A friend recommended this film. In about 40 minutes, it gives a wonderfully positive message about how we can all be part of the change to a sustainable future.
Find it on Youtube here. Ed Davey has announced this competition investigation today - his speech is linked here. The objective seems to be to reduce customers' energy bills, which is laudable. However, improving competition doesn't necessarily improve sustainability. In fact, through effects such as Jevons' Paradox, increased efficiency can lead to greater throughput and an accelerating trajectory towards planetary limits.
Last weekend, a Low Carbon Hub project I'm leading - People's Power Station - competed in the NESTA-ODI Open Data Challenge in Bristol. Although we didn't win £5k of development funding, the work leading up to our 4-minute pitch to a panel of judges sharpened up our thinking and we made some interesting contacts with other people working in a similar marketplace. Here's the moment the panel announced the winners.
At the Science Innovation Centre in Bristol last weekend, I spotted a sculpture made out of solar-powered-spinning-paddle globes - beautiful and inspiring - I remember getting one of these globes in the 1970s when they were sold as 'executive desk toys'. It stayed on my desk for years. I'd completely forgotten about that until I saw the sculpture.
I attended this event yesterday evening at OUCE (Oxford University Centre for the Environment) put on by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Academics and bankers had frank and open dialogue with attendees about sustainability/ESG (Environment, Society and Governance) issues. While some segments of the banking sector have been around a long time (over a hundred years), they profess to place more emphasis on being responsive to customers than developing foresight and leadership on the gathering storms of carbon bubble, unburnable carbon, water stress, food stress etc. One speaker (being devil's advocate) even wondered if sustainability/ESG was just another passing fad. Although this was said 'tongue-in-cheek', it seemed to appropriately paraphrase the gist of what the bankers in the room were saying. This doesn't augur well for efforts to persuade bankers to put their weight proactively behind the transition to a sustainable future for us all.
Greg Barker (below) gave out the awards. The Low Carbon Hub (of which I'm proud to be a Director) didn't get an award but was in the top 4 nominees in the category of Best Community Initiative. John Gummer (aka Lord Deben) - shown below - spoke well (at a separate seminar) about the difficulties of getting sufficient climate change action when Governments are so short-termist.
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About the BloggerI'm David Calver - an Accountant with a passion for sustainability. Categories
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