much the issue has registered in London-centric political circles. That said, though, hardly a peep out of the Cardiff-based political junkies either...

UPDATE (19/06): It seems I was slightly premature in remarking on the eviction of the protestors at the Brecon campsite. The last I had heard from them was two weeks ago just after the eviction notice had been served, when they expected to be turfed out in the next day or so, but today the BBC reports that the eviction has finally begun today, with six arrests made. Police, in support of High Court enforcement officers, have moved on to the site to dismantle it and remove protestors on charges of trespass and failing to comply with the court order.

Transition Town Aberystwyth?

2007-06-14T23:12:00.000+01:00

I've just come back from a public meeting in Aber which hopes to be the beginning of putting Aber onto a Transition Town path - the 'transition' meaning how we learn to live differently in the world of scarce oil that lies ahead of us.

The main part of the meeting was a screening of The End of Suburbia, a documentary about suburbia - our way of living of urban sprawl where most people live in the suburbs and commute into the cities for work, often by car, and what peak oil means for this way of life. Peak oil refers to the point where global oil production reaches its peak and thereafter production rates begin to decline. It isn't running out of oil - but it's the beginning of the end, where decreasing supply means that prices are going to increase unless demand begins to fall too.

The screening was followed by an introduction to the principles, background and examples of transition by Sarah Pugh, who has been involved with TransitionCity Bristol - trying to apply transition principles to a city of 400,000! Transitioning is about an 'energy descent' - getting used to using much lower levels of oil and gas, descending from our current level of consumption in preparation for a world where those lower levels will be the only choice available.

I blogged in April about a massive public meeting in Lampeter to introduce the Transition Town concept (see the Guardian article here) , and it is brilliant to see Aber residents taking up the initiative to spread the word, ideas and practices locally! Transitioning begins with ten key steps - raising awareness, forming local groups, connecting with local government, 'the great re-skilling' and so forth, but what is empowering is a sense of any means possible - there is no fixed, dogmatic way to transition, but different places will discover different ways of doing things.

The first meeting to start thinking aloud about what making the transition entails, with other concerned residents takes place this coming Monday (18 June) at 7pm in the Treehouse on Baker Street - if you can't make this but want to be kept in touch, email Albrecht Fink (fogelfink[at]gmail.com) who is leading this initial bit of coordination on the project.

Getting People Excited

2007-06-11T20:05:00.000+01:00

You can really feel the public momentum behind a greater sense of individual engagement with environmental issues after hearing recent reports about London's one-hour Lights Out switch-off later this month, and the build-up to a plastic bag-free Christmas 2007 taking rapid shape.

Both of these ideas are about making green issues more accessible to individuals in a direct, real and positive way. Taking part in things like these help to achieve a sense of empowerment which on its own doesn't count for much but forms part of a sequence of involvement and greater action. (Could I have made that last sentence any more dull?) Put differently, these ideas inspire and catalyse change. That's why they're important and significant.

Now, the relevant question is: how we can replicate a lights-out and plastic bag-free Aber? Far too often there is a student-local disconnect in Aber but these issues (which regrettably I won't be here to see happen) are great examples of the potential to come together on issues of common concern.

What a Shocker!

2007-06-07T23:11:00.000+01:00

People & Planet have released The Green League 2007, a first-ever league table for universities based on their environmental performance - and UWA has come in an embarassing 97th of 105 UK universities surveyed. In true academic spirit the table has been split up into grade classifications - so coming in 97th counts as a 'Fail'.

Top of the pile is Leeds Met, scoring 48 out of 50 points; the highest Welsh university is Glamorgan University coming in at 4th nationally. UWA is joint 97th with UW Lampeter, the bottom-two universities in Wales. How green are Welsh universities? The overall distribution mirrors the UK average - one first, two 2:1s, two 2:2s, two passes and two fails.

The table was is broken down over a number of criteria - and a section on methodology details these - focusing on management issues (a publicly available environmental policy, full-time staff dedicated to environmental management, comprehensive environmental auditing, a green travel plan and Fairtrade University status), and performance issues (% of energy from renewable sources, & of waste recycled and carbon emissions per head). See the table for the specific breakdown of how UWA has fared across these criteria.

Fair? I think so. My year has undoubtedly exposed me to the detail and substance behind the headlines and progress is certainly be undertaken. These processes (an environmental strategy, reducing carbon emissions) have, however, really only begun this year and will take some time to kick in and next year's ranking is likely to be higher. But they are a reminder of just how far progress still has to go, particularly in relative terms, and the interest that the Green League will provoke across the HE sector means that UWA will have to walk faster simply to keep up.

Left Hand and Right Hand

2007-06-03T22:18:00.000+01:00

One of the long-running themes through my year as E&E officer has been following a waste and energy reduction project called Wastewise. The big idea is a public awareness and education initiative to keep students and staff aware of the small, simple things that can be done to cut down on energy consumption and waste. So far so good - and much needed indeed! The messages need to be present, frequent and visible to inspire changes in habits and marginally greener lifestyles.

With the price of energy inching upwards in the long-run, and the cost of waste disposal only going to increase as landfill sites reach peak capacity, this should be a no-brainer. So I was approached by the Estates Office, who have been the main organizing point behind the project, to help with the distribution of the materials - door hangers, stickers and posters with the 'how' and 'what difference it makes' ideas of the project.

The project was subcontracted to design company blah d blah to design the materials - over a year ago now, when the decision was taken to proceed with the project. It was supposed to come with a website too, for further information, especially locally-relevant contacts and opportunities - but remains under construction. The project, by the way, is part-funded by UWA, UW Bangor and the Carbon Trust. Finally all the materials arrived in Aber, and it took a couple of weeks to set up the apropriate meeting with Residential Services to discuss the implementation and delivery of these materials. This was in March, and where it all got a bit sticky.

RHS' argument was, more or less, 'no'. The stickers would affect the paintwork and contradict existing messages against students putting stickers in halls; the posters could only be put in limited places because of fire hazards and would be inconsistent with RHS' other ongoing efforts (apparently there are ongoing efforts - but as a PJM resident these haven't been obvious); the door hangers would be confusing given current door hangers about fire and personal safety. At that, at the time, seemed that. Only some 'recycle' stickers, as demonstrated above, were put in place across the various university recycling facilities.

At our next Guild Exec meeting I mentioned the issue and Ben Gray, Union President took up the issue with the Vice-Chancellor. The following are the notes and summary from a meeting that he had about two weeks ago with Jim Wallace, RHS Director and John Harries, Pro Vice-Chancellor.

1 The campaign will launch in academic buildings on1 September (stickers and posters)

2 The campaign will launch in residences from start of session, at Freshers (stickers and posters)

3 There are different versions of the posters and stickers that are applicable to academic and residential areas

4 We agreed that posters are to be placed in kitchens only in residences, and on notice boards only in academic buildings

5 We agreed that stickers (of the appropriate type) were to be placed on windows or walls adjacent to light switches in all bedrooms and kitchens in residences, and in all rooms in academic buildings, including individual offices, but (for both types of buildings) not in any entrance ways, corridors, toilets, or communal areas

6 We agreed that the door hangers would only be used in residences, and are not appropriate for start of session, and they would, instead, be used at start of second semester in February

7 Nigel Owen will ensure that the Wastewise websiteis up-and-running by 1 September

8 We agreed that RHS is the most appropriate route for distribution and fixing of posters/stickers; House Services for academic buildings and Residential Services for residential buildings

9 A limited number of each type of sticker/poster/door hanger has been printed and these are likely to be insufficient to cover all requirements

10 Additional posters can be printed from the website as required, and Nigel Owen will organise and provide this

11 We are to forward a list of the numbers required of each type of communication (poster, sticker, door hanger) to Nigel Owen ASAP

12 Those stocks already printed are presently in store with the SU, and will be delivered when requested to Penbryn Reception

13 An email communication to all staff will go out on 1September in the joint names of John Harries PVC and the Guild President

14 Email communication to students has yet to be determined

From my perspective, this has all been intensely frustrating and only drives my observation of a lack of communication between university departments and the absence of a joined-up approach to promoting environmentally sustainable change. In the end, the materials will get put out and the message communicated - but no less than a full academic year after the project was first mooted and at least six months after the earliest possible opportunity to do so.

It is a tragedy that the issue has only been resolved with the direct involvement of top-level university senior management, and only after the intervention of the Guild President to raise the issue with the Vice-Chancellor. And of course, will all these be followed? It's up to you, with the Guild officers, to ensure that these promises and program of action is lived up to.

Free, Eco-Friendly Music

2007-06-03T22:13:00.000+01:00

Friends of the Earth have teamed up with Johnny Borrell, Razorlight frontman, to offer a new free-to-download track, 'Funeral Blues' from their website. Don't really know much about Razorlight's music, apart from the few songs that they performed at the I Count rally in central London last November, so I'll reserve judgment on the track for now!

The recording was made at Europe's first solar-powered recording studio in London in support of The Big Ask - FoE's continuing campaign for a strong climate change bill.

UCU Support for Go Green and Fairtrade

2007-05-31T17:25:00.000+01:00

The lecturers' union, University and College Union (UCU) has passed a motion in support of the Aber Guild of Students and Aber People & Planet's campaigns to achieve Fairtrade University status, and get UWA to Go Green.

Yesterday, myself and the respective People & Planet campaign coordinators spoke for a few minutes about the campaigns to the AGM of the local branch of the UCU, where a motion had been submitted to declare its support for these two campaigns. There were no dissenting votes against the motion, which is another step forward in getting public awareness and pressure behind these two campaigns.

At a symbolic level, both Go Green and Fairtrade are now official policy of both the students' union and the lecturers' union, which is a major boost to our efforts. The university, at a senior management level at least, continues to be hesitant about both of these student-led campaigns in making strong commitments to both environmental improvement and increasing the presence of Fairtrade on campus.

But I do hope that this latest outcome is more than symbolic, and that we can take the opportunity to build closer links with teaching staff - they are, after all, the other half of the university and often here for the long-run. Getting increased staff support through the Fairtrade steering group, and possibly a similar arrangement for Go Green, would be a useful start.

At the ongoing UCU national conference, a motion about campus sustainability was also passed unanimously. The green agenda in educational institutions is one that cannot be ignored.

Bankrolling Environmental Change

2007-05-31T16:51:00.000+01:00

The UK's largest bank, HSBC, has just announced a new five-year $100m contribution towards addressing the causes and effects of climate change. The contributions, to be spread among four environmental groups, is intended to fund research into freshwater river systems, low-carbon urban living in megacities, the impact of climate change on forests, and educational research towards sustainable living.

However, as an analysis piece by BBC business editor Clare Davidson higlights, its lending policies will not change:
"After showing a short HSBC-branded film featuring imagined scenes including London under water and the Amazon being transformed into a huge motorway, the bank's chairman Stephen Green said that withdrawing from so-called "sensitive sectors" - including energy, water, forestry, chemicals or mining, would not be the right thing.

"HSBC would remain committed to clients across these sectors, Mr Green said, "as long as we are confident that they are engaged in a journey towards environmental sustainability"."

$100m is a contribution that certainly should not be sniffed at - and it will enable the benefiting organisations to scale up their work over a medium-term five year timescale. For the groups, these multimillion contributions will make a big difference. But there is a tinge of greenwash to this burst of generosity because for HSBC, $100m when compared with record-breaking $22bn of profits still really isn't much.

The bank, like many others now, are talking about being carbon neutral - but such descriptions only extend to their own operations - staffing, buildings, travel and offsetting. While these are undoubtedly necessary, what most banks fail to address - and RBS has taken the brunt of the attention because of its own emphasis on this area - are its lending policies towards environmentally unsound industries and services. By providing credit and overdraft facilities for oil & gas, logging and mining sectors, banks actively support the expansion and continuied prosperity of these industries that contribute to climate change and environmental degradation.

The real challenge is to ensure that all $22bn of HSBC's profits, and not just a pigeonholed $100m, can be earned in environmentally sensitive and ethically responsible ways.

Is Monbiot Right?

2007-05-28T15:02:00.000+01:00

Speaking at the Hay Festival this weekend, environmental campaigner George Monbiot has criticised both onshore windfarms and a potential Severn barrage - key planks of Welsh Assembly Government environmental and energy policy.

Onshore wind "has reached saturation point" and future developments will "generate so much antagonism it'll turn people off dealing with climate change"; as for a hydroelectric barrage running from South Wales to England across the Bristol Channel, "It will cause too much environmental damage...there are far better ways of getting energy from the sea - tidal lagoon technology, for example."

I would agree with some of what he says here - that onshore wind has been disproportionately favored, through planning regulations such as the WAG's TAN 8 guidelines and grants from central government. Not enough emphasis has been placed on offshore wind and the smaller-scale sea-based technologies, and the fiasco over home microgeneration incentives for households and a determination to press forward with new nuclear shows that policy is all over the place and far from joined-up.

But antagonism? I think modern wind turbines are a symbol of the challenge that we will face through this next century and if they stand there as a visual reminder of climate change and how we've all got to learn to live differently I'm all for them. They're about capturing the free and clean energy blowing around us and a positive sign of what we can do for the planet!

There are no easy solutions on the supply side, and the vitrol directed at them by anti-windfarm campaigners often leads to a misbalanced and intimidating perspective of what the public really thinks. Granted, the way things currently work with large corporate conglomerates owning windfarms is not ideal and communities easily feel excluded and wind alone is far from a complete answer - but I do think that given time, we will readily get used to seeing them around.

Competing to be Green

2007-05-27T18:34:00.000+01:00

Will Duguid, Observer columnist mused about this question a fortnight ago: is it ethical to compete in a rat race?

"Don't get me wrong: I'm all for honouring those trying to create a more sustainable way of life. And no one, in my opinion, has done more to bring about a comprehensively lagged UK than Observer finalist, my colleague George Monbiot. But, George, George, since when was competition ethical?

"Isn't competition with others to blame for most of the ills that afflict this beleaguered planet? If we are to take forward the green agenda, what we need is less rivalry and personal ambition - and more collaboration, harmony and working together for the common good."

Although somewhat tongue-in-cheek, he does have a point. Competition, a la unbridled market economics, to drive down the price and increase the affordability of goods and services underlies many of our contemporary challenges. A paradigm of consumerism comes at the top of the list, where more is better, especially in relation to the Joneses, and 'more' usually involves the haphazard and breakneck depletion of our natural resources. Areas of special conservation are tossed aside and human rights are ignored because the big question, at the end of the day, is how much bang you can get for your buck.

Still, the proliferation of job opportunities in the charitable sector, in environmental and social justice work and the increased profile and attractiveness of work in the educational and health sectors offer a glimpse of life different to suits, corporatespeak and 24/7 Blackberry connectivity. Life can be meaningful, fulfilling and rewarding outside an addiction to wealth, fame and power. As another cohort of fellow students prepare to graduate and step into full-time employment, maintaining the idea that money isn't the only game in town is, however, a challenging one.

Taking out the trash day

2007-05-24T21:43:00.000+01:00

One of today's top news stories is Environment Secretary David Miliband's proposal for increased charges for landfill waste and correspondingly, council tax cuts for recycling waste, announced as part of a broader package of measures of the UK Government's waste strategy.

Of course, devolution means that this strategy doesn't apply to Wales and that the Welsh Assembly Government will have its own considerations and priorities for addressing waste disposal and its last publication on the subject was the snappily-titled Wise About Waste, which was released in 2002. Naturally, the mainstream media don't mention this difference between England and the rest of the UK...

The idea, to me, sounds sound. It's about incentivizing greener behaviour, rather than the same council tax charge applying to all regardless of how much they recycle. At the same time though, we must also recognize the onus on supermarkets and large retailers to drastically reduce the amount of packaging that goes straight into the bin. As the natty pie chart on the right here also shows, the significant opportunity to avoid food scraps going straight to landfill should also be seized - whether towards biomass energy or for compost.

Greening the Student

2007-05-23T22:02:00.000+01:00

The student lifestyle - pasta, tomato sauce, canned tuna, dried herbs, beer cans and kebabs. Stereotypical, but I know enough people who fit that generalization.

Student habits are nowhere near as environmentally responsible as they should be and I will be the first to acknowledge that. I have been for a walk around campus at the end of term when students vacate university residences and the amount of waste generated is simply staggering - fridges full of food, bedding, pots and pans, even electronics! Lights are pouring out of buildings at night and even in the middle of winter windows are swung wide open.

A short article by Julia Hailes of New Consumer magazine illustrates the range of ungreen behaviour that has ended up being part and parcel of the student lifestyle. But the crucial thing, as she points out, and which I harp on about frequently, is the role of the university in making green the default option for students. Where are they now?

"Apparently the higher education sector in the UK emits 3m tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. I'm not surprised with these sorts of wasteful practices. It's far less efficient that the business community in terms of its carbon emissions.

"The good news is that some universities and colleges are changing for the better and becoming beacons of good practice. The bad news is that there aren't yet many of them."

When I complete my exams I'll be offering a series of reflections and thoughts on my year and where things could go next. But the underlying theme for me, at least is that consistent, evolving change must be university-, not student-led.

Is this a cop-out? Hardly. The revolving door of students makes it difficult, despite our best efforts, to drive progressive year-on-year change without having to take a few steps backward at the beginning of every year. Institutionalising a commitment to change and providing the resources to back up that commitment within the university itself is what's ultimately needed across-the-board progress. And I've only heard mixed signals at this level so far.

Pushing too hard?

2007-05-23T00:54:00.000+01:00

A fascinating retrospective on the resurgence of the whaling issue (which provocatively asks 'did the greens help kill the whale?!) from the BBC has raised a key issue involved in campaigning - in setting ourselves the highest standards of a vision of the future do we end up pushing an issue beyond the zone of what is currently feasible and over the edge? Put differently, campaigning can sometimes push targets too hard and turn them around completely in the other direction.

This is an entirely valid point, and one that every campaign on any issue must confront. On one hand, I generally work on the logic of setting the bar high, and in the process even if progress doesn't reach that lofty standard, things will probably still be better than if a 'realistic' target had been set. The point is to make big demands even if we're well aware that those aren't easily achievable, but in the process, that offers a bit of space for compromise and negotiation for something that at the outset would be an entirely acceptable outcome.

On the other hand, as the journalist suggests was the case for Japan in the 1980s, keeping the pressure at boiling temperature might create a backlash where our campaign target, already hesitant to move on the issue, completely turns around for a flat-out, uncompromising 'no'. This lesson suggests the need to maintain a sense of pragmatism and, in what is perhaps incredibly difficult for all of us who want to see change tomorrow, patience.

Is there a right answer? Set the bar too high can end up in never seeing complete success, but setting the bar too low can also end up in falling well short of the necessary solution to a problem.

But I think that to set the bar lower just in thinking that 'there's no way in hell that we're going to get that' is to concede ground before the debate and campaign has even begun. We aim high because that's what we believe in, and believe is necessary. To be sure, we modify and compromise as things unfold and twist and turn. But campaigning must always be ambitious and winning some probably goes side by side with losing some.

Going, going....

2007-05-22T23:58:00.000+01:00

Today's Guardian reports how worldwide CO2 emissions rose by 3.1% a year between 2000-2004 - a pace of progress that outstrips even the latest worst-case scenario predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By comparison, the 1990s - which already marked some of the hottest years on record, averaged 1.1% annual increases.

Action now, now, now. You can begin with a simple online response, courtesy of the World Development Movement, to respond to the ongoing consultation for a Climate Change Bill and to press your elected representatives for an ambitious piece of legislation. Of course, there is no substitute for a personally drafted response to the consultation itself, which has a response deadline of 12 June.

Here is what is the killer statistic, for me - that the developed world has been responsible for a staggering 77% of CO2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. It is the effects of the last hundred years which we are feeling today. We hear about India and China all the time, often in the guise of excuses for tough domestic action, but there can be no denying that by and large, the historical responsibility for anthropogenic climate change lies here, in the developed world. This is the historical responsibility for our paradoxical encountering of increased flooding and increased drought that already perils the lives of hundreds of millions and is only going to worsen.

Good Oil

2007-05-21T19:34:00.000+01:00

As more and more educational institutions jump onto the sustainability bandwagon, the latest example of innovative and eco-friendly best practice comes from a fellow branch of the University of Wales, at Newport, South Wales.

The sexy idea that they've come up with and put into practice is to convert used cooking oil into biodiesel to power its on-site vehicles - tractors, road-sweepers and power generators. The production process is all on-campus, recycles cooking oil that would otherwise have to be discarded, and generates fewer carbon emissions (around 20 tons/year) that regular diesel that would otherwise have been used.

Saves money - and cuts down on greenhouse gases! What is impressive about schemes like this is just simply getting it off the ground - in getting senior management support, being able to demonstrate its financial viability, taking an adventurous step in an area that isn't a conventional university practice. It's adventurous not in the science of the process, which is well established, but in being able to work through the bureaucratic inertia that university administrations will typically have towards nontraditional ideas such as these.

And oh look - not only do they have an environmental staff officer but are also plugging away at their ISO14001 environmental management standard!

What will Aber's big idea be?

Unfree Information

2007-05-20T23:25:00.000+01:00

This might seem an unlikely subject for this blog, but as someone who has used Freedom of Information provisions before, the recent disgrace in the House of Commons regarding its provisions resonates sharply with me.

What happened? Last Friday, a Conservative-sponsored private members' bill was passed (78 Labour and 18 Tories voting in favour) exempting MPs and Lords from the Freedom of Information Act. Hypocritical at the very least in the argument that legislators should be exempt from a part of the law that they have passed, this bill will only add to increased mistrust and suspicion with which politicians are viewed by many members of the public. Elected representatives should be at the front of ensuring transparent and accessible government, not putting up further limits and curbs on obtaining information relevant to MPs' work.

As Saturday's Guardian leader put it:
"The grounds for doing so were spurious, an exaggerated fear about the exposure of private correspondence that failed to disguise parliament's fundamental distaste for making its inner workings public. The smell of a private gentlemen's club, all beeswax and dusty velvet, hung over the debate, the outcome of which was about as far as it is possible to get from openness and accountability."

Who ate all the pies?

2007-05-18T20:57:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow's FA Cup Final at Wembley provides a moment for reflection on what happens when plenty of people congregate in one place for an event - that in the midst of having fun, a lot of waste is generated and energy consumed.

A study conducted by Cardiff University in the wake of the 2004 FA Cup Final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium has revealed that the massive ecological footprint of the event was some 3000 hectares (one hectare being around the size of the pitch) - meaning that 3000 hectares would be needed to provide all the resources consumed at the match. Processed food and drink, electricity and water usage, transport all add up to create an impact for each fan ten times greater than the stay-at-home fan. Here are some overwhelming numbers:

"The Manchester United and Millwall fans at that match put away 37,624 sausage rolls, pies or pasties, 26,965 sandwiches, 17,998 hot dogs, 12,780 burgers, 11,502 packets of crisps and 23,909 portions of chips. And this was all washed down with 303,001 pints of lager, 66,584 pints of beer and 38,906 pints of cider, as well as 12,452 bottles of wine, 90,481 shots and 63,141 bottles of alcopops. The binge left its mark on Cardiff's city centre, with 37 tonnes of glass, 8 tonnes of paper and 11 tonnes of uneaten food left behind. None was recycled."

Summer festivals offer another set of examples - although instances like the Big Green Gathering and Beach Break Live offer a different and changing genre where sustainability and ethicality (is that a word?) are core elements to the festival itself. Even Glastonbury is getting on the act - although still fairly slowly - by providing recycled loo paper for all festivalgoers instead of people having to bring their own.

This post isn't supposed to be a depressing, caveman whinge that we shouldn't have cup finals or summer music festivals, but rather, an optimistic assertion that things don't have to be this way and that a different, more sustainable way of living is possible. We can enjoy ourselves and live lightly on the earth (glass half full!!). Big events can even make a neutral contribution to the environment. We just have to imagine things being a bit different to where they are now, and get off our bums to make imagination reality.

This Uni's Plan to Save the Planet (sort of)

2007-05-17T22:59:00.000+01:00

Without the help of a word-editing program to make things look neat and pretty, the following is a simplified version of this university's draft environmental strategy that will be presented for approval to the Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) committee in June. Enjoy.

Local Environment and Ecology - an assesment of the biodiversity status of the Penglais campus and make recommendations (completion date tbc).

Procurement - to identify objectives and targets in reference to achieving 'sustainable procurement' (this refers to an assessment framework to determine procurement supports sustainable development objectives) (completion date 31 May 2007 for study); to attain a BREEAM rating of excellent for all future new build (completion date ongoing)

Transport and Travel - to establish a UWA Travel Plan (completion date April 2008); to develop options for a voluntary carbon offset scheme for UWA business travel (completion date Oct 2007)

Resource Consumption - to develop a program of water-saving measures (completion date Sept 2007); to reduce CO2 emissions by 10%/student in academic buildings and 5% in residential buildings (cd Sept 2009); to determine the economic viability of significant renewable energy projects at UWA and table proposals (cd April 2008); to examine aspects of sustainability in bioscience research and produce a best-practice toolkit (cd tbc)

Releases to Air and Water - to ensure that these comply with legal and policy requirements (ongoing)

Waste and Recycling - to establish a Recycling and Waste Management group to develop initiatives and programmes of work (cd May 2007)

Green Curriculum - to develop UWA's Learning and Teaching Strategy to include a strategy for embedding Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship across the curriculum (cd 2007 Planning Round)

Further to this I have also established that ISO 14001, an accreditation standard for environmental management systems, is also being considered by the university - this is an externally-audited standard for environmental management, which certifies that the university's current structures meet a given standard for effective environmental management.

The Radical Edge

2007-05-14T22:18:00.000+01:00

A better world? Yes, of course, but how the doozy do we go about making it so?

Today's Guardian carries a story about a Tesco shareholder getting together with a number of other small shareholders to table a resolution at Tesco's AGM to compel the supermarket to enforce higher standards in dealing with suppliers and farmers across its global supply chain.

"The resolution would oblige Tesco to appoint independent auditors to ensure that workers in its supplier factories and farms are guaranteed "decent working conditions, a living wage, job security" and the right to join a trade union of their choice. Mr Birnberg had asked Tesco's directors to include the resolution to demonstrate their commitment to ethical sourcing by backing his resolution and circulating it to shareholders.

"Company secretary Jonathan Lloyd turned down the request, claiming it was "not valid", so Mr Birnberg turned to measures included in the Companies Act to force the retailer to comply. Under Section 376 of the act he needed the support of at least 100 other shareholders who held an average of 2,000 shares each."

A number of things stick out for me here - the first is the use of the Companies Act, one of the longest pieces of legislation in British parliamentary history that was passed last year, and which the Trade Justice Movement was lobbying on to ensure a greater commitment for companies to consider environmental and social responsibilities alongside profit. I think the provision that was used in this case is one of the more benign ones, but illustrates the importance and role that legislation plays in shaping a better world. It is mundane and voluminous stuff, but as illustrates a recent trend in making campaigning more specific (a Climate Change Bill, or a Sustainable Communities Bill) things can't get more stringent that being law. This is not to advocate to legislate for everything - no nanny state involved - but in terms of signals from government and shaping what is acceptable (and even what should be acceptable) behaviour is tremendously important. The detail matters.

The second point is using investors and shareholdings as a means of effecting change. To my understanding this has really only served to ask embarassing questions to executives at AGMs in the past, because most shares in big companies are owned by other big companies, banks, pension funds and private equity firms so the actual change that can be effected is limited. Some campaigners would dismiss 'change from within' as being far too glacial and simply ineffective. Can shareholder power really change institutions towards taking its social and environmental responsibilities seriously? Do we end up simply legitimating many of their practices, no matter how distasteful, in the process?

There isn't a straightfoward answer, and one to which I have tended to be a bit skeptical in the past. But I come back to considering the global justice movement as a broad one, where some groups to try to engage with 'big business' and where others to rally outside the factory gates and form human chains. Change from within, and from without, because both complement each other, shaping societal attitudes and creating the policy space for new ideas to insert themselves. All of these matter, and the diversity of strategies involved work at multiple levels (because people are diverse too and think differently) to achieve change for a better world.

Fairtrade Mad!

2007-05-11T00:15:00.000+01:00

Last week saw Aber People & Planet host the first UWA Fairtrade Forum, held in the Joint in the Students Union. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness on campus of the push to attain Fairtrade status, giving a concrete goal to frame efforts to increase consumption and awareness of Fairtrade products and the need for Fairtrade.

Speakers included Ben Gray, current Guild president, Sam Lumb, Guild president-elect, Silje Vold, Fairtrade campaigner at People & Planet, and Mark Richardson, the Wales Fairtrade Country campaign national coordinator and Tom Marshall, from Aber People & Planet (from right to left). Each spoke for a few minutes about the Fairtrade University campaign from their perspective, before the floor was thrown open to questions - including the relative benefits of Fairtrade, what it would mean in operational terms for the Guild and University and how to take the campaign forward. Happily, the Forum (with around 30 students in attendance) ended with a symbolic vote on going forward with Fairtrade status, which everyone was in agreement with.

On the same day, the Fairtrade Global Banner arrived in Aberystwyth, the latest leg of its Global Journey tour through Wales after passing through some fifty-odd countries since leaving Mumbai, India in 2004. The Cambrian News reported on the joint activities throughout the county for the day, the highlight of the banner's visit being a parade along the prom with samba band in tow, ending in the Aber castle grounds on a glorious day where the Fairtrade declaration was read out.

The Global Banner is the one on the right, representing the logo of the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), the international body coordinating national fair trade organizations around the world.

Campaign for a Progressive, Green NUS

2007-05-10T16:49:00.000+01:00

Fellow students at universities up and down the country who have been similarly disillusioned by what happened (or rather, didn't happen) at NUS Annual Conference this year have gotten together to trade ideas and develop a coherent agenda for the NUS' future. Work over the past couple of months has finally resulted in a 'manifesto' of sorts for the campaign for a progressive, green NUS, of which excerpts are taken below:

"The student movement is at a crossroads and our generation carries the responsibility of shaping our own future. We can become docile and co-opted, or we can fight and win the campaigns that will bring real benefits to our members and to countless others around the world.

"We have made a choice. We must defend social justice in education by reversing top-up fees; we must take radical action to avert the worst effects of climate change; and we must disarm our education for a peaceful future.

"It's time NUS had a wake up call. Most students shun the national movement, choosing to become involved instead in campaigning societies and movements - from People and Planet and Amnesty to Stop the War - whilst feeling isolated from NUS.

"If NUS is to win the big debates - on fees, on top up fees and the cap, every active student must be a part. By bringing these issues together under the NUS we can harness the energy of our many student activists and strengthen all our campaigns.

"The student movement should take a holistic approach to the issues it faces and not be afraid to make radical calls for change in the education system and wider society. NUS should be avowedly and unashamedly political.

In this vision, the NUS must focus on four central pillars of principle - social justice, sustainability, peace and internationalism, and participatory open democracy. What do these mean in practice? Here are the beginnings of policy change in this direction for the NUS:

*** For a progressive, ambitious, radical education campaign - opposing any kind of charging for education, especially top-up fees which penalise low paid families***

***For action on climate change - promoting Contraction and Convergence as the international political framework for action on climate change, working with the UK Student Climate Justice Campaign***

***For ethical banking - boycotting the Royal Bank of Scotland and switching NUS' account ***

***For a truly influential International Students Campaign, including Home Fees for Asylum Seekers, instead of international fees ***

***For strongly opposing racism and fascism of the BNP, AND opposing the institutional racism of deportations students to war zones***

***For Fairtrade in all universities and the NUS, but also for Trade Justice ***

***For arms control, but also for removing arms dealers from campus and backing the Campaign against the Arms Trades' Clean Investment Campaign against universities and colleges investing in arms companies ***

*** For overcoming the spurious arguments against a free education and universal grants, which can and must be funded as part of a wider scheme for greater equality in our society, and promoting alternatives such as targeted grants based on a students' income rather than the parents', or abolishing poverty altogether through a citizens income***

A good start, but the work to argue, to persuade and to influence fellow students and those beyond is just beginning.

Waste and Recycling Management sub-group

2007-05-09T16:37:00.000+01:00

Last week the new Waste and Recycling Management sub-group met for the first time. Unfortunately, a breakdown in communication meant that I did not hear of the meeting until after the event itself, and that no students were represented at the meeting.

Chaired by Alan Stephens, the Head of House Services (who is generally responsible for recycling issues across campus), the first main point of discussion were the terms of reference for the group. The group's aim is to "Assist the University Environmental Strategy Working Group with proposals, recommendation and develop policy for UWA waste management including, reduce, re-use or repair, recycle and responsible disposal of waste. The aim is to achieve and if possible over-achieve the requirements of all relevant environmental legislation."

I haven't recieved the minutes yet so I don't know the specifics, but the following agenda points that were discussed at the meeting offers some sense of the kind of things that were covered:

Purpose, scope, definition and responsibility of the sub group
Definition of recycling / waste covered by the sub group
Stakeholders (who is invited to attend)
What is not included – Genetically Modified Organisms, radioactive waste, etc.
Ideas for reducing, reusing and repair, recycling and waste disposal
Grant for recycling schemes
What are we doing now
List of recyclables
What do we want to achieve / targets
Education and awareness
Legislative compliance
List of recyclables
Build relationships with local organisations to promote and increase effectiveness

Um....

2007-05-08T15:27:00.000+01:00

Every now and then we come across something that just leaves us speechless and dumbfounded, where no matter how much we think about it we just can't bring ourselves to mouth a coherent response.

I had one of those moments today as I read about a new air service starting today between Cardiff and Anglesey (with a hefty £400,000 subsidy from the Welsh Assembly Government) - a 45-min flight, twice daily on an eighteen-seater aircraft.

The service has been roundly criticised by some political parties, and perhaps obviously groups such as Friends of the Earth Cymru and WWF Cymru for its environmental impact - air travel, of course, being the highest carbon-emitting form of travel that there is. The other criticism is that it will only benefit a miniscule number of people for such a large public subsidy.

The chairman of Anglesey council, a Mr. J.W. Williams, ended up saying that "he sympathised with people who worried about the environmental impact of the service, but said that should be balanced with the fact that it would cut down on car use."

Speechless, I am.

What to do about this climate change business...

2007-05-07T23:43:00.000+01:00

Part three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has now been released, which has focused on mitigating climate change - that is, what we can do to limit temperature increases to 2C by 2100, and how much it will cost to do so.

This report has been greeted euphorically with little hint that attempts at watering-down its content had worked, reflecting a startling degree of consensus over both science and economics. In its reading, average global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2015 and start coming down immediately after to stay within an increase of 2.4C; peaking at 2020 will see a 2.8C increase and peaking at 2030 will expect an increase of 3C. Government representatives have signed off on the report, and so we must come to expect that they will act on it. Business as usual is not an option.

Courtesy of the BBC is a quick and easy breakdown of the various sectors for action and the most effective policy choices to be taken. Transport, taxation, waste, energy - cuts in each area need to be made, and they all have competing costs and benefits.

David Adam of the Guardian sums things up as such:
"And while lifestyle changes made by individuals get a mention for the first time, written heavy between the lines on each of the report's 35 pages is the message that it is the responsibility of governments to force through the required changes.

"And the longer they leave it, the more difficult and expensive it will be."

Voting ends....

2007-05-03T23:31:00.000+01:00

I've cast my ballot(s), and I hope that you have too for these Welsh Assembly elections 2007. Turnout at the Waunfawr polling booth where I went to vote was said to be around 60%, which would appear to be a nice healthy number (given low historical turnout).

Who will govern Wales? It'll be a busy night, and answers might not be much clearer come the morning...

South Wales pipeline

2007-05-01T23:23:00.000+01:00

Over the past few months, protests over a pipeline carving its way through the Brecon Beacons have been gathering pace, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a long feature on the issue in last week's Guardian, How green was my valley (ok, anything about Wales in the Guardian surprises me).

Here's the one-minute version of the issue:
- There is a new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire (south-west Wales) for tankers to arrive from abroad - but then the LNG needs to get around the country and link into the existing network
- So, a very very long pipeline is being constructed to stretch the breadth of Wales to a terminal in Gloucestershire - very long it is, 200 miles and estimated to cost £840m (which really means that it will cost much more than that).
- The problem is that not only, at a time of having to face the reality of climate change there are big questions about this kind of money being pumped into further fossil fuel projects, but that this pipeline will stretch right through the Brecon Beacons National Park - an area, of course, for special natural conservation.
- Large swathes of national park land will have to be dug up in order to bury the pipeline and there will be some blasting with explosives too to clear the way.

The real gist of Paul Harris' article is of how the project has been forced through against local objections and concerns, dominated by London planning from the Department for Trade and Industry:
"To many people, the pipeline's arrival speaks volumes about what government and corporate power can pull off in parts of the UK that rarely catch the attention of the London-based media."

Fellow students have been / are / will be at a protest camp in Trebanos, undertaking direct action against the pipeline construction. The original plan called for the project to be completed by November, and, as the BBC reported last autumn, it costs something close to £2m for each additional month of delay - which, while not massive, is not small change either.

If you want further information about protest activities I can put you in touch with some South Wales-based colleagues who are following the situation closer than I am.

Unrelated Update: Closer to home, the DTI is being very very quiet (see Leila's blog, 30 April) on the outcome of its decision to license for oil & gas exploration in Cardigan Bay since it announced earlier in the year that it would be taking extra time, including consideration for environmental impact. A hint of holding back the bad news until after the election, maybe...?

Ooh! Linked by the Daily Post

2007-05-01T23:19:00.000+01:00

A pleasant surprise to find that this blog is among 'our favorite blogs', a list of ten blogs in the Farming section of the Daily Post website.

The Daily Post is the main North Wales newspaper, and I join (or, rather cheekily, I am joined by) David Miliband MP and Glyn Davies AM's blogs too!

Composting Capitalism and Environment Week

2007-04-29T23:26:00.000+01:00

To more or less wrap up the public side of my activities for this year, this week is Environment Week, and the highlight is a guest public lecture titled 'Composting Capitalism', on the impact of the market capitalist economy upon climate change. The presentation will be delivered by Gerry Gold, of campaign organisation A World to Win, in B22 Llandinam on Tuesday 1 May at 6.30pm.

There will be stalls in the Student Union throughout the week, including carbon footprinting on Monday and Tuesday, People & Planet's Ditch Dirty Development campaign on Thursday, and an array of eco-friendly products on Friday!

And for those who can't be fussed to search through this blog's archives, there will be a big board where you can write down your questions about the university's environmental impact - and then I'll pass them on to the relevant people within the university to be answered!

Aber is Green Festival

2007-04-28T22:57:00.000+01:00

Next week, and into the Bank Holiday Weekend is the annual Aber is Green festival - taking over the Bandstand to run exhibitions and activities to get your hands green!

The weekdays are all uniquely themed:
Tuesday - Recycling and Packaging
Wednesday - Fairtrade
Thursday - Our Local Environment (green spaces, landscapes)
Friday - Energy Efficiency, Conservation and Alternative Energy Sources
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - all this and a lot more!

So do drop by to check things out - every day from 10am to 5pm!

Dum dum duuum dum dum dum....

2007-04-28T13:20:00.000+01:00

On June 5, World Environment Day, People & Planet will be releasing the Green League 2007 - a ranking table for higher education institutions ranking them on their environmental performance.

Universities will be awarded a first, 2:1, 2:2, pass - or even a fail. Who will be the greenest in the land (and the least greenest)?

On a similar note, the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (the body for HE and FE to push for progress on green issues) announced its Green Gown awards for 2006-07, (see a write-up in the Times newspaper) for environmental improvement at universities and colleges across various criteria such as student initiatives, sustainable construction, course content, continuous improvement and energy and water efficiency.

New Links

2007-04-28T13:10:00.000+01:00

Now adding a couple of new permanent links to the list on the left

The BBC's Green Room - a space for all kinds of environmentally-related commentary from public figures, academics and activists, writing on recent issues and a huge range of perspectives - from the carbon trade, EU policy, fishing and giant squid, climate change education, organic v non-organic farming, and so forth.

The other one is the Centre for Alternative Technology's Carbon Gym - an online calculator to have a quick stab at estimating your personal carbon emissions and the one that I would recommend out of all the various similar tools and programs on the net, just because of its simplicity and clarity.

Enjoy!

2007-04-27T00:45:00.000+01:00

I'm back from my work-imposed moratorium over the last week-and-a-half, and when going through recent emails to make sure I hadn't missed anything, came across an online survey on what students think and experiences.

This one, the Universum Graduate Survey, administered by Universum Communications, instead of promising iPods or free driving lessons and whatnot, offers something different instead: a carbon offset.

I nearly glanced over the section explaining the details without quite realizing what it was - that's how unexpected something like this was, even to me. This is their explanation:

"Global warming caused by the greenhouse effect and CO2 is an increasing problem that according to many will lead to severe problems in the future if not stopped. We give you the opportunity to slow this development down by filling out the Universum Graduate Survey.

"For every student who chooses to participate Universum will remove an average student's weight of 75 kilo of CO2. Please click here to get more information"

It's a bit odd because it uses the average weight of a student (75kg apparently) to calculate how much carbon to 'buy' up, but there really isn't any kind of correlation between individual weight and carbon weight. If anything, I think it's probably an arbitrary number that they've picked out of the air and simply found some way to link that to being a student.

The information that they've provided would suggest that they offset through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is buying up carbon permits from industry, and then simply not using these permits. While this idea itself is fine in principle (leaving the question of emissions trading itself aside for the moment), the ETS has been plagued by problems over its effectiveness - including the recent assertion that far too many permits were distributed, letting the price fall and thus removing the entire financial incentives behind the scheme.

On the whole, I guess it probably can't hurt too much. At the end of the survey though, it asks you to choose between the iPod, free travel option or the carbon offset option - which sounds like an opt-out clause for them as I gather most respondents will still go for the free stuff. Still think it's a really odd idea though...

Home Energy Monitors

2007-04-17T22:23:00.000+01:00

What's this? Something FREE. Well, in that case I definitely want it!

A story that all households in the UK will be able to get a free household energy monitor (no, not a kind of lizard) is being carried by the BBC, as part of the upcoming Energy White Paper to be released by the government.

What this monitor is, is basically a device that you plug or clip into your electricity metering box in your house, that is able to tell you exactly where and how much electricity is being used - in real time too. So you'll know that right now, your fridge is using x amount of electricity, the oven is using y amount of electricity, the lighting is using z amount and so forth. Being in real time means that you switch the light off and you can see the reading drop more or less instantly. This device generally also involves a handheld monitor, so you can take the monitor anywhere around the house and keep an eye on your consumption at that time!

Interestingly, the article also notes that this is part of a more general EU requirement to provider consumers with real-time information about their energy use. The scheme will not be up and running until next year, but the idea is simple - to show people how much they're using, and how much they can save, to turn 'cut the carbon' into something tangible. That's the way forward.

Might we see this for campus residences? It's been suggested to me by a few people so you never know...

Carbon Offsetting, Travel Plan

2007-04-15T13:06:00.000+01:00

Looks like things are picking up a notch - a few new general initiatives to report on after I went for the first meeting of the Energy and Water Management steering group last week.

A policy for guidelines on e/w management and processes was agreed, including a target of cutting carbon emissions 10% for academic buildings and 5% for residential buildings by the 2009-2010. This target will be reviewed in the 08-09 academic year. Other parts of the policy have some slight revisions to it, so I will report on that later. This is also a draft policy - it still has to be approved by the rest of the university bureaucracy so it could still (hopefully not) change at a later stage. The policy includes 'an Energy Manager', and the current consultant that is employed to begin work into some monitoring systems was at the meeting too to report on his work - but the precise shape that this Energy Manager will take remains hazy at best.

A small working group to look into setting up a university-facilitated scheme for carbon offsetting for travel is being established and I'll be feeding into that - I put up my own thoughts on offsetting here a while ago. A travel plan will be developed over the next academic year to integrate and see how more sustainable forms of transport can be used and promoted. A waste reduction group will also be set up soon to devise a plan for cutting waste, improving recycling and so forth across campus - but I've yet to hear anything directly on this so I'm not quite sure what its overall remit will be.

All these elements (and these are just the highlights) are part of the university's Environmental Strategy, which will be presented to the Health, Safety and Environment committee meeting in June before again having to move through the bureaucracy to become a formal part of university policy.

Not on guilt, but on passion

2007-04-12T23:07:00.000+01:00

I've got a fair bit of respect for the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger has turned himself around into a credible and influential politician. I suppose it helps too that he's dragging his state, and the rest of the USA too, onto the climate bandwagon. He now makes one important point - that governments are built not on guilt, but on passion, and our challenge is to make climate change the raison d'etre of what government is really all about!

"The environmental movement must become "hip and sexy" if it is to succeed, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said.

"Speaking at a conference in Washington, he urged campaigners to focus on the positives of cutting carbon emissions rather than making people feel guilty. The movement must change its image just as he helped transform the "sketchy" reputation of bodybuilding, he said.

"California is seen as leading the way in tackling climate change in the US. The state - the sixth largest economy in the world - signed a law last year which set a target of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020. And while Mr Schwarzenegger cannot stand for president in 2008 because he is not US-born, he has made it clear he wants his views on climate change to play into the race.

"Addressing a largely student audience at Georgetown University, Mr Schwarzenegger said he was optimistic attitudes to the environment were changing. But, he said, campaigners on climate change needed to shake off the image of being "tree-huggers" and "fanatics". "Environmentalists were no fun, they were like prohibitionists at a fraternity party," he said to laughter.

"The Republican governor - the former body-builder turned film-star turned politician - invoked images of pumping iron to make his point. Weight-lifting was once considered a pursuit for weirdos, he said, carried out in dungeon-like gyms by people embarrassed to admit to doing it. But with positive marketing "it became mainstream, it became sexy, attractive, and this is exactly what has to happen with the environmental movement", he said. The same thing happened when the John Travolta film Saturday Night Fever made disco-dancing hip and sexy, he added, reaching even his little village in Austria.

"Mr Schwarzenegger, who has been criticised in the past over his fleet of Hummers, pointed out that his vehicles now run on bio-fuel and hydrogen. "We don't really want to go and take away the 'muscle' cars, the Hummers and the SUVs, because that's a formula for failure," he said. "What we have to do is make those cars more environmentally muscular." He rebuffed criticism from US carmakers, saying the fact they had to meet Californian standards on vehicle emissions would ensure they kept up with foreign competitors.

"And he urged campaigners to move away from using guilt to pressure people over greenhouse gas emissions. "Successful movements aren't built on guilt, they are built on passion," he said. He believes the environmental movement is approaching a "tipping point" where it will enter the mainstream, galvanising business and individuals.

"And California is leading the way, Mr Schwarzenegger said, especially as Republicans and Democrats are working together to pass pioneering legislation on the environment. "California is big, it's powerful and what we do in California has unbelievable impact and it has consequences," he said. "

Much ado about climate change

2007-04-12T22:33:00.000+01:00

A week, ago, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published part-two of its mega new assessment on climate change, this time focusing on the impacts (part one was on the science, and part three, published in a couple of months time, will be on mitigating and adaptation strategies).

Hundreds of million, the vast majority of them already living in poorer, less wealthy countries will bear the brunt of a changing climate - drought, flooding, rising sea levels, biodiversity and ecological balances tipped onto the wrong side, and so forth. And it's not just a case of 'will' or 'might' - these changes are already happening, and the hotspots for change are the Arctic (melting ice), sub-Saharan Africa (drought), small island-states (sea level rises) and mega-populated Asian river deltas (flooding).

This is not just a case of balancing the economic books and figuring out a cost-benefit analysis, but a profoundly moral choice. Do we have responsibilities to people living elsewhere in the world who are and will continue to suffer because of the high-energy lifestyles that have become the norm here in the West?

It was good to read of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stepping in and using his profile to push the issue higher up the global agenda to do the hard work for a new international treaty, as we are confronted with ever more evidence of the change happening around us - a new report illustrates the change that we could expect to see in global landmarks such as the Great Barrier Reef, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and Venice. See pictures here.

Fairtrade Status at Aber

2007-04-09T18:19:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to report that several other students are making headway with the campaign to achieve Fairtrade status for UWA, with the first Fairtrade steering group meeting in the last week of March. Regular steering group meetings are a required element of Fairtrade status, in helping to guide the further availability and awareness of Fairtrade on the university campus.

The other criteria are:
- A Fairtrade policy - there is one for the Guild of Students but not for the university.
- Fairtrade products available in all shops - chocolate bars are available in the student union shop, all coffee, tea and hot chocolate served in the student union is Fairtrade, and the same is available at university catering outlets.
- Fairtrade tea/coffee served at all university and student union meetings - which is only currently true for the Geography department and the student union, as far as we are aware.
- A commitment to campaign on Fairtrade - which People and Planet are leading on.

The main people to contact regarding our local campaign are Charlotte cel4[at]aber.ac.uk and Robin rsl5[at]aber.ac.uk. There will be another steering group meeting later in the year in early May.

50 other universities in the UK have achieved Fairtrade status, with staff and students working together to achieve common aims, and we will hopefully join them soon!

Just Down the Road

2007-04-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

In the town of our sister University of Wales institution just down the road in Lampeter, a fascinating public meeting took place last week on the town making a transition to beyond-oil living. The Guardian reported on it in a fairly lengthy article this past weekend, and I have arranged for one of the speakers at that meeting to deliver a presentation/lecture here in Aber at the end of the month - more to follow later.

The meeting was about how Lampeter can prepare, and take the first steps towards adaptation, for a world when the oil has run out. According to some accounts, we have passed the peak oil point - where world oil production peaks, and supply is only going to gradually decrease from here. And oil does run our world - all the plastic in our lives, transport, heating, medicines and drugs, machinery. So when it does run out, we'll be in a bit of a pickle.

The organizing concept is a Transition Town where the town as a whole, and most (hopefully) of its residents begin an 'energy descent' - cutting down on oil consumption, so that when the squeeze does happen, life isn't thrown into turmoil. Everything has to begin somewhere, and Lampeter is following in the footsteps of other towns elsewhere in the UK who have already set down that road. May it prosper and serve as an inspiration to all of us.

Health Warnings, Eh?

2007-04-05T23:00:00.000+01:00

The smoking ban that has just come into force here in Wales is only the next step in a long line of initiatives to cut down the dangers of secondhand smoke - and of smoking in general. It was, after all, many years ago that we first saw the health warning labels on cigarette packs.

Now, a leading think tank (ippr) is proposing that we do the same for carbon-busting flying and high-emitting vehicles with messages such as Warning: Flying Causes Climate Change.

Provide the information, make it highly visible, make people think and think again. What would be really cool is including a carbon calculation with your ticket, so you know how much CO2 the trip will actually emit. The Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and Greenpeace already have been cheekily doing similar things to vehicles - putting recall notices (failure to consider the environment) and parking tickets (for poor vehicle choice) on high-emitting vehicles. And, of course, taxation increases need to be ring-fenced and massively ploughed back into joined-up rail and bus travel.

Cure the addiction! We could set up helplines for free advice on 'how to quit' and travel low-carbon instead, increase taxes (like they do on cigarettes and alcohol)...there are a whole heap of possibilities! Somehow, though, High-Carbon-Travellers Anonymous doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

How Green is Your Computer?

2007-04-05T22:43:00.000+01:00

If you don't use a computer regularly these days, you're probably still living in the Stone Age. E-mail, research, news - computing is central to our 'modern' lives and consequently computing waste is becoming a central problem of living in a throwaway society.

Greenpeace has just released a green electronics rating scheme - at the top of the list is Lenovo and Nokia, at number 1 and 2 respectively, and the 14-company table is brought up by LG, Panasonic and Apple, second last and last respectively. Boooo.

What this table measures is the policies and practices of global IT equipment manufacturers on eliminating harmful, yucky chemicals from their products and taking back and recycling their own products when they become obsolete and consumers want to dispose of them. The chemicals are the biggest worry - chemicals that when sent to landfill, seep out and can cause toxic contamination, such as (take a deep breath) brominated fire retardants, beryllium and polyvinyl chloride. Therefore it is important that companies offer take-back facilities so that they can safely recycle equipment, and Levono, at the top of the list, offer take-back in all countries where its products are sold.

The UN now even has global e-waste targets and recently-launched initiatives, recognizing, among other problems, that black-market recycling to meet demand for computing equipment is conducted in dangerously unsafe conditions, often using child labour.

On campus, university-owned computers are recycled centrally - that is, they are collected, stored and then taken away for 'safe' disposal. Unfortunately this scheme doesn't extend to personal computing equipment. The best bet for that would be Craft Recycling, at the Aber train station - but I make no guarantees that they will actually take it. You can recycle mobile phones at the university residence receptions, but this, like many other things, is severely under-publicized.

For any fellow Apple-equipment owners out there, check out Green My Apple - tell Steve Jobs to get a greener company.

Welsh Assembly - Green Hustings

2007-04-04T00:26:00.000+01:00

With just under a month to go to the 2007 National Assembly for Wales elections, campaigning is well underway - a student hustings in the Student Union last week will be followed by a 'green' hustings, organised by Friends of the Earth Cymru next Tuesday to focus on environmental policy and issues!

Merched y Fawr, Vulcan Street, Aberystwyth
Doors open from 7.15pm, and Fairtrade (of course!) refreshments will be available

Candidates will be
Linda Grace (Labour)
Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru)
John Davies (Liberal Democrat)
Lisa Francis (Conservative)
Leila Kiersch (Green)

Come along, ask your questions! Most party manifestos appear to be available online now, so download from their respective websites and have a read!

Deadline for voter registration is 18 April - download a registration form and send it off!

The Action-Rhetoric Chasm

2007-04-03T00:25:00.000+01:00

A new survey by the Energy Saving Trust on personal action to tackle climate change (or rather, the lack thereof):

"Two-fifths of Britons are doing nothing to cut energy use, although 80% believe climate change is affecting the UK, a report has suggested.

"Only 4% of people went on holiday without flying, although 32% said they would consider it, the Energy Saving Trust's Green Barometer report showed. The study suggested tougher measures such as road tolls and carbon rationing were also unpopular.

"Researchers interviewed 1,192 households in February this year. About 75% of people in the UK feel a growing pressure to change the way they live in order to reduce the impact of climate change, the report claimed. Trying to be 'green' is regarded as a virtuous quality by 70% and reducing home energy is considered as virtuous as donating to charity, figures suggest. But only 34% thought green taxes were socially acceptable, while the figure fell to 30% for road pricing and 28% for carbon rationing.

"Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said: "There's lots of talk by politicians, industry and the media about environmental issues. For the first time the Green Barometer gives the public a voice in this debate."

"He added: "There's an enormous willingness to take on the environmental challenge, let's make the most of this window of opportunity to make a real difference. There are simple actions we can all do in the home to help reduce the amount of energy we use."

"The Energy Saving Trust said its Green Barometer report was the first national index of public opinion on green issues. These views will be tracked on a quarterly basis."

Coming hot on the heels of the latest figures last week showing that 2006 UK carbon emissions rose by a provisional 1.25%, this is cause for a moment's reflection. Government policy action and leadership at the national level needs to be married with the impetus to take personal action within our daily lives.

The introduction of the smoking ban today has lead me to think that 50 years ago, to think of banning smoking or for smoking to have the social mark of disapproval that it does today would be unthinkable; we don't have 50 years to see the same with carbon-wastefulness and personal behaviour, but hey, I remain optimistic that we can do it!

Recycling Wood

2007-04-02T01:11:00.000+01:00

A note from UWA House Services - that you can now recycle wood!

"Recycling at the University is improving with a recent survey showing that 40% ofwaste from academic buildings is being recycled. Recycling of wood products can help further reduce waste that may be land filled.Paper and other materials purchased in bulk are often delivered on pallets or in crates made of wood. There are informal contacts for staff that reuse the pallets or simply use them for all sorts of stuff such as making fences or just for fire wood.

"If you can reuse, recycle or need some free fire wood, reply by email or telephone Alan Stephens wis@aber.ac.uk on extension 1681 in House Services and help make a difference."

Lights Out!

2007-03-31T15:10:00.000+01:00

An inspiring symbolic example of action against climate change has been taken by Sydney, Australia - dimming the lights in the city for an hour to raise awareness of climate change!

This action included both offices, public buildings (Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House), restaurants and hotels, and homes and apartments. Impressive for a coordinated effort across a city of 4million! A similar action was undertaken in various European cities and towns in February, including some bars here in Aberystwyth. While some might dismiss this as a gimmick, this kind of action is crucial to reminding people, especially the 'unconverted', of the urgency of taking steps towards cutting carbon emissions, and has its own practical effect too!

What's the simplest action that you can take to prevent climate change - switch it off!

Environmental Policy Steering Group

2007-03-30T22:14:00.000+01:00

Finally! I have recieved proposed dates for the first meeting of the university's Environmental and Water Management Steering Group. This group, made up of senior managers from across the universities operational departments (residences, information services, estates) and myself from the Guild of Students, is to guide the efficient and effective management of water and energy across the UWA estate.

Its first job will be to discuss and approve, in formal terms, an energy and water management policy for the university that sets targets for cuts and so forth. Policy is important, if unsexy - it is a statement of intent and principle and something that the university management can be held accountable to in the future, so long as it is meaningful and motivated by the best intentions.

This group was established over a year ago, as part of the Carbon Trust carbon management plan but has yet to meet, despite its terms of reference calling for the group to meet once every term. I wrote to Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr. John Harries in early March asking him when the group would meet and he told me that it would do so by the end of term. Disappointingly, the term ends today and the group still hasn't met - but it should do so soon now, by the end of April at the latest.

What is a really useful reference is a report by the Welsh Audit Office - a governmental body which monitors value-for-money public service spending - in March 2005 specifically on energy and water management in the Welsh higher education sector. It provides details on management practices across the sector and highlights best practice examples. Just three universities (ourselves, Cardiff and Trinity College Carmarthen) did not have an energy policy. Finally, and unacceptably, two years after that report, we might be seeing some tangible action here in Aberystwyth.

NU-Waste?

2007-03-30T17:59:00.000+01:00

I recently returned from the 3-day National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference at Blackpool's Winter Gardens. Elections for these were supposed to be by cross-campus ballot last October/November, at the time of the referendum on the Guild constitution, but only myself and Mustafa, the sabbatical Diversity & Development Officer stood for the five places available so we were duly elected without a contest.

Conference began on Tuesday afternoon and ended on Thursday afternoon, and in the evenings stretched until 11pm. Agenda items included the dull but important stuff on constitutional ratificationand change, how conference works and the various formal deadlines, committees and terms of reference. There were also elections for the NUS sabbatical team, and the 'block of 12' - a part-time team of twelve students who serve as an executive committee for the NUS. The finance report committee included the headline figure that NUS is £1.1 million pounds in debt! How an organization can be so badly and chronically mis-budgeted I don't know.

The interesting stuff, and what took up the biggest chunk of time were the policy motions. The first set were those to do with education - funding, the call for 'free education', international students services and life, assessment and achivement methods. The second were those on welfare issues, where there was a big kerfuffle around on a motion on antiracism, which found its way into debate around the right to wear a veil for Muslim women, and a definition of anti-Semitism.

The third set of motions, around the tagline of 'strong and active unions', focused first on a governance review that the NUS is conducting into how its democratic structures work and could be reviewed. A motion on opening the door to external trustees for how individual unions are governed was passed, as was one approving the NUS Extra card rollout, although there was an amendment passed to it to the effect that discounts that have been traditionally available on the regular NUS card should not be transferred to the £10 NUS Extra card. The NUS Extra benefits apply little to life in Aberystwyth so it is something that the Guild hasn't really pushed much this year, although the income earned covered much of the costs to send 70+ students to London for the Admission:Impossible fees and funding demonstration in London last October. Unfortunately motions to approve a mature students' and international students' officer for the NUS did not get debate time.

So with all this, and constantly pushing back the schedule, there was all of fifteen minutes to debate a dozen motions in the 'society and citizenship' zone - climate change, international development, Darfur and the Iraq war. Only one motion, with one non-contentious amendment was eventually passed as conference time squeezed to a close, on climate change, to the effect of promoting the Stop Climate Chaos coalition (see the links on the sidebar) and to move NUS towards publishing its environmental impacts. I (woo hoo) delivered the 30-sec summation for this motion - the last substantive speech of conference 2007 (and, might I add, the only member of our delegation to speak on conference floor).

Much of what stood out in conference for me was the big political split between Labour-affiliated students and student members of Respect (in the George Galloway sense), who were constantly at each other in just about every debate possible. Much of this furore was over tactics, with the Respect students advocating campus occupations and activist speaker tours, while the Labour students saying that big demonstrations were not the way to go, which struck me as a bit odd given their role in organizing the October national demonstration. I was also continually frustrated by the lack of genuinely substantive debate - most speeches consisted of 'this motion will change our lives, it stands for democracy and accountability and advocates the kind of thing that we all want to see' with barely any mention of HOW the motion was going to achieve those aims.

In the specific context of my interests and the specialized knowledge that I bring , it was disappointing for the lack of discussion and prominence of green issues but if anything, this has reinforced my determination to get something out of the NUS for next year. The NUS has been virtually silent on climate change, is not affiliated to the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, and has done barely, if any, work on greening its and university operations - working with the Carbon Trust or the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges or People and Planet, the lead organisations on the issue. Towards the end of conference a dozen delegates brought sackfuls of paper waste (from all the documents and leaflets that had been shoved in our hands throughout conference) that had been strewn across conference floor and dumped them in front of the National Executive Committee - only to be shut down by the NEC and the chair and prevented from expressing their reasons and rationale for their protest.

But at the end of the day the NUS reaches into the vast majority of universities and FE colleges across the country and provides a base with which to change environmental attitudes and behaviour and that is something that I cannot ignore, even if conference was not the most inspiring event.

Beyond Hollywood - Films to Watch

2007-03-27T00:38:00.000+01:00

Two political-themed films at the end of the week as part of the Arts Centre's WOW Film Festival have been highlighted to me, which you may be interested in

Rang de Basanti (30/3/07 8.15pm), - depicting Indian revolutionaries challenging the British Raj in the 1920s...and
Bamako (1/4/07 5.30pm) - putting the IMF on a mock trial in a discussion of Third World debt and and impacts of globalisation

Courier Article

2007-03-26T17:43:00.000+01:00

A short article titled 'Why We Need an Environmental Manager' that I wrote a while back has finally been published in this term's edition of The Courier - you can download the whole edition digitally (the article is on page seven).

I reproduce the article here below:

"A priority over the past academic year has been putting pressure on the university to get its act together on environmental issues and sustainability. This has taken the shape of the Go Green campaign, which identifies four key factors that would really transform the base upon which environmental improvement can be achieved.

"Full time staff dedicated to environmental management are needed, an audit of the university's environmental impacts, public support of senior management, and a publicly available environmental policy. These factors are essential to achieve long-term change and are demonstrated by other universities leading the way in environmental performance.

"One crucial issue is for the university to have full-time staff dedicated to environmental
management. An environmental manager would not end up doing everything but would fill a crucial gap in coordinating the efforts across various departments and university services. If sustained environmental improvement is going to happen, there must be someone who is directly responsible and for whom this improvement is the very essence of their appointment.

"Who will take the lead? There is a compelling need to have someone who fully grasps the 'big picture' of what is happening on a day-to-day level, who is pro-active in identifying opportunities for improvement and can communicate changes to 10,000 staff and students.

"Progress is being made, especially on cutting carbon emissions, but it is tragic that more people are not aware of these efforts. When students understand that the university is making an effort, they will respond and bring forward ideas of their own.

"There is currently an Energy Manager, part-funded by the Carbon Trust, on a part-time consultancy basis until July. The plan of improvement that he has the task of (chiefly biomass boilers and energy-efficient lighting systems) is only the tip of the iceberg and funding for this post must be continued to see changes through effectively. The University needs to back its commitment to continual environmental progress with the resources necessary to carry out the task."

Mass Lone Demonstrations.

2007-03-26T13:29:00.000+01:00

Thanks to a friend for flagging this up - did you know that in order to protest around Parliament Square in London, you need police permission? Where's the civil liberties

A regulation of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) establishes a 1-mile radius exclusion zone for public protests around Parliament Square, in front of the Houses of Parliament. To hold any kind of demonstration, you have to apply to the Metropolitan Police six days in advance, giving details of your demonstration and have it approved. Failure to do so is an arrestable offence. This is the only such regulation anywhere in the country, and that it is right at the seat of democracy makes it even more ludicrous. Why do we need police permission to hold a lone demonstration, in a public area, especially in front of our elected representatives?

Satirist Mark Thomas is trying to coordinate mass lone demonstrations - as many people as possible applying to demonstrate on the third Wednesday of every month to illustrate the downright silliness of this law. The above link provides all the details of how you can join in and what you need to do. Yes, the police will have quite a bit more work having to process all these applications to demonstrate - but that's just the point, and they should be off doing more worthwhile things like chasing after bad guys, not having to spend time simply to re-give us the right to demonstrate .

The First Minister Writes Back...

2007-03-24T12:44:00.000Z

Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan came to Aberystwyth in mid-February for a question-and-answer session, and I submitted one on what he thought the role of the HE sector to Wales' sustainable development objectives and climate change should be. My question was not chosen to be verbally answered that evening, but I have now recieved a written reply from him.

It's two pages long, so I won't reproduce it here, just sum up the main points:

- The significance of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship and how HEs need to integrate these within their institutions - creating a culture of awareness of environmentally balanced and globally sensitive process need to be undertaken.
- Working with the Assembly Government's Sustainable Procurement Initiative
- Encouraging the development of a suitable environmental management system
- HEFCW (the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales) is working on a number of action points, and a report will be produced at the end of the year
- The value of research at Welsh institutions in reference to the Assembly Government's Science Policy, towards goals of achieving a 'low-carbon economy' and 'enabling sustainable economic and social renewal' (how nice of him to send me a copy of this policy too!)
- The creation of the Low Carbon Research Institute (across universities at Glamorgan, Cardiff, Bangor and Swansea) to focus on academic research into renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Cut CO2 from driving without giving up the car?

2007-03-23T16:49:00.000Z

Spotted - on a billboard in Nottingham.

Flashy advertising on eco-driving from the Department of Transport in its new Act on CO2 campaign. I've also bumped into a few of these in pop-up form on the Guardian website! While every bit of awareness and individual action matters greatly, I hope that this isn't the sum of their 'big idea' on climate change while encouraging airport expansion and wider, bigger roads.

In any case, what does smarter driving entail?
- As the billboard suggests, pumped up tyres reduce the work that the engines have to do
- Less clutter in the boot - less weight that the car has to haul around
- Driving within the speed limit ensures efficient fuel consumption
- Less stopping and starting means less CO2 - gradually slowing down and starting up again
- Keep the revs down to reduce engine wear and fuel wastage.
- Idling is wasting fuel - kill the engine while waiting for 3min+.

Assembly Hustings on Monday

2007-03-23T12:00:00.000Z

A student hustings for the main parties who have candidates standing in Ceredigion (Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru) for the May 3 Welsh Assembly elections will be held on MONDAY the 26th of March at 6pm in the Joint, in the Student Union - a great chance to quiz them on the issues that matter to you!

Voter registration forms will also be distributed at the evening, so if you haven't registered to vote, you can do so then!

World Water Day

2007-03-23T11:22:00.000Z

Yesterday marked World Water Day 2007, when 392,000 children will have died from drinking dirty water and inadequate sanitation so far this year.

Fascinating reading is the UN Development Program's 2006 Human Development Report, which focuses on water scarcity as a critical issue underpinning sustainable development for the majority of the world's poor. Despite its arcane title, do check it out - access to clean, safe, drinking water is, quite simply, a matter of life and death. More than a third of humanity - 2.6 billion people - do not have access to the sanitation that we take for granted in the UK.

Still, there's an interesting tension that I encounter - do I choose to drink tap water, and avoid the environmental costs of bottled water (plastic, transport, purification) that retails at roughly the same price as petrol, or opt for One, a bottled water brand where money is donated to buying merry-go-rounds in Africa that double as water pumps?

The UK Department for International Development has a strategy on increasing access to water and sanitation as part of its work and has just announced increasing aid contributions towards this end. The two lead UK campaigning organisation on global water issues are WaterAid, whose current campaign, End Water Poverty insists that governments provide sanitation and water for the world's poorest people, and the World Development Movement, which is campaigning against the privatisation of public water services in Nepal by British company Severn Trent. Get involved!

Inching Forward with Recycling

2007-03-21T11:12:00.000Z

I met yesterday with Alan Stephens and Eleri Thomas, who are head of House Services and Residential Services respectively, about recycling and broader environmental issues.

The upshot is that by the beginning of the next academic year, there
- will be plastic bottles/glass/tin can recycling facilities ('receptacles' seems to be the fashionable word) at ALL locations near residences where there are currently big green bins to put black-bag waste.
- within residences, there will be some form of method for collecting recyclables - whether these are plastic boxes or racks from which green recycling bags can be hung will be confirmed in due course.

Making recycling easier and more accessible - and these measures will be combined with information inside halls and from management so that not only are the facilities in place, but the message is getting out to students too. The challenge is to integrate the whole waste reduction and recycling issue within how Residential and Hospitality Services operates - let's see what happens.

From my perspective, it's about time - we can expect no less.

The Oil Bank of Scotland

2007-03-20T13:42:00.000Z

PLATFORM, a campaign group focusing on the social impacts of transnational corporations, has just released a new report on how the Royal Bank of Scotland provides credit and financing to dozens and dozens of fossil-fuel projects around the world, backing further fossil fuel exploitation and contributing to climate change.

The oil and gas activities that RBS finances are not only climate-unfriendly projects, but force open pristine environmental areas and threaten the lives of indigenous peoples. RBS openly brands itself as the oil and gas bank as the bank to go to for oil and gas investors - and its support for renewable energy is comparatively miniscule. The financial backing (overdrafts, loans, project finance) that RBS provides to oil and gas projects offers assistance to projects in areas that would be otherwise financially unviable and ensures that RBS is directly involved in transforming oil and gas reserves into carbon dioxide - spurring on climate change.

The RBS' worldwide investments would account for one-quarter of UK household carbon emissions - and underlies the point also made by Christian Aid earlier in February of the crucial, but oft-neglected role that UK companies play in generating carbon emissions across th world.

So what can you do? I would urge you all to switch your bank accounts away from an RBS/NatWest one, and rather than choose just another bank that is marginally less socially-responsible, I'd recommend the Co-operative's Smile account. The Smile account follows strict ethical guidelines, so you can bank safely in the knowledge that your money isn't providing financial support to oil companies, arms dealers, human rights violators or environmentally irresponsible businesses!

Oh, and if you do make the switch - drop RBS a line to let them know. Otherwise, they might think that the reason you're switching is their interest rate...

Big Old Compost Heap

2007-03-19T15:49:00.000Z

A whopping 6.7m tonnes of food are chucked away each year, according to WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme, a DEFRA-funded body). Fussy kids, over-purchasing, not paying attention to best before dates and the wrong storage temperatures were the most common reasons - and all this adds up to almost one-fifth of household domestic waste!

This is important for a number of reasons - decreasing landfill capacity, the greenhouse gases caused from as the food decomposes in landfill and the energy needed to transport and store all this excess food that is simply wasted. At least the surveying has highlighted that around a third of all UK households compost regularly - I wonder what Residential Services might say if I started a compost heap on the bit of grass in front of my house?

Oops

2007-03-19T15:47:00.000Z

While I've finally gotten the hang of this blogging business, I've just discovered that I ended up turning the 'moderate' bit on for comments - so I've had to go through 400+ comments, most of which have been spam - but the useful bit are people's own stories of claiming back fares from train companies from an earlier post in January!

Sweatshop Labour

2007-03-15T23:00:00.000Z

I saw a movie called China Blue on Tuesday evening as part of the Arts Centre's ongoing WOW film festival, which traced the experiences of a young Chinese girl moving to the city to work in a jeans factory. Produced by Teddy Bear Films, it combines documentary footage together with diary excerpts, and highlights the conditions under which jeans, and indeed much of the clothing that we wear are made - 18 hour days, arbitary salary deductions, cramped living conditions, working without overtime...

The low price fashion that we can get at the explosion of chains such as Primark, Peacock's and the Officer's Club (among many others) comes at a human and social price that is far too inconvienient to acknowledge. Short turnaround times for bringing new designs from drawing board to shop floor mean that production time is ever-more squeezed - or rather, workers are ever more squeezed to meet deadlines. The high competition to supply the market - Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Thai garment factories mean that the situation is essentially a buyer's market - the buyer sets the terms and has the freedom and flexibility to easily go to whoever can supply garments at those terms. A race to the bottom, nothing less.

But a buyer's market means that the buyer is in control, and ultimately we are the buyers. Do we then draw out that age-old tactic of a boycott? Not without trying to engage and pressure the companies that we purchase from first. Last weekend, People and Planet members in cities up and down the country leafleted Primark customers to ask them that Primark ensure that child labour is not used and basic working conditions maintained in the production of their clothes, and that worker rights are respected. A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation on the working conditions of cotton pickers in Uzbekistan, called White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton, and Fashion Victims: The True Cost of Cheap Clothes at Primark, Asda and Tesco, released last December by War on Want, make for some shocking reading.

Truly ethical, guilt-free clothing brands are readily available now, but still only form a fraction of the market. Getting mainstream supplies to switch wholesale to guarantee production methods, such as Marks and Spencers have done with Fairtrade cotton (40 tonnes a year!), is the best way to transform livelihoods. So I was doubly disappointed to realize that an Elections Committee T-shirt I was wearing (or the Headway t-shirts used to welcome freshers to Aber) today has been produced by Fruit of the Loom - which has been the target of campaigns at Oxford and York universities for working condition violations at its Mexican factories.

Grrr. More to follow in the coming weeks.

Guild Elections...

2007-03-14T01:44:00.000Z

A reminder that Aber Guild of Students elections are on THURSDAY at various locations across campus - in the Union, Penbryn reception, Cwrt Mawr amenity block, Old College, Llanbadarn refectory, Llandinam concourse, and a mobile voting van that will be visiting the various halls in town. You can cast your ballot, depending on which box, between 10am and 7pm - and the count begins shortly thereafter! By way of interest, candidates for the Environment and Ethics post (first time there's been an election in 3 years!) are Laura Parrack and Jenny Mace - and I think that's just about all I'm allowed to say here!

You can check out candidate manifestoes and clips from today's candidate hustings from the AberGuild website.

New Climate Change Bill!!

2007-03-14T00:49:00.000Z

And so, what began as Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign in 2005 is now taking the shape of parliamentary legislation in a draft Climate Change Bill published today. A major step forward, especially in its headline objective of enshrining into law the commitment to cut carbon emissions 60% by 2050.

The devil, of course, is in the detail, but today is a big moment that I'm proud to have been part of (together with numerous other Aber students) in lobbying MPs to throw their support behind the push for the Climate Change Bill. What will the current proposals achieve? I'll leave that up to the concise summaries provided by the BBC and the Guardian. Environment Secretary David Miliband even explains it all for us in a 2-min YouTube video clip!

And of course, you can join in the clamour for a strong Climate Change Bill that 'does stuff' through the Friends of the Earth website to contact your Member of Parliament.

Knotweed? Not that I can see...

2007-03-13T01:10:00.000Z

An interesting and admittedly puzzling article in yesterday's Wales on Sunday that 'extremists are waging war on a Welsh university [Aberystwyth] over experiments on animals'.

"The anonymous anti-vivisectionists have launched a campaign against the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, claiming the institution carries out "cruel and pointless" tests. They are also targeting the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER), which has a research farm in Aberystwyth and enjoys close working links with academics.

"Yesterday, the University of Wales said it did not carry out research which caused suffering to animals. Its website says students do take part in dissection and studies tissues of freshly killed animals.

"Communicating with Wales on Sunday by e-mail, the activists say their campaign is well underway. Action so far, they say, includes spreading highly destructive Japanese knotweed over parts of the university grounds and sending 1,000 letters of complaint to the university.
They claim to have poured smelly acid into university toilets, changing rooms and a library, texted university staff with abusive messages and spray-painted red graffiti on the drives and gates of their homes. IGER signs are also said to have been sprayed with slogans.

"The group says university staff and IGER workers have also had their personal car details used to apply for lots of car insurance quotes to clog up their home and work phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

"University spokesman Arthur Dafis refused to confirm if the institution had been hit by extremists. However security staff at IGER said their facility had been hit.

"Mr Dafis said: "The University of Wales does not undertake any scientific research that causes suffering or distress to animals, and all work is, of course, covered by the required Home Office licences."

Well, I haven't heard or seen anything about this - although I probably wouldn't know if staff were being harassed. Or I don't know what Japanese knotweed looks like so I can't tell you if I've spotted it around university grounds. Any reports of sightings would be welcome!

Coming Soon...

2007-03-12T16:34:00.000Z

Wastewise Wales...coming soon to a university near you!

New recycling bins for glass and plastic bottles are in place - and a quick peek inside shows that students are using them and you're sticking in the right stuff too! More can banks should be along the way in the next month...

All the recycling points are now being progressively tagged with the above Wastewise logo in the hope that students will recognize some continuity in current efforts on waste reduction and energy awareness. The new recycling points should be complemented by upcoming initiatives in residences and academic buildings too...

Tough Targets, Tough Monitoring

2007-03-10T18:17:00.000Z

The news that government departments are failing to meet their own green targets is disappointing, but perhaps not too surprising. The full details of the Sustainable Development in Government 2006 report can be broken down by both department and by subject field, and is available online and presented in a fairly easy-to-read form at the Sustainable Development Commission's website.

Just as the impact of Government is fairly significant in its sustainable development implications for the entire country (650,000 employees, 0.5% of the entire UK CO2 output, 2% of the UK's landmass), so too is UWA to the Mid/West Wales region (10,000 students and staff for a start) and what I have found the most useful is the extent of the detail that the Government's sustainable development reporting scheme provides. After all, commitments can eternally float around in the air unless they are pinned down to measurable, time-bound and reported targets and there are currently none that are a formal part of university policy. These are the details which the Sustainable Development Commission have used to assess progress (which it acknowledges is heavy on the environmental side and less on the social side):

- An environmental management system (EMS) to report publicly on improvements with verified data for 100% of the office estate
- Travel - CO2 emissions from transport reduced by 10% compared with four years ago.
- Water - consumption per full-time equivalent staff member down to 7.7 cubic metres
- Waste - annual 1% reduction in landfill waste and 5% increase in recycling.
- Energy - cutting carbon emissions, improving energy efficiency and 'green' energy procurement
- Sustainable Procurement (purchasing and contracts)
- Estates management - sustainable development a major factor in new buildings and major refurbishments
- Biodiversity - improved condition of SSSIs
- Social activities (no, not the number of pub crawls) - volunteer projects, tackling social exclusion, etc.

And of course, targets are reviewed annually and adjusted accordingly. A model to follow?

Strategic Planning

2007-03-08T00:10:00.000Z

A cursory glance at the university's 2006-2011 strategic plan is perhaps a fair illustration of the importance of the environmental sustainability agenda to current thinking about UWA's long-term future.

A section that deals specifically with how the Welsh Assembly's sustainable development objectives are being met seems, to me, a bit vague - and it is worth noting that a reason that this section exists in the first place is to meet, at least nominally, a HEFCW (HE Funding Council for Wales) requirement to mainstream sustainable development into university planning. In full:

Sustainable Development
"We will seek to ensure that our activities are sustainable through maintaining a broad portfolio of research (1.2) and teaching (2.3‐2.4 and 7.1) to maximise and sustain our level of recruitment, in particular seeking to ensure the sustainability of subjects of specific strategic importance to Wales (1.3). We also note our activities aimed at sustaining the level of research income (1.4). Our work to ensure that a strategic, sustainable approach to the provision of an IT infrastructure is noted (8.1 – 8.4).

"We note also our work to ensure a sustainable Estate, including addressing long‐term maintenance issues (9.6) and developing a University Energy and Water Management Policy (9.7). We are fully committed to improving our performance in relation to the 14 Key Performance Indicator Trigger Metrics provided b the Funding Council as a measure of sustainability (9.2). "

If, at the very least, sustainability is thought to be as where economic, societal and environmental considerations meet, I find it hard to see how the first section meets that aspiration at all. Sustainability, in that section, appears to me more the ability of the university to continue for the long-term without collapsing into itself - things like recruitment, research funding, and technological innovation. The bracketed numbers refer to specific paragraphs in the main text of the strategic plan and by way of illustration, I've picked out two of them:

2.3 Continue to review and enhance the portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in order to enhance the student larning experience and achieve our HEFCW funded number and our internal targets for taught postgraduate recruitment.
2.4 Continue to explore possible new areas in non‐traditional and lifelong learning in order to widen access to HE.

So where does any element of environmental sustainability fit in there? It may be an implicit point, but unless you went looking for it you would thinking of 2.3 and 2.4 in terms of environmental sustainability. The second section of the 'sustainable development' description appears to be only marginally more useful. Paragraph 9.7 is the only area that explicitly addresses what we would instinctively think of as belonging to the sustainable development agenda:

9.7 Improve energy management through developing the partnership with the Carbon Trust and developing and implementing a Univerity Energy and Water Management Policy.

I could go on and on - no mention of sustainability in the environmental sense in UWA's mission statement, or even remotely in the nineteen priorites that it sets out for the 2006-2011 planning period. I really don't think that I'm being too cynical here. Have a look at the plan yourself and tell me if you think I'm drastically misreading it. It seems simply like an outline for development - forget any idea of sustainability. More will follow on the particular point of an energy and water management policy.

Petition Reply on Cardigan Bay oil and gas drilling

2007-03-06T20:29:00.000Z

I signed an e-petition on the 10 Downing Street website calling for the Government not to grant licenses for oil and gas exploration in Cardigan Bay due to the potential detrimental effects such activities would have on the marine wildlife, with knock-on effects on the West Wales tourism economy. The paper copies of the petition were presented to the Prime Minister's residence a couple of weeks ago by campaign coordinator Leila Kiersch and MP Mark Williams. I have now recieved a response from the Prime Minister to the petitions:

"The Government recognises that the oil and gas sector is one of the UK's most important industries and our role in awarding offshore oil and gas licences is to promote the continued development of the North Sea whilst respecting and minimising the impact on our environment.

"Four blocks, in Cardigan Bay and the Moray Firth, which are close to, or on, certain Special Areas of Conservation that were applied for in the 24th Oil and Gas Licensing Round have been the subject of representations regarding dolphins located in or near them. In order to consider these concerns in more detail the Department of Trade & Industry announced on 1 February that it is deferring a decision on whether or not to award licences for these 4 blocks. A separate Appropriate Assessment will be undertaken in relation to these blocks and will be consulted on before any decision is made.

"There are no job implications since no activity has taken place."

Blah, blah, blah. Funny that, I thought tourism was also an important industry.

Fairtrade Fortnight events in Aber

2007-03-06T13:14:00.000Z

Just a summary of all things Fairtrade happening in Aber over the next week...

- Cotton on to Fairtrade - Shailesh Patel, a Fairtrade cotton producer from India, will be in Aber on Friday evening (9 March) at 7pm to speak about his experiences and the difference that switching to Fairtrade makes to his livelihood. This will be held at Merched y Wawr Hall, Vulcan Street and entrance is free!

- Fairtrade breakfast - A Fairtrade breakfast buffet at the Treehouse restaurant on Saturday 10 March from 9.30-11.30am.

- China Blue - a cinema about explotative manufacturing practices in the clothing industry, showing at 6pm on Tuesday 13 March in the Arts Centre cinema. This will be followed by a discussion about what we can campaign on to end these practices.

- Fairtrade Fashion - a Fairtrade fashion show on Friday 16 March at 7pm at the Morlan centre, Queen's Street, featuring designs from People Tree and other ethical clothing providers. Entry is 5 pounds.

For more details contact Arnold Smith, of the Aberystwyth Fairtrade group, at 01970 611769.

Why the university doesn't run on green electricity

2007-03-05T21:12:00.000Z

Two years ago People and Planet members were running a Green Electricity campaign on campus, trying to persuade the university to switch to a 'green electricity' supplier, and one of the posts here from the fall highlighted how due to a change in supplier, the university was recieving a marginally higher proportion of its electricity from renewable sources.

The reason why the university as a whole hasn't made the switch to green electricity is financial, and goes back to a government mechanism called the Climate Change Levy. This is a tax of 0.43p for every kilowatt of non-renewable energy that is consumed by non-domestic users. UWA does not directly purchase its own energy supplies, but does so through the Energy Consortium, a group of HE institutions who procure their supplies together.

The mixed-usage of electricity at the university, for residential and business purposes, however, means that UWA is liable for different levels of the CCL. For instance, 'domestic' consumption of electricity is only charged a 5% VAT rate, whereas 'business' use is charged at 17.5%. Supplies that only attract a 5% VAT rate are also exempt from the CCL. When the contract to supply electricity was negotiated last autumn, the cheapest tender was recieved from a supplier (Scottish & Southern) that did not offer variable percentages of green electricity supplies, thereby preventing the consortium from choosing a green electricity option. I have been told that choosing the green option would have cost UWA £29,900 more than the current not-very-green option.

For domestic/personal consumers, last December the National Consumer Council produced a report into green electricity tariffs that wades through the jargon and different concepts involved. Its main guidance to consumers is to be wary of the claims that electricity companies make, as these are largely self-regulated, and it also provides a fairly accessible, but detailed assessment of the various options that the electricity companies provide.

Eeek!

2007-03-05T14:51:00.000Z

Headline news today on an audit report prepared by scientists from University College London - The current pace of UK Government policies will fail it meet its target of cutting carbon emission by 30% by 2020. Instead, this target will not be met until 2050 - which then calls into question its current 60% target for that period.

The audit, available in full from the UCL website here, projects that a cut of 12-17% will be reached by 2020 (against a 30% target). There are two particularly important points - the first is that the Government's predictions are based on an optimistic assessment of the effectiveness of voluntary policy programmes - and the second is that the 'easy win' cuts have already been made.

On the first, a prime example is the Code for Sustainable Housing which sets ambitious targets - but is entirely voluntary. Enforcement of such voluntary programmes is difficult, and whether the targeted savings will actually be made involves a fair bit of wait-and-see. On the second, the big savings - switching from coal to natural gas, the decline of heavy industry - have already been made and there will be hard work ahead to continually make carbon trimmings that all add up.

No wonder they say Mondays are the most depressing days of the week...

NUS Wales Conference

2007-03-03T19:17:00.000Z

I've just returned from the NUS Wales spring conference in Llandrindod Wells - in a very comfortable setting in a three-star hotel spending two days meeting and discussing policy with students from HE and FEs institutions across Wales.

My big Welsh political idea on sustainable development in Welsh HEs that I briefly described a few entries ago was passed, after I introduced the motion, without any opposition (I should add that all new policy motions were passed without opposition). Student unions submit a priority list of motions that they want to discuss ahead of the conference itself, and it was a pleasant surprise to see the motion that I drafted appear as third on the list (out of ten)!

Stephen Brown, NUS National Secretary, was at the conference on the second day to deliver a short report on NUS UK activities and take questions. I asked him about progress with an Environmental and Ethical campaign, particularly after the conference that I went to last October and even electing a NUS E&E committee then. The response was that he would check things with the campaign convenors, which is fair enough, but the general explanation was on how NUS doesn't have the resources to run extensive campaigns on issues such as E&E and evaluating how NUS operates in avoiding overstretch is a key governance priority.

Other elections at the conference (apart from Aber guild president Ben Gray becoming NUS Wales president for the next year) inclued those for a block of three members from Higher Education students. I initially didn't put my name forward because of the uncertainty of my future plans beyond the next couple of months, but after nominations were re-opened when only one candidate stood for the three vacancies, I changed my mind and thought 'why not'. After all, I would have liked to follow through my motion on sustainable development and be involved with some of the other issues that the NUS National Executive Committee (which is what the block of three elections were to) would deal with. A rush of candidates for this second round of voting (five candidates for two spots) meant that unfortunately I wasn't elected - although I did make it to the final round, losing out my less than a quarter of a vote.

There are two thoughts that have struck me since the conference - that there are tremendous opportunities for NUS Wales to exploit and take advantage in terms of Welsh politics, to make itself a real political force where its lobbying works. The second is the scope for non-traditional concerns - that is, everything but tuition fees, educational grants and allowances, and private funding - and how in what is still a fairly nascent Welsh political landscape there is space for NUS Wales to move into to say 'look, students feel this way that you should...'

I remember Help the Aged pointing out that it is the grey vote that will decide the outcome of the Assembly elections because the 55-64 age group are significantly more likely to vote than any other demographic. I see no reason why, that one day, NUS Wales could point out the same for students.

Walking the walk?

2007-03-02T00:56:00.000Z

In the midst of the hullaballoo about Al Gore's home energy usage (convieniently coming after a double-Oscar win for An Inconvienient Truth), I turn to Mark Lynas, who more or less sums up much of my thoughts on the issue:

"Hands up anyone who isn't a hypocrite. Come on, own up. Who out there actually lives by every one of the principles they profess to uphold? And why has it suddenly gone so quiet? When it comes to ourselves, it seems, we are quick to realise that life is full of grey areas and being pure and virtuous is never as easy - nor even as desirable - as it might appear. That does not stop us sitting in judgment of others, however, particularly those whose message we are unwilling to hear, and who, deep down, we would dearly love to see exposed as two-faced and, well, hypocritical.

"Hence Al Gore's "exposure" yesterday. "As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," complained Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, highlighting that Gore's mansion in Nashville uses 20 times as much energy as the average American household. Yes, the TCPR is a right-wing anti-environmental lobby group. But even so, its barbs hit home.

"The reason is simple: it is hard to trust someone who says one thing and does another. When I first saw Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, several people in the audience were muttering darkly about the irony of him taking so many flights to promote a message that would require people to, er, reduce their flights. As someone who writes books and gives talks on climate change myself (both of which occasionally require me to fly), I have noticed how people often delight in pointing to the contradictions inherent in my own lifestyle. "Still jetting around the world to save us from climate change?" asked an acquaintance snidely last week.

"So why this obsession with hypocrisy? The motives of the rightwing campaign against Gore are obvious: if the accusers can smear the man, then they can also undermine his message. Similar campaigns have been run against London's mayor, Ken Livingstone - arguing that he uses too many taxis, for example - in order to undermine his effectiveness as one of the only political leaders in the world to show real vision and leadership on climate change. Likewise, the charges levelled against Prince Charles for flying to the US with a large entourage to pick up an environmental award, as well as knocking McDonald's while selling high-fat Duchy Originals pasties, foster the impression that the Prince - and his green obsessions - are all a bit ridiculous.

"At a deeper level, the effects of this blame game can be even more damaging. There is perhaps a "chilling effect" to the hypocrisy witch-hunt, where prominent people who might support green causes keep their mouths shut for fear of having their energy bills fished out of their bins at night by some snooping tabloid hack. Each time a potential "green hero" is shot down in flames, we all feel that little bit more cynical about politicians, leaders and society in general. Cynicism breeds selfishness and a de facto acceptance of the status quo - no cynic ever led a movement for positive change. In this sense, charging someone with hypocrisy serves to reinforce denial: "You're a hypocrite, so why should I do what you tell me?" Or the more disempowering: "If even you can't do it, how can I?" The practical outcome is that lightbulbs go unchanged, lofts uninsulated and bicycles unridden. And greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar.

"This denial response is also why, on the other hand, no one likes a greenie who is not a hypocrite. Climate activists I know who do walk the walk (eschewing all flights, for example) look prim and obsessive, as if they are out of touch with the concerns and pressures faced by ordinary people. It is fine for BBC Newsnight's "ethical man" to be a tongue-in-cheek reporter, but if it is the head of Greenpeace who is totally pure and virtuous, then that is seen as just annoying.

"The charge of hypocrisy against environmentalists may also be illegitimate as well as irrelevant. In my view, Gore was right to rack up thousands of air miles in his campaign to raise awareness of climate change: the political shift he has helped to engineer, particularly in America, has been truly profound, and is one of the few real causes for optimism on climate change today. If he had stayed at home in Tennessee with the lights and heating off, wearing organic woolly jumpers and feeling generally good about himself, we would have a lot further to travel in terms of awareness-raising than we do now. Being a purist may be comforting, but it is unlikely to change the world."

My summary - nothing ventured, nothing gained. This relates to the upcoming Guild elections too - and some will question why the candidates for my Environment and Ethics position will be giving out leaflets and putting up posters - shock, horror, using paper and cutting down trees! If you don't put anything forward, you're not going to get anything back in return.

The State of Recycling

2007-03-01T22:48:00.000Z

The easiest and also one of the most practical green things to do - recycling! Here a summary of ongoing activity on recycling on campus:

- Around 40% of waste from academic buildings is recycled
- The university has received £2,800 from Welsh Assembly Government grant funding as part of its public sector waste reduction programme, and this funding is being used to purchase new recycling bins around campus (see below).
- The longer-term goal for Residential and Hospitality Services is to ensure wherever black-bag waste disposal points are located, there are accompanying facilities for recycled material.
- New plastic bottle and tins/can recycling facilities are being introduced at the Cwrt Mawr car park, behind the TV/Film building, and byPenbryn blocks 4/5 and 8/9 (pictures to follow soon).
- The University works with a number of external organisations in managing recycling. These organisations include Aberystwyth Recycling Centre, Action Aid,Ceredigion Recycling and Ceredigion County Council.

My Big Political Idea

2007-02-28T20:46:00.000Z

This definitely sounds a bit esoteric, but will be of interest to any fellow policy wonks out there...this weekend, at the NUS Wales conference in Llandrindod Wells, and subject to debate time, I have put forward a motion on the subject of 'sustainable development in Welsh higher education'

The thrust of the motion is to call for the National Assembly for Wales to hold an inquiry into sustainable development in the Welsh higher education sector. If my basic understanding of assembly procedures is correct, this would be in the form of a select committee inquiry to assess the extent to which 'sustainable development' is being supported through the twelve higher education institutions in Wales. This would include expert testimony, the public being invited to submit responses, and a report and recommendations being set out by the relevant committee.

I think there can be a more diverse approach for students to lobby the Assembly other than on tuition fees, and this area seems to be to be a comparatively under-emphasized area of policy and strategy. This inquiry would be partly an assessment of where SD in Welsh HE institutions is and setting out a direction for the future - so the idea of such an inquiry is really policy-neutral in that it doesn't say 'do this' or 'do that'; rather, 'let's see where we are and what we need to do to meet our sustainable development objectives'. At the very least, it would hopefully place the issue on the political agenda.

Racing into the Future

2007-02-27T15:48:00.000Z

The Honda Formula One racing team have stepped into the climate change fray with the launch of their car for the 2007 season which features no advertising, but Planet Earth.

Their associated website, Myearthdream, urges people to make carbon-saving pledges and then have their pledge appear as part of the car's design livery at F1 races. The pledges feature the simple stuff and each and every one of us can do - switching electricity suppliers, low-energy lightbulbs, recycling, using public transport - and something I don't see very often - not ironing and going for the 'crumpled look'. I should tell this last one to my mum...

I was taken aback when I read about this initiative- only recently have I begun to think about the environmental impact of F1 racing (which I frequently watch) and the industry has been targeted for encouraging high speeds and a profligate use of fuel. Still, Honda, alongside Toyota, have been at the forefront of lower emissions from cars and fuel efficiency and I would think it was complete greenwash if it was coming from a company like Land Rover. Watching a car plastered in the image of the Earth go around and around the track can only spark off conversation and thinking on climate change by F1 fans.

Taking the lead in London

2007-02-27T13:19:00.000Z

London mayor Ken Livingstone is at it again, this time with a detailed plan for how London will cut its carbon emissions by 60% over the next twenty years. As Britain's capital, this is not only a highly symbolic move but with significant practical implications for tackling climate change. The plan focuses on current technologies and methods, which are all immediately do-able.

I'm all for blue-sky thinking, such as cloudseeding ships to create more cloud to reflect sunlight, but the fact remains that decentralized energy and energy efficiency still have a long way to go and they can do the job without much fuss. Transport, offices, homes, the energy supply - if we each do a little, we all do a lot.

The mayor said:
"Londoners don't have to reduce their quality of life to tackle climate change, but we do need to change the way we live"

Too right.

Fairtrade Fortnight rolls around!

2007-02-26T15:44:00.000Z

Ah yes, 20% discounts at the Co-op on its entire Fairtrade range (alcohol, chocolate, coffee, flapjacks, cakes, sugar, bananas, avocados, etc etc etc)...it can only be Fairtrade Fortnight again!

This is Britain's fourteenth Fairtrade Fortnight, whose lead organiser is the Fairtrade Foundation - the people behind the certification of the Fairtrade mark.

From the entire banana crop (100m bananas) of St. Lucia recieving Fairtrade prices, to the news that Fairtrade sales now top £300m a year, and from statistics showing that the Fairtrade mark reaches over 2,500 different products to supermarkets (chiefly the Co-op, Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury's) falling over each other to extend the reach of their Fairtrade range, things are looking up for the kind of consumption that offers a helping hand to producers across the world.

The social premium that Fairtrade certification provides is a fundamental idea behind the concept - as a kind of 'top-up', it offers an investment that would otherwise take years to build up. Where these additional funds are invested is decided by a local committee of farmers (promoting cooperation and mutual support). Examples of projects include building more classrooms, processing equipment, housing, university and high school scholarships, clinics and village halls.

More details on local Aberystwyth events to promote Fairtrade will soon be up - take this chance to choose Fairtrade at supermarkets, shops and cafes now!

Past the 2000-hit mark!

2007-02-26T15:37:00.000Z

This blog has now surged pass the 2000-hit mark, which was a pretty big milestone for me and one that I didn't think I would reach when I first got going with this project last fall. It averages about 20-30 hits a day an a rough average of about one post a day, which includes weekends and holidays. I am, however, somewhat perplexed by a massive surge yesterday of 500+ hits, of which 300+ came from different users...

People OR Planet?

2007-02-25T21:17:00.000Z

Perhaps the biggest debate within the ethical lifestyles movement that has rapidly leaped onto the public agenda is an apparent trade-off between people ((Fairtrade) food produced in the developing world that is key to escaping the poverty trap) and planet (the food miles involved in such global supply chains and the carbon emissions associated with them).

Do we go for local food that has only travelled a few dozen miles to arrive at our doorstep, or do we choose food produced halfway around the world that is an integral part of economic survival for producers? A BBC article reports on the dangers that 'the green backlash' could pose to millions of farmers, particularly in Africa, whose agricultural produce is destined for UK supermarket shelves. A misguided kind of UK consumer pressure towards food miles, it writes, could threaten the survival of entire industries, leaving millions worse off for comparatively little reductions in carbon emissions.

What struck me particularly were the opening lines of the article:
"What is global warming?", asks Samuel Mauthike, a small scale vegetable farmer in Kirinyaga, Kenya's central province, as he crouches down compressing the moist soil around his green bean plants.

"Is it something caused by us in Africa?"

This point is particularly relevant - in making food miles a central concern do we end discriminating against those who have contributed the least to climate change? All of a sudden, African farmers are perplexed by consumers demanding less of their product just because it comes from distant lands, asking 'hold on, have we done something wrong?' We should, of course, be trying to cut carbon emissions everywhere that we can, and in development terms be searching for low-carbon growth and development.

Perhaps the high dependence of developing-country farmers upon Western markets means that to cut them off would only lead to more environmentally-destructive behaviour out of desperation; when we can break the cycle of poverty through trade, more secure livelihoods enable sustainability to be taken into greater consideration. There is a big picture to remember - and a more sustainable world must also necessarily be a fairer, inclusive one.

An online debate among People and Planet members that explores these issues can be accessed here.

GM Motions

2007-02-25T17:46:00.000Z

Last Tuesday at the first Guild General Meeting of the term, two motions of particular relevance to me were passed, one indicating Guild support for the Go Green campaign, and one about recycling in halls - one of my priorities for the rest of the year.

Go Green
GM Resolves:

To support Aber People and Planet, the Guild's Environment and Ethics Officer, and others in campaigning for UWA to Go Green, which involves the university having in place four key factors: (a) a full-time members of staff dedicated to environmental progress; (b) A publicly-available environmental policy; (c) The active, public support of senior management to environmental progress; (d) A comprehensive review to investigate all the environmental impacts of the university;
To mandate the Guild President to write to the Vice-Chancellor to express the Guild's support for the Go Green campaign
To encourage all students to support the Go Green campaign through publicity in the Union and the website.

Recycling in Halls

GM Resolves:

To mandate the Environment and Ethics Officer and Halls Officer to lobby Residential and Hospitality services to ensure that an apropriate storage solution for recyclable materials is installed in all halls that offer recycling facilities.

Both of these provide a welcome boost for the remaining months of the academic year, and rest assured that I will be working flat out to speed up the glacial pace of progress.

Who'd Like to be an Environment and Ethics Officer?

2007-02-22T21:24:00.000Z

Nominations are now open for Guild of Students elections until next Friday (2nd March). You can pick up the necessary forms from the reception in the Students Union that list all the details - and most of them are also available on the Guild website.

If anyone is interested in taking on my role as a non-sabbatical officer please don't hesitate to email me and I'd be happy to have a chat about the kinds of things that I get up to - although if you're reading this you probably have a reasonably good sense of how I manage to distract myself from writing essays.

What a Bright Idea!

2007-02-22T19:39:00.000Z

I make no secret of my preference for 'choice editing' and there are few other things with which I have associated the subject with than the lightbulb. Happily, Australia has announced that it will be phasing out incandescent lighting within three years. An excerpt from the Guardian's leader comment notes:

"...the new technology has got better, allowing low-energy lights to shed their reputation for giving out a dim, cold, white light. New coloured bulbs now match the traditional warm incandescent glow. They cannot yet replace all bulbs; spotlights are tricky, so are low-voltage systems and dimmers. But that will change. Mr Turnbull [the Australian environment minister] is on to something. Britain's politicians should be looking down under for illumination."

Incandescent lightbulbs waste most of their energy input (95%) through heat, and the Australian initiative is estimated to save 800,000 tones of CO2 from current emissions levels - no small difference. Replacing incandescent bulbs is not only more carbon-friendly, but cuts down on household bills by lasting longer and using less energy. Energy efficiency standards will be raised in Australia so that bulbs that do not meet the minimum requirements (incandescent ones) simply cannot be sold.

There already is a UK-based campaign to ban the bulb, and its main organiser was featured in the BBC's Green Room environmental journalism series last year, providing a snappy summary of the campaign. Leo Hickman, Guardian ethical correspondent discusses the issue here. Phillips and Tesco are cottoning on to the low-energy lightbulb too: the former that it will be phasing out its own incandescent products within ten years, while the latter has halved the price of its flourescent bulbs as part of its pledges to tackle climate change.

Lightbulbs are usually the first thing that shoots out of my campaigning mouth when people ask 'what can I do to cut down on my carbon emissions' because lighting is something simple, tangible and that all houses have - and most importantly, it does make a difference. Switching an entire (average-sized) house to low-energy lightbulbs could save around 230kg of CO2 a year. I'm all for freedom of choice, but there are some things that somehow defy common sense, and what about the public interest? The basic technical design of the bulb has remained unchanged for over 125 years!

Tony Blair, believe it or not, hit the nail on the head when he remarked that he looks forward to the day when environmental concerns are a given for any product in the same way that health and safety considerations are. We should expect no less.

The Energy Manager

2007-02-22T11:10:00.000Z

I wrote a month or so ago about the new Energy Manager, part-funded by the Carbon Trust, that is working at the university on a consultancy contract for six months. He is working within the Estates Office, on a 2-day-a-week basis. I can now provide further details about what exactly that person will be getting up to:

- Building Energy Managment Systems - the project is to develop a campus-wide BEMS that will allow energy consumption in buildings to be monitored easily and remotely, integrating existing stand-alone monitoring systems in individual buildings.
- Lighting - to develop a comprehensive lighting policy and action programme for both academic and residential buildings that will help deliver a 20% cut in electricity consumption for lighting.
- Biomass Heating - to look at areas where at least three biomass (woodchip burning) boilers can be introduced in buildings at a cost-effective level.
- Campus Refurbishment - providing energy conservation and sustainability input into the refurbishment of 1200 m2 of university office space during the first half of 2007.

For all but the last of these, the goal is that by the time these six months (up to June/July) are up, the tendering process for physical delivery of the changes identified will have begun.

UWA Environmental Strategy Snowed Under

2007-02-21T23:09:00.000Z

Over the last four months, an Environmental Strategy working group has been plodding away with developing an environmental strategy for the university. This group comprises one of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors (Dr. John Harries), the Head of House Services (Alan Stephens), Head of Estates Management (Mike Tipping), the Procurement Manager (Mike Smith) and the Health, Safety and Environmental Advisor (Dr. Andrew Walker) and the draft strategy was due to be presented to the university's Health, Safety and Environment committee meeting today.

Unfortunately, the snowfall two weeks ago meant that the group was unable to meet to finalize their draft, and thus the strategy will not be presented until the next HSE committee meeting on June 6, 2007. When we last wrote to the Vice-Chancellor (at the beginning of the month), we expressed our hope that current students (and staff) would be able to contribute to this strategy becoming policy, and so I really do hope that this will take place before the end of the academic year. More to be posted as I hear about concrete developments.

The Climate Impact of UK plc

2007-02-21T15:36:00.000Z

A new climate change report by Christian Aid titled Coming Clean, as it pushes the issue to the very top of its campaigning priorities, focuses on the big picture of the UK's carbon emissions and targeting Tony Blair's oft-repeated assertion that the UK can only do so much on unilateral climate change action because it is only responsible for 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

To begin with one point - 2% of a global total may not seem like much, but is near the top of the per-capita rankings and is still the seventh-largest overall emitter. What the report focuses on is how UK-headquarted multinational companies are responsible for generating a much greater proportion of carbon emissions through their international activities. The estimate provided by the report and the Trucost environmental analyst consultancy, comes to 15% of the global total.

Current emissions from FTSE companies are only voluntarily reported (at varying levels of complexity), and these generally only include the basics - from offices and personnel travel. What is glaringly missing is tracing the impact of the activities themselves. So banks like Barclays and HSBC (my own bank, admittedly), through lending and support for new fossil fuel projects, find their activities to be extremely 'carbon-intensive. Tesco and the supermarkets' global supply chain carbon impacts are not fully reflected in their reported figures, and well, I think you can guess that the oil and gas industries fall in the same bracket too.

What the report calls for is for government to introduce a mandatory reporting requirement for all UK-based companies, and for a transparent, benchmarked standard to allow for comparisons across companies. With apropriate data, measures can then be taken to reduce the carbon burden of UK plc.

Just as carbon emissions know no boundaries in effecting change elsewhere in the world, we should not be straightjacketed by national boundaries in considering the sources of international emissions. Have the high-emitting industries simply been outsourced to other countries, helping to lower the UK's emissions? This reflects, in the report's terms, the 'carbon cost of globalisation'.

Breathing Earth

2007-02-20T17:15:00.000Z

A friend forwarded this website to me - Breathing Earth - an animated illustration of how the burden of carbon dioxide emissions is spread throughout the world, the rate of emissions and puts this in comparison with birth/death rates - in a real-time situation.

If nothing else, a snappy graphic to sit back and just watch for a few minutes to see a simulation of current carbon dioxide emissions over that exact period of time.

Future Leaders

2007-02-19T23:37:00.000Z

This was released in late January, but I have finally got the chance to read it now - Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity chaired by Sir Jonathan Porritt, and UCAS, the undergraduate admissions service, have teamed up to conduct a survey among 2007 incoming undergrads to ask them about their expectations for the future.

With a 25% response rate (consisting of over 50,000 soon-to-be university students), the broad picture from the Future Leaders' Survey is that we will live (in 2030) in a world of greater technological development, but one where the global rich-poor divide is greater and climate change manifests itself across the globe. Amidst a recognition of the scale of change that awaits us in the coming century, Sir Jonathan Porritt wrote in his introduction to the report:

"...this is a transitional generation, with one foot placed confidently in the low-carbon environment-friendly economy of the future, but the other still rooted in today's high-speed, high-consumption, carbon-intensive lifestyles...As far as most of our future leaders are concerned, their glasses are undoubtedly half-full when they look out on the world ahead."

A selection of statistics from the survey:
- 76% believe that lifestyles need to change radically across the board, or at least in many areas, for humanity to survive the next century.
-55% sees itself as more concerned about the environment, with only 8% saying that their parents were more concerned.
-46% say that environmental concerns are important when deciding who to work for
-36% say that they have written to their MP
- 79% say that having an interesting job will be very important for their personal happiness in the next ten years, compared to 33% who say the same about having a job that pays well.

And of particular interest:
- 45% of those studying education, social sciences, architecture, and building and planning said that a good track record on sustainable development was important or very important in choosing where to study.
-14% of creative arts and design and social sciences students said that environmental considerations were important for all five of the following - employer, type of career, bank, car and voting preferences.

This is a trend that I think is only going to intensify in the coming years and decades. Sustainable development - environmental, ethical and societal concerns will find their way across most decisions we make and become an integral part of our thinking. Other surveys remind us that it is the grey-haired generation rather than the 16-25s who are more politically and environmentally active; the survey results suggest, at the very least, that positive, societal change among my generation is on its way - even if only haltingly for now.

Speaking the climate

2007-02-19T22:52:00.000Z

First George Monbiot, now...Sir John Houghton, climatologist, will be delivering a guest lecture in Aber on the same day (Wednesday 21 Feb)!

The lecture will take place in the Physics Main lecture room at 5pm, and the topic will be on 'the basics of climate prediction'. I would imagine that this will be a science rather than a policy-based lecture, but he is one of the world's most renown climatologists and chaired the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 assessment and I'm sure he'll refer to his experiences then!

A light at the end of the tunnel?

2007-02-18T18:05:00.000Z

There have been a couple of positive movements over the last week over a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the current binding international framework on climate change:

GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, has reached an agreement on cuts in carbon dioxide emissions for both developed and developing countries and a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions. Although non-binding and not official government policy, this agreement is important because it includes a number of key US politicians, business leaders as well as politicians from the developing world and is explicit in looking towards an international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. It is, as the BBC's environment correspondent suggests, a hard bargain that is movement of sorts. That is at least something to take comfort in.

The Canadian parliament has passed a resolution to force its government (against its will) to return to trying to meet its Kyoto targets; German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that she will make climate change a priority at G8 discussions in the summer; and Tony Blair apparently wants to conclude his premiership with a climate change agreement and the transfer of climate-friendly technology to poorer countries.

I know that this is big and important stuff and I'm not underestimating the significance of the GLOBE resolution in particular. But I have this nagging feeling that we might have been here before (think World Trade Organisation and Hong Kong Dec 2005 summit) and I'm not quite holding my breath yet. Prove me wrong.

What an Environmental Manager might do

2007-02-16T17:09:00.000Z

A key aim of the Go Green campaign is for the university to employ dedicated full-time staff for environmental management. Is a full-time staff member REALLY needed? Here's a sample breakdown of how 37.5 hours a week dedicated to environmental management could be spent (taken from a guidance booklet from the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges):

• Environmental legislation
• Noise management
• Water management
• Water budget (invoicing)
• Energy management
• Energy budget (invoicing)
• Building design/ services
• Waste management (general / municipal)
• Waste management (hazardous)
• Waste minimisation
• Transport plans / parking
• Procurement
• Landscape management / Site biodiversity
• Policy development
• EMS/ ISO implementation
• Communications
• Reporting to committees
• Local community liaison
• Corporate communications (related issues)
• Environmental reporting
• Awareness raising
• Training
• Curriculum greening
• Student recruitment
• Staff / student retention
• Improving access to marginalised learners

All in a day's work. Not much, really.