Reporting the environment

I recently came across an interesting report on the Register. It's a fabulous example of bad reporting, drawing conclusions that are unwarranted from the information.

The piece is titled, 'People have NO BLOODY IDEA about saving energy' and subtitled, 'Those keenest to be green are most ignorant - survey.' I guess they provide fair warning in their titling that this is not an objective report. It is, however, based on a fairly interesting piece of scientific research and the Register were good enough to provide a link to the original paper.

Having read both the Register's article and the original paper, 'Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings', I can agree what the Register reported was not incorrect but the spin they had imparted to a sober little paper was so strenuous it is probably still reeling.

What the original article says is that people are not fully aware of the energy used by their various activities, appliances or embodied in the products they use. From the information presented this is true.

I will even admit, sheepishly, that the contrasting embodied energy costs for glass and aluminium surprised me. I hadn't really thought about it but it seems fairly obvious that this would be the case once I had given it some thought. The melting point of aluminium is around 660C, for glass it is at least 1400C, depending on constituents. From this the Register concludes that 'as a true eco-person, you shouldn't be recycling glass, you ought not to be using it at all.' Well, yes. And no. Unfortunately, at present I am unable to find the sort of wine I want to drink in aluminium cans. Given that I am unlikely to stop drinking wine in the immediate future it is still better for me to send my glass bottles for recycling than not*.

The article continues, 'Again, when asked what the single most effective thing they could do to save energy, the most popular response in the survey was to turn off lights. In fact lighting accounts for a relatively small proportion of the average person's energy use and almost all of us could save far more juice (and carbon) in other ways - for instance by turning the heating down as little as a single degree, something which many extremely keen lightswitch nazis** refuse to do.'

I have an issue with this paragraph. I am not disputing that turning the heating down will save more energy than turning off lights, but there is also no reason not to turn lights off in a room not being used. The Register seems very keen on either/or choices. It might surprise them but it is quite possible to turn the heating down by one degree and turn lights off in unused rooms.

They go on to quote the original paper that states 'participants estimated that line drying saves more energy than changing the washer's settings (the reverse is true)'. My concern with this statement is twofold. One is that I always wonder when I hear such loose phrasing. 'Changing the washer's settings' could mean anything from reducing the temperature by 10 degrees to reducing it from 90C to 30C or more. Looking at the paper's Figure 1 it is quite possible that, depending on what that phrase means, line drying may be a better saver. Difficult to tell; the graph is small with a logarithmic scale. My other concern again is, what does it matter? Both of these are potentially high energy saving. Change the washer settings and line dry.

Never mind though, the Register goes on from this paragraph to state, 'Perhaps the killer revelation from the survey is that it is, in fact, the very people who are keenest and most active about reducing their energy consumption who are the most ignorant.' Despite the exaggeration and emotive language this is, in fact, the conclusion of the paper. People are optimistic that what they are doing is having a positive effect. Their perceptions are not as accurate as they could be. This is a problem if for example, you comfort yourself that the impact of your flight to Australia will be offset by turning the lights out and recycling your wine bottles. It may also be a problem if, as a Register reader, you can only take one action at a time so rather than turn your thermostat down, line dry your clothes, boil only as much water as you need and cycle to work you unplug your phone charger.

The lesson the Register takes from the information contained within the paper is, 'In other words, ignore that earnest friend of yours who recycles religiously, turns off the lights all the time, and unplugs the telly every night... They quite literally have no idea what they are talking about.' Well no, that's not what the paper said. The original paper suggested that better and more accurate information would help to reduce emissions and public information campaigns should focus on behaviours that could have a greater effect - forget the phone chargers and turn down the heating. They conclude, 'It is therefore vital that public communications about climate change also address misconceptions about energy consumption and savings, so that people can make better decisions for their pocketbooks and the planet.' The Register, on the other hand, concludes that we should 'ignore the many worth organisations - for instance the Energy Saving Trust here in the UK, which you pay for through your taxes - which have made us all so ignorant.' I took a quick look at the EST website. The top ten tips did indeed include the admonition, 'Don't leave appliances on stand-by and remember not to leave laptops and mobile phones on charge unnecessarily'. It also, however, suggested sorting out dripping hot water taps, fully loading our washing machines, boiling only as much water as needed, changing to low energy bulbs, turning lights off, closing curtains at dusk and draught proofing, turning your water thermostat down (also reduces the risk of scalding small children) and turning your central heating thermostat down. The information on the site would be improved if each tactic was rated on energy saving effectiveness but the tips given were all generally good and do not seem to me to be making us ignorant. The worst that could be said is that it is not as informative as it could be.

I wonder what the Register gains by subverting a worthy piece of research. It makes no sense to me.

*Ideally glass bottles should be reused. My milkman very kindly takes my glass milk bottles back for reuse. It doesn't need vastly more energy to take them back because he was coming to my house to deliver anyway.


**As a rule of thumb, use of the word nazi in an article not talking about the german fascist movement of the mid 20th century is an indicator of a lack of objectivity.

Really useful link

This is a BBC website (beta at present) showing the comparative size of things centred over whatever postcode you enter. I particularly like the environmental disaster section. Wow! The Gulf oil spill, the toxic cloud from Bhopal, the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl and, very worryingly, the Eastern Pacific garbage patch. Go have a look!

Thoughts from a motorway service station

Some interesting thoughts from Alison:

It was a hot and sticky August day and the threat of rain was in the air. We pulled off the M40 on the way back from another carbon-intensive wedding in London to fill up our (reasonably fuel efficient) car. My husband dealt with the fuel payment (can it really cost £70 to fill up a 1.9 litre engine car these days?!) and I walked back to the actual services to buy some lunch.

The services resembled a cross between Alton Towers during the holidays and that old favourite TV programme ‘Supermarket Sweep’. There was a hideous queue for the ladies, every seat (inside and outside) was taken with families on their way to or on their way back from holiday destinations and people were literally throwing themselves on food wherever they could grab it from.

But quite aside from the enochlophobia that suddenly came over me I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of consumption that was going on in those 50 metres squared. Cappucinos, fast food, packaged sandwiches, sweets, crisps, fruit (not much), canned drinks. I stopped and looked around me and could not see one single person without their mouths open stuffing food and drink into it.

I freely admit that on this occasion I joined them. I usually try and make our own lunch/dinner in the car, not because I’m an eco-warrior, but because I refuse to dish out for the extortionate prices they charge you at the service stations (talk about a closed market). I paid £10 for two lots of sandwiches and two bags of crisps – ouch.

If this much consumption of food and drink and this much waste was being generated at this one small service station off the M40 at that precise moment in time (which probably accounted for 0.00001% of the UK’s population), how much was being consumed and wasted around the world at that moment? A scary thought.

So what can we do? Make our own sandwiches? Well yes, but that may not be the long-term, universal solution of choice. Somehow we have to wake people up to the reality of having a finite amount of space and resources on this earth. Organisations and the culture therein can play a big part in this – what type of culture do you advocate at your organization? Do you have a Green Travel Plan but your Directors still turn up to work in their 3 litre engine sports cars? Do you order in food for meetings from local companies but then always thrown half of it away?

We have to learn to complete the sentences which we are beginning to start. “We have a Green Travel Plan…..and everyone in our company from the top to the bottom is committed to trying to uphold the plan and reduce carbon emissions”. “We order food locally…….and have implemented a system to ensure that we do not over-order and that leftovers are distributed to staff”.

We are still thinking one dimensionally about resource efficiency and consumption – it is time we stopped leaving things unsaid.

ECUS BBQ

We had a barbecue after work on Friday. Follwing a sunny intervals kind of week, Friday had a glowering look. Inevitably, as packing up time approached, the drizzle settled in. Cunningly I had failed to finish my presentation (BREEAM* awareness and rather a struggle) so I let the more efficient people faff. As the rain intensified and the light levels diminished (heading for dreach) a flurry of emails drifted into the right hand corner of my screen. Should we cancel? I hacked away at my presentation, reducing the 187 slides to 80 (still too many I know), whilst the bodging began. When I finally left the post-operative remnants of my presentation the building was eerily empty but there was a substantial jolly racket outside. The double doors of the garage had been opened and a huge blue tarpaulin stretched over the yard, held in place by straining bungee cords. Two barbecues were tended by the inevitable men; Tom, one of our ecologists sported a woman in underwear and stockings type of apron (sartorial elegance for BBQs) and John, Shona's chap, was togged out most attractively in a red and white spotty pinny with layers of ruffles. At the back of the garage, among the accumulated rubbish, a tiny MP3 player was attached to a set of speakers and pumped cheerful music out into the gloom whilst geoscience's coolboxes, only slightly grubby from carrying soil samples, had been filled with ice and beer.


You can probably imagine the rest. Billows of smoke, burnt sausages, toddlers splashing in the puddles, increasingly loud chatter, intensifying rainfall, darkness gathering and a huge amount of fun. Oh, and someone, usually Catherine, occasionally emptying the accumulated rainfall off the tarp to avoid collapse. The beginning of the break-up came as toddlers got increasingly grumpy and were carted off to their beds. We stacked chairs, let barbecues cool, finished up all the open bottles and wandered off into the night. Ed and Ali kindly gave Sally and me a lift home through the deluge. The young ecologists set off for the pub and then probably the clubs.


Would it have been so much fun if it had been a sunny evening? Well yes, probably. But the adversity was fun too. We're quite good at that.


* BREEAM - building research establishment environmental assessment method


Now with additional apron photo - sorry about the blurriness - it was taken on Catherine's phone.

Caring about biodiversity

I don't write about ecology often enough, especially given that our Ecology Department is the biggest part of the company. I spend all my time thinking about management systems and waste disposal options and somehow forget the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that ecology and biodiversity are central to our quality of life and, in some cases, much more than that. In the light of this I was fascinated to read George Monbiots blog this morning about 'Naming the Nameless'. His contention was that people generally do not connect or sympathise with the plight of a species whose name they cannot pronounce or remember. He suggested a competition to name some endangered species currently labouring under the burden of latin names alone. As he points out, latin names are essential for scientific purposes but common names are more meaningful to those of us not steeped in binomial nomenclature. Following this competition the obscure Stenus longitarsis, a beetle that escapes predators using natural 'jet skis' receives the rather spiffy and appropriate common name of skeetle. The full list of these new names can be found on the Natural England website here. Have a look.

Water. Too little, too much.

I've been thinking about water a lot recently. There have been a number of reasons for this. I have been working with a couple of organisations that have recently realised that managing their water use could save money, and we've been working with a water company to provide environmental training. I guess that we tend to forget water, both use and pollution, as an issue because we don't see where it comes from or where the sewage goes to. It doesn't cost nearly as much as energy and the Government is not running an advertising campaign to remind you all the time.

Where I live we've had a a lovely warm dry spring and summer and recently my water butt reached completely empty. I had to (briefly) use tap water to keep my poor wilting plants alive in my garden, with all the inconvenience and cost that implies.

My boyfriend lives in Scotland and scoffs when I do my bit to save water. He notes that his water is not metered and anyway, Scotland has more water than it knows what to do with; it is resource rich. And then he lets the water run as he cleans his teeth! Are you regarding me strangely? Do you fail to see why that winds me up? I'll try to analyse it on a personal level and then look at it from the point of view of a large organisation.

Water is essential to life. It's also something that is aesthetically pleasing to most of us. Unpolluted water, that is. There are two main environmental impacts linked to water use; water use and water pollution.

Water use requires that we abstract water from the environment. The more we take the less remains. In a very soggy area, of course, there may still be plenty of water left in the environment and over-abstraction may not be an issue, but there are still reasons to minimise use of this valuable resource. One is that turning raw water into potable (drinking) water requires the use of energy and some dangerous chemicals. Even if the basic resource will not be affected by excessive use, wasting energy and chemicals (with their own embodied energy) should be avoided. The other is that all the excessive water going down the drain needs to be treated before sending the cleaned water back into the environment, with more use of energy and somewhat less noxious chemicals. And then, of course, there's the energy required to move all this water around. Some is moved by gravity but a great deal needs to be pumped. More energy use! To be quite honest, though, it just offends my puritan soul to waste anything.

The other issue is water pollution. To some extent, again, my feelings about this are aesthetic as much as economic. I hate to see an ecosystem or an amenity vandalised thoughtlessly and this is really how I regard water pollution; as vandalism. As a child I spent many hours paddling in our local brook, finding sticklebacks, water boatmen and caddisfly larvae. Streams and ponds act like a magnet to children, full of fascinating life and wonder. The very few species that live in oxygen depleted water may be interesting in their own right but paddling though stagnant water is not so much fun. So what causes water pollution? Sewage, oils, chemicals, excess nutrients (run-off from over fertilised fields), litter and even heat and invasive species can all result in depleted ecosystems and a general degradation of the environment. Related to this is that water is a very mobile pollution pathway. Water can move quantities of noxious emissions many miles to where they can do harm, even if your facility is located far away from sensitive receptors. Also, that your facility is nowhere near a watercourse doesn't mean that your emissions will cause no harm as surface water drains will feed, sooner or later, into a watercourse.

Personally I am more concerned about my water use rather than the water pollution I cause. For many years I lived with a septic tank and I developed the habit of being very careful about what went down the drains. If your sewage works is in your back garden you do your best to keep it as healthy as possible or it stinks. Once you've done that for 15 years you've got out of the habit of pouring pollution into the sewer. Similarly, if your septic tank has a limited capacity you develop habits of minimising water use because otherwise you end up with a boggy sewage contaminated area in the garden. Now that I live in an urban terrace, as well as my embedded good habits, I have a water meter. It's cut my monthly bill from over £30 to £12 but it does mean that I've got to keep my eye on things so that usage doesn't suddenly increase. My habit of only turning the tap on to rinse my toothbrush at the end or turning the tap off whilst I soap my hands stands me in good stead for minimising water use but I also save the water discharged as my shower warms up and use it to water my indoor tomato plants. Care with water is not embedded in modern UK culture and people tend to think I am rather strange to do what I do. It would be easier if I could retrofit grey-water use into my home but it would be expensive and, whilst I am careful, probably not really worth it. I've contented myself with fitting water saving fittings in my kitchen and bathroom and buying a washing machine with low water use.

Some sectors in the UK have already looked seriously at water minimisation. As you can imagine, I stay in hotels often and these have really spent a lot of money on water minimisation. I can only guess that this is because it makes good economic sense. Many hotels seem to have dispensed with baths altogether and use aerators on taps and shower heads. This is not just new-builds but refurbishments too, and in both economy hotels and more expensive ones.

Other organisations have not looked at this opportunity closely yet. From industry to local authorities, there are savings to be made. Old fashioned toilets and urinals abound and although it is unlikely that anyone is going to be spending quantities of money replacing these with modern units at the moment there are many cheap fixes available from Hippos to urinal water managers. There is a lot of help available. WRAP are providing Rippleffect, a free water efficiency initiatives for all businesses. It's well worth having a look at the site to see if you could benefit. The registration deadline is 15th October 2010 and will run from October to December. If you don't want to sign up to something, water tools can be found at this page.

I must just say that my water butt could have refilled five times over with the weather we've had this last fortnight, which is great, but I'm thinking about where I can fit another water butt. It's the storage that's the problem. At this time of year two or three weeks without rain means that I'm running short again.

Cool tech

I'm always interested in advances in technology which minimise environmental impact. There is an interesting new piece of air conditioning technology reported at engadget. Not only is it 90% more efficient but doesn't use f-gases with their high global warming potential, instead using a salt solution as a refrigerant. I tend to think that much of the UK could do without aircon but there are places in the world that are almost unliveable without cooling. Speaking of uninhabitable areas, there is another story that Nevada is set to become the Saudi Arabia of geothermal power. These two technologies are made for each other. Las Vegas, one of the least sustainable cities on earth, can now be a little bit greener! Finally, in the realms of greentech, a potato powered battery has been developed. This technology s being made freely available to the developing world.

Oil use statistics

There are some fascinating snippets around regarding the increasingly appalling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. After the Exxon Valdez disaster Greenpeace ran an advert that said:

It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours. ~Greenpeace advertisement, New York Times, 25 February 1990

As always with major environmental incidents there appear to be a large number of contributing factors. The culture of the three companies involved in the drilling, the lack of adequate regulation and oversight, the drive to cut costs to maximise profit; all the usual culprits.

And now the blame allocation is well under way. I have occasionally said that any Quality Management System has a secret procedure, QP00 'Allocation of Blame'. In this disaster it is quite obvious that management systems have not been properly implemented. The blame allocation flow chart is flailing around, coating everyone in a slime of toxic sludge. I know that politically everyone wants to be teflon coated however I feel that right now the extreme effort could be more appropriately directed to stopping the flow and dealing with the pollution. What was learned from the Valdez? That sooner or later, if corners are cut there will be a disaster. Here we have just such another instance. Cutting edge technology occasionally falls over. The closer to the edge we are the more likely the fall over the ragged edge of disaster. The closer to the edge the more important that we have an effective plan in place for when it all goes wrong. Because it will.

So, whilst we are looking for someone to blame, BP's statistics have been published in the Guardian with a fascinating graphic showing which countries have the highest oil consumption and where the proven reserves are. Have a look. There is also an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Times which brings you and me into the blame target and comments that if we want to avoid this sort of thing we (the general public) need to learn to live with higher prices because safety costs money.

I admit I have a mild tendency to smugness in my assessment of my own environmental impact but in reality I, in common with most middle-class greenies in the UK, account for the use of a great deal of oil. But then it is so much easier to see the mote in someone else's eye!

Summertime but the living is far from easy

Again with the excuses. It's been a while since we have published regular posts. Life got hectic in May and June and there haven't been enough train journeys where we have had time to think and write. I'm glad to say that Alison had one of those yesterday when she travelled down to Birmingham and back to deliver talks familiar enough not to require a lot of preparation. Three hours on the train with minimal phone reception gave her enough time to catch up on some of her reading and write a piece for the blog, for which I'm very grateful.

I'm hoping that in July we'll get a bit of breathing space and get back to more regular postings. I've got a number of topics I'd like to hold forth on from the joys of public transport to the delights of auditing.

But for now there are presentations to be written, reports to be completed and admin to be done not to mention our Achilles audit to be prepared for when we're on the other end of the clipboard of questions.

Low Carbon & Construction - Top Ten Thoughts from Alison

How are the construction industry going to embrace the challenge of the Government’s plan to work towards a low carbon economy in the UK? That is a question that has been considered in the recent report issued by the Construction Innovation & Growth Team working group. It’s a really interesting report, and I thought it would be useful to paraphrase a few of the key facts, findings and recommendations that have come out of it. Alternatively you can access the report here.

1. The UK is committed by law to reduce carbon emissions (Climate Change Act) and due to the significant emissions from built infrastructure, the construction industry have a big part to play in working towards the carbon reduction targets
2. The Government’s ‘Low Carbon Transition Plan’ should be seen as a business plan for construction over the next 40 years
3. Whilst the construction industry has a lot to think about at the moment, the focus on carbon provides a simple and rigorous focus for action
4. For companies in the construction supply chain, their task is threefold:

• De-carbonise your own business

• Build energy efficient buildings

• Provide infrastructure for a low carbon economy.

5. To do this, each part of the construction supply chain (client, designer, buyer/surveyors, site team, final user) needs to understand and accept their responsibilities for creating a low carbon economy
6. To achieve this, we need skilled and enthusiastic people in the industry
7. Currently, there is no accurate understanding of the scale of change required to meet these challenges
8. Carbon presents 4 key opportunities for the construction industry:

• Lots of work – newbuild and refurbs to meet stricter carbon requirements

• Reform the structure and practice of the industry

• Export products, knowledge and skills

• Enthuse future generations to work in a forward-thinking and exciting industry

9. There are barriers that may hinder progress, including:

• Over-regulation and confusing support from Government

• Silo-ism and lack of collaboration and communication in the supply chain

• Up-skilling

• The gap between design and implementation in practice of low carbon buildings

• Focus on initial costs versus lifetime value

• Lack of drivers for change in customer demand, which leads to inertia on the supply side

10. The report has just ONE key recommendation to Government: employ a competent person to make sure we can actually implement the UK’s Low Carbon Action Plan in the construction sector.

In (environmental) praise of budget hotels

I have recently been spending quite a lot of time away from home. It's part of the job and I don't mind it, though it's by no means the glamorous lifestyle it seemed from the outside. When the client is paying expenses, staying at a luxury hotel is not an option. It has always been our policy to stay at budget hotels but it has taken a while for me to embrace the idea wholeheartedly. After three weeks, off and on, living in a Travelodge I think I've finally got there, mainly because I've been impressed by the reduction in environmental impacts demonstrated by the budgets.

Those little bottles full of toiletries are a huge generator of waste and, quite honestly, it's very rare that I love the contents. The honourable exception is Hotel du Vin who provide large bottles of Arran Aromatic toiletries that you are encouraged to take away at the end of your stay. These are so nice that I am tempted to scrape the money together for another stay with them at some point, when they have an offer on, maybe. But generally, no, most hotels provide only-just-good-enough toiletries. It would be untrue to say that I haven't accumulated a stash of half used tiny bottles in the pockets of my luggage that I used to use when staying in budget hotels. Following my recent lengthy stay, however, my nasty little bottles ran out. No problem. There was a Lush nearby (you can tell!) and I followed the overpowering scent inside and bought one of their solid shampoos. What a jolly good idea! No plastic to dispose of, no liquid to leak into my bag. Why hadn't I done this before?

I thought about the toiletry issue whilst packing my bag to go home. I always take my own toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, face-wipes and moisturiser. Why not add a shampoo/conditioner bar to the bag and save myself (and my client) £20 (at least) per night? All I want from a hotel when I'm staying away from home on business is a clean comfortable room with a window that opens within walking distance of a reasonable restaurant. I can live without the pictures on the walls, the trouser press and the 'free' packet of biscuits. The shower and sink fittings tend to be water efficient to minimise the water cost to the hotel and I like this too.

Only two things would make my experience of the Romford Travelodge better. One would be free wifi and the other is a mirror in natural light that didn't have a sink or a desk in front of it so that I can see to put my mascara on. Never mind. I've bought another dongle and I just hope for the best with the make-up.

Aspects and Impacts and Essex

After an exciting week in Scotland I am now spending an exciting week in Essex. I love the peripatetic life but I struggle to keep up with the news, my life and the blog. I spent a couple of hours yesterday morning looking to see if there was any interesting environmental news to pass on but it's all massive oil spill and worrying associated effects so instead I offer this simple introduction to aspects and impacts that I put together in an e-mail yesterday.

At the moment I am putting together an aspect register for your organisation. You may not have come across this before so I'll just explain briefly. The environmental standard, ISO14001, has two major commitments; to comply with environmental legislation and to prevent pollution. The initial method for dealing with these two commitments is to identify all the legislation that applies to your organisation and all the things that you can do as an organisation that will affect the environment. This is usually done in the form of a legal register and an aspect register.

An aspect is defined as 'an element of an organisation's activities, products or services that can interact with the environment'. The effect of this is an impact, which is defined as 'any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation's environmental aspects'.

Or, to put it another way, an aspect is a cause (of pollution) and an impact is the effect (of that pollution)

Or, in yet another way, and aspect is similar to a hazard for health a safety, an impact is similar to an accident, except that some impacts are positive!

The aspect, then, is how ISO14001 identifies and controls the potential for pollution from your organisation. The idea is that if you fully control you aspects there should be no impacts.

To complicate things still further, we try to minimise the number of aspects we identify by grouping them in order to have a finite number of aspects that we can manage. Particularly in a large and complex organisation, you may have the potential for many impacts on the environment but the environment does not care whether the impact of energy consumption comes for employees driving to work in the morning, lighting the building they are working in or removing waste from a site for disposal. Rather than looking at every impact as a separate issue we group all the similar ones together, in this example, as energy consumption.

So, following that rather long-winded explanation, a few examples.

If your activity is heating the building your aspect may be energy consumption and your impact may be use of finite resource and emission of carbon dioxide contributing to climate change.

If your activity is degreasing metal before coating your aspect may be use of solvents and your impact may include emissions of VOCs to air and depletion of ozone layer (if you are still using trichloroethylene). You might also identify an associated aspect of storage of solvents which could include the impact of pollution of groundwater and disposal of hazardous material. Or you could group the two aspects together as management of solvents.

I hope this helps.

Emergency response planning

ISO14001, as part of the 'do' part of the standard, requires an organization to identify all the environmental emergencies that its operations could cause and put into place plans to respond to each of these. Depending on what you do or what you store on site there may be incidents that could happen which would be regarded as an emergency. For example, if your organization stores large quantities of oil or diesel on site, a big spill could cause a lot of local pollution. The standard asks that your organisation identify all the possible environmental emergencies that could happen on site and plan how to deal with them if they ever happen.

This is obviously an excellent idea. The standard requires that you spend time preparing and thinking about what you would do whilst you are calm, rather than making decisions whilst everyone is panicking. Your plan should tell you exactly what to do in all the possible emergencies, include the equipment you need (which you should get immediately) and should include appropriate contact details so you don’t have to waste time looking up this information.

In some emergencies, letting you neighbours know what is happening means that you don’t harm anyone off-site. You should occasionally practice your environmental emergency response to make sure that everyone knows what to do. An example would be doing a practice spill using water to see whether you could deal with this if it was diesel that had spilled. After a test you might change your plan to make it work better.

Should you actually have an emergency you should put your plan into operation. If you have done a good job the plan should enable you to quickly contain and deal with your potential pollution and once it has been properly dealt with the standard also requires that you find the root cause and make sure that this type of incident could never happen again. If your plan does not work as you had hoped you need to learn from its failure and improve it. Obviously.

So that is the theory. You may have noticed we have had a number of emergencies recently. One where the emergency response plan worked well and the other where it obviously hasn't. The first is the emergency that arose with the eruption of the volcano in Iceland. Once the threat became obvious all flights that might be affected by the ash cloud were cancelled. This stranded people across Europe, which is never ideal, but avoided any aeroplane falling out of the sky. There have been complaints of over caution but I would always rather that the precautionary principle was used. I never want to be in a plane that is taking a chance with my safety.

I have already mentioned the other emergency in this blog. That is the emergency arising on the BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico which is currently spilling unimaginably vast quantities of oil into the sea, devastating the area around the rig and potentially causing ecological and financial damage over much of the gulf coast and beyond as the gulf stream spreads the slick. This is an example of an ineffective response plan. There seem to have been many things that went wrong but this is almost always the case with emergencies. Generally when only one thing goes wrong the effect can be contained. There have been reports of safety precautions being value engineered out and, although having the secondary precautions might not have changed anything, having designed them out to save money has been a strategic failure of the company.

More concerning though, is the report here that despite having filed a response plan, the actual response has been a failure, and what containment has been accomplished has been put in place by the US Navy rather than BP. The other issue raised is that this is the second time that BP has been responsible for an emergency response plan that has failed in a similar way. It's been 20 years since the Exxon Valdez but those are not lessons that should have been forgotten.

No organisation wants to find itself in the deep trouble that BP is currently experiencing. An emergency response plan that is regularly tested and maintained should help towards ensuring that if the worst should happen you are not seen as having been negligent, responsible for huge clean-up costs and with your reputation for environmental responsibility in tatters. When it all goes wrong, cost savings based on the assumption that everything will go to plan are seen to be misguided.In BP's case it won't just be the company paying the cost of their error but the wildlife and economies in the way of their mess.

The meaning of the blog!

So, a quick play with a piece of software (Tagxedo) reveals our preoccupations. I may try this again in a month or so and see if they change.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

There has been coverage in the news about the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the allocation of blame procedure* has already started. As I understand it at the moment up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day are flowing into the sea with no immediate way of stopping the flow. It's location, in open water, means it has great potential to spread. This has come at a very bad time for the oil industry, shortly after the US had given the go ahead for off-shore drilling in certain areas, although President Obama has said this will not stand in the way of further development. Predictions were that oil would be pushed into the shoreline and barrier marshes of Louisiana threatening the diverse wildlife in the area. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has stated that the spill is of national significance which means, "A spill that, due to its severity, size, location, actual or potential impact on the public health and welfare or the environment, or the necessary response effort, is so complex that it requires extraordinary co-ordination of federal, state, local, and responsible party resources to contain and clean up the discharge."

My favourite quote so far is from Poppy757 commenting on a story in the Guardian:

'Oil is a finite resource, it seems to me to be rather careless to decorate shorelines with it.'

*I've always thought that the there was a secret quality procedure in every Quality Management System called 'Allocation of Blame'.