Alison on sustainability

If I could have a 'Frequently Asked Questions' list from having been in this job for 15 months, it would include the following:

- What does 'being sustainable' really mean?

- Why do Councils in the UK all collect different materials for recycling and why are the bins different colours?

- Is it more sustainable to use a hand-dryer or paper towels when drying your hands?

- If I got rid of my car and just used taxis and public transport would that a) be cheaper? b) be kinder to the environment?

- How do you get people to change their behaviour and switch off lights/equipment?

- Why am I being held back from making our company more sustainable by the grey-haired people in our boardroom who won't be around to worry about it in 20 years?

- Diesel or petrol engines?

- When does a waste stop being a waste?

- If something has a value is it still deemed to be waste if I'm throwing it away?

- Is Climate Change really happening?

And have I answered those questions? Well, in some cases the answers are a little more black and white, and in others the truth is I simply don't know. All I do know, is that we are still making our minds up about which activities in our lives ARE sustainable and those which are not.

I think being sustainable is 1/3 common sense, 1/3 having accurate baseline information from which we can clearly assess the issue and take informed decisions, and 1/3 hindsight. Which means 66.6% of it is something we can act upon now, and the remaining 33.3% we will learn with time. I guess the aim is to reduce the element of hindsight over time and hope that we act quickly enough to prevent long term damage to our planet.

The Glorious Leader has left. Long live the Glorious Leader

So, Danielle Taylor has left us, heading for an undoubtedly illustrious career as Sustainability Manager for South Yorkshire Police. As the head of the Environmental Management Department she did an excellent job and we all loved the ‘chocolate and bubblebath bonus’ method of management (hint). We’ll know that she has changed the world when the uniform becomes locally sourced, environmentally sound and pink! In the meantime I’m expecting that she will help the local police focus with the sustainability of all their operations and will do a grand job for them. We gave her a jolly good send off, as can be seen in the photo of Danielle looking sad, and all the team and many of the company blubbed copiously.

Sad though we are that Danielle has left, we are thrilled that Alison Fanshawe has taken on the role. Ali is a very good manager and, having come from a financial background, has a solid grasp of the financial bottom line section of the triple bottom line of sustainability. She is a talented trainer, very organised and we, the team, are very pleased that she has agreed to be our new Glorious Leader. I have asked her to write a little something about herself but in the meantime, here are her (summarised) thoughts on sustainability. There will be more information on each topic over the next few weeks.

Practical EMS issues or The Thermostat Wars!

In the world of Carbon Reduction Commitments and huge energy spends our little organisation might seem to have insignificant issues. The impact of our carbon footprint is as nothing compared to that of the metals industry in Sheffield or the power generation facilities in Yorkshire or even Sheffield City Council. However, our energy use is a significant aspect under our 14001 system, our energy spend is a significant part of our outgoings, we are an environmental consultancy and, as noted in an internet funny that eased its way though the firewall, no single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood. We spend a lot of time helping clients focus on their environmental impacts and, as a point of principle, we make the time to focus on our own.

We do have a number of problems when we look at minimising energy use. We lease our splendid old listed building. It is lovely in the summer when we can open the huge sash windows and let cooling breezes into the rooms. The ceilings are gracefully high, and the windows and doors provide astonishing amounts of ventilation. Even in the depths of winter. The boiler is not state of the art and none of the pipework has been relagged since the old asbestos lagging was removed. Oh yes, and the cellar is still contaminated with asbestos dust so we're not going to go down and put foam lagging around the pipes. Even worse for our measuring and monitoring, the meters are in the cellar. The leasor will be sorting out the asbestos issue when it's warm enough to turn the heating off for a few days. Not right now.

So working within this set of constraints there are still some things we can do to cut down on our energy use. We turn off the heating in the areas of the building not in use. The radiators in the meeting room are turned off at the end of each meeting. It's one of our little rituals. The corridors are not heated, except by the pipes between radiators. The radiator in the kitchen is turned off and the single thermostat for the building is kept low. The thermostat is in the building entrance hall which, given the drafts from the front door, means it will still keep the heating turned on even when set to ten degrees (C). It's supposed to be set at fifteen. I have been amused over the last few months to see what it is actually set at at various different times of day. Up to twenty five degrees on occasion. As I understand it you could set it to 100 and it would not heat the building up any better than when set to 15 which is why I don't particularly care that is being moved but it does give me some cause for thinking that we haven't got the energy minimisation message across.

There are always issues to consider when putting together an energy policy. You need your staff to understand and agree with what you are doing. Keeping the building uncomfortably cold means that people are going to sneak in electric heaters. This has health and safety implications because of the requirement to check the safety of equipment. It is also the least efficient way to heat a building, and expensive. If you need to 'police' your heating you are on to a loser; the policer is one person against many. We've seen this recently in the kitchen. As this tiny room is only used to make drinks and heat an occasional soup it has been designated an area where the radiator is kept off. We're in there for five minutes at most. Over the last couple of weeks it has been difficult to know whether to wrap up warm before going in or to strip off. I'm longing for the day when I go in and find one or other of the combatants under the worktop turning the valve on or off.

On the other hand, people who want to work in their shirt sleeves and want to heat a building to make it comfortable for that style of dress might be persuaded to consider a cardigan. I have an elusive memory that the National Trust had a 'Cardi' Policy, though I haven't been able to find reference to it on the internet, but I'm a firm believer in the 'don't turn up the thermostat, put on a jumper' message. I may be biased. Being a woman of a certain age and well padded to boot I often find it uncomfortably warm when my slender young colleagues are sitting huddled in their fleeces. As I have pointed out to them on occasion, they can put on a jumper but I can't respectably take any more clothes off.

So the moral of this story is that we need to reassess our approach and have a discussion where we all reach a consensus on our policy rather than just impose it. This may not be something that can work in a massive organisation but in our company, where we all know each other, it is something we can address. But in the meantime I'm also going to think about how to stop 20% of monitors being left on over the weekend. That's a waste from which no-one benefits.

You need to know this - Waste Legislation from Catherine

When Yvonne first mentioned she was going to start an ECUS Environmental Management blog, I thought it was a great idea, although I knew full well it was only a matter of time before she coerced gently persuaded me into writing something. As I’m one of those sad people who finds environmental legislation really interesting, what could be better I thought, than to write about the forthcoming Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations?!

Exemptions are required for waste management activities that have a fairly low environmental impact but still require a certain element of control from the regulator. The activities covered range from simply storing waste on site, to crushing it, to more complex activities such as spreading agricultural waste on land. What most businesses probably don’t realise is that they automatically have a waste exemption under Schedule 3, Part 2 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. Exemptions in this Part are ‘unregisterable’ and pretty much every business producing waste will automatically fall under the paragraph 52 “temporary storage of waste on the site where it is produced” exemption.

The new Regulations are due to come into force on April so I spent part of my train journey down to Somerset last week getting clued up on them, and was actually pleasantly surprised. The Environment Agency held a series of consultation workshops last year and I went along to one in Birmingham. The delegates were a mixed bag; consultants, environmental managers and operators. The poor Agency representative got a bit of a grilling as the initial consultations suggested a £50 charge per exemption, to be renewed every year. Operators who used mobile crushers on construction sites were also concerned, as the proposed new limits would mean that many of them would require a standard permit for mobile plant rather than an exemption.

So after numerous consultations, it’s interesting to see the actual outcome, which I will summarise in a few succinct bullet points:

• The two tier system of complex and simple exemptions has been removed – activities will either require an exemption or a standard environmental permit;
• Only exemptions relating to refurbishment of WEEE are chargeable, contrary to the initial proposals;
• Exemptions will need to be renewed every three years and will appear on the Agency’s Public Registers;
• The relevant EWC codes are provided for all waste streams covered;
• Exemptions are split into categories:
• U (use of waste) 1-16
• T (treatment of waste) 1-33
• D (disposal of waste) 1-8
• S (storage of waste) 1-3
  
  

It remains to be seen how successful the amendments are once the new Regulations are in force, but my personal view is that they’re a great improvement on the old exemptions. They’re much clearer and more specific as to the type of activity and waste stream. But the most surprising bit is hidden away in the Part 2 unregisterable exemptions. Whereas previously there were limits on the quantities of waste that could be stored, these no longer exist. The only criteria under the new Regulations is that waste cannot be stored for longer than 12 months and it must be stored in a secure place, and this applies to hazardous waste as well. So that means in theory it’s perfectly acceptable for a company to store over 23,000 litres liquid hazardous waste or waste oil without being regulated for it! Which leads us on to the inadequacy of the Oil Storage Regulations, but that’s another story for another day…

Introducing Catherine

I’d like to introduce you to my colleague, Catherine. She started at ECUS nearly four years ago now as the admin assistant whilst working on her LLM in Environmental Law. Now, of course, she is a key part of our Environmental Management team. We are all very impressed as she dashes off after work to practice with her salsa band, her folk metal band and her ladies recorder group or to various of her gigs. She even finds time to go to see other bands play.

We love Catherine. She is rather quiet when she’s not whistling complicated classical tunes but she is great fun to be around with a wicked sense of humour, an addiction to strong tea and a wonderful ability to make sense of environmental legislation. Even better, she is a completer/finisher. Nothing pleases her more than putting the final touches to a report, PDFing it and sending it off. She’ll even QA my reports for the joy of another piece of work completed. And she looks lovely in turquoise. What’s not to love?

I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture though. Catherine is a music snob. She finds the ‘music’ I listen to offensively banal. I will admit to finding her taste a little too hardcore for my middle-aged ear. When we travel together we tend to compromise on Classic FM.

Anyway, at the end of a very busy week she has promised me that she will write a short piece about the new Environmental Permitting (England and Wales)(Amendment)(No.2) Regulations. How exciting!

(Catherine grumbles that saying she finds my music offensively banal is a little harsh. It's just, she says, not to her taste.

Excuses, excuses!

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, I've just being training all week. When I have an early start I find that inspiration has run out by the time I get home. I've got a number of posts coming up though. Any minute now...

Best seatbelt advert ever!

Not an environmental issue at all but a stunningly good 'wear your seatbelt' advert that I came across recently. So much better then the peach and hammer adverts of my youth. Have a look here. From the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.

But it's cold!

The BBC have been polling people about climate change and have come up with some interesting results. As they say, 'Climate scepticism is 'on the rise'.' Well there have certainly been some disappointing news stories about the science which seem to show, more than anything else, that scientists are human, make mistakes and don't always handle the resulting publicity well. Oh yes, and it's been cold. Really quite cold. In the UK. Despite this I have no doubts myself that the climate is changing, and the causes are predominantly our activities. I occasionally wander over and have a look at 'Climate Denial Crock of the Week' by Peter Sinclair. His recent video is, 'It's so Cold, there can't be Global Warming.' It's well worth a look.

Carbon tax to boost green spending?

The environmental audit committee says that, with the effect of the recession, carbon trading is not providing sufficient revenue for green investment and are suggesting a carbon tax. See story here: MP's propose carbon tax to boost green investment.

Hunting for training images

I'm in Scotland at the moment. I came up to deliver a 'Know your Waste' course last week at the University of Edinburgh and I'm staying to deliver a CIWM Construction WAC course next week, which has left me with a free weekend here. What to do on a dull Saturday in North Lanarkshire? I'm just completing an Introduction to Renewable Energy course on behalf of EAUC and I wanted a few images to use so, after a visit to the local farmers market, we went looking for wind turbines. In much of England they are quite difficult to find but here there are a few elegant herds of them on the horizon. This lovely threesome appeared a little while ago alongside the M74. How convenient. We stood gazing in the chill breeze as they swept their blades almost silently through the air. So that's my first set of images. I'm thinking Scotland isn't the place to be looking for effective photovoltaic energy capture.

Will the lights go out?

Sometime in the early seventies the lights went out. I remember it vividly. We were watching Star Trek and a horrible bat thing had landed on Spock's back. And then nothing. We lived in a modern house with oil fired central heating and an electric cooker. When the light died so did the heat. The only source of light we had in the house was the advent candle. The days to Christmas disappeared as we shivered in the dark. It was years before I learned how Spock survived.

We were never that unprepared again and all these years later there are torches scattered around my house and a number of packs of candles and boxes of matches. These are short term measures though; we are almost entirely dependent on the reliability of our complex energy systems. That's why I keep an eye on energy issues. During the cold snap there have been reported concerns about the level of natural gas stored in the UK. Apparently we keep a lot less than other nations. This latest piece of news is much more worrying. From the BBC; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8494899.stm

The government is, of course, aware of all this. Their UK Low Carbon Transition Plan looks at carbon dioxide emissions and energy security; compatible issues. Until recently I had naively thought that we had all, private, public and business, given this some serious thought and put in place energy minimisation programmes. Not so much. The recent snow has been very revealing about who on my street has insulated their loft. A surprising number are paying to warm the feet of the local magpies perched on their roofs. Businesses are in a similar situation. There are tools and grants available and the Carbon Reduction Commitment means that, apart from the obvious driver of saving money, organisations are finally going to have to get serious about this. Good! If we end up sitting in the dark and cold after we have done everything we can I will pull my mittens on and put up with it. I'll be very cross though, if we have wasted our resource because we are running the air con and heating at the same time or are heating our buildings with the doors open. Have I seen this? More often than you would believe.

The winter of 1973 was when the public first became of aware of energy security issues as the miner's strike turned the lights out across the country. My abiding memory of the time is standing on the beach at Formby with the lights out over Liverpool and a glory of stars above me. These days I'd like the glory without the discomfort please. We all need to work on our resource efficiency.

Why blog?

I've been thinking about this for a little while and at my recent appraisal with our Glorious Leader I suggested that a blog might be a good idea. Our website is fine but it is relatively static and I'd like to have the ability to get information out to clients more quickly than we can using that. I also rather like our newsletter but it tends to take a little while to get it together and there is really rather limited space on a two sided A4 newsletter that goes out quarterly. With my short memory and limited filing ability I was looking for a way to comment quickly whilst an issue was on my mind and before it got lost in the mists of time.

I read blogs. It is my addiction of choice. Other people watch the x-factor. I catch up on the end of the world as we know it (and the cartoons) before getting out of bed in the morning. I had assumed that these fascinating glimpses into other worlds were published by geniuses gifted with an understanding of esoteric software. That turns out not to be the case. Anyone can scrawl their thoughts in a very tiny corner of the internet with absolutely minimal ability. So here I am, scrawling. Of course, no-one has to come look at them. This is the joy of our modern world.

So, in short, I have the go ahead to communicate my thoughts as long as they are informative, mildly entertaining and have an environmental flavour. I intend to use this format to pass on the fascinating links that I find, introduce the rest of the team, write the occasional opinion piece and have a certain amount of fun. Not too much, of course. But some.