Resource

I’ve just spent the last three days presenting the IEMA approved Internal Auditor course to seven delightful delegates from various sectors. I love presenting in-house courses where everyone knows each other and they have lots of experience and requirements in common but courses based in ECUS with randomly selected delegates can be wonderfully enlightening. They may sometimes be more difficult because you may be trying to meet the needs of a delegate from a major manufacturing company whilst not neglecting the needs of a delegate from an office based company but the synergies you get can be marvellous. On this course we had some real experts in their fields who were very generous in sharing their knowledge and not only was it enlightening, it was fun.

I’m often surprised by how much people already know but I’m also occasionally disconcerted about what they are not aware of. On most of our courses we link waste and resource use, and sometimes quality as poor quality management can lead to a lot of waste.

On this particular course we talk about major resource issues that we are or will soon be facing. Some resources are, of course, renewable, but only if we manage them sustainably. Examples might be timber, soil, fish and so on. Some things are not renewable except in geological time scales, for example, metals and minerals. Some are not renewable at all and will eventually be exhausted, for example helium, oil and coal. All of these things, to one extent or another, are essential to our way of life. Rare earth metals, for example, are used in tablet computers, hybrid cars, wind turbines, catalytic converters and the more efficient solar PV panels.

Many of the resource issues are exacerbated by where the deposits of the materials are and the environmental impact of their exploitation. The vast majority (~97%) of rare earths are now sourced from China and with this effective monopoly comes increasing concerns for availability. Every time I have googled ‘China, rare earth’ in news over the last several months there have been stories about this issue. Today the news is of a huge increase in taxes making the cost per tonne more than $100,000. The availability and price of oil is also very much affected by the location of most oil reserves.56% of world oil reserves are in the Middle East, currently suffering from a period of unrest.

My big surprise was that when I asked my training group who was aware of the idea of peak oil no-one said yes. Resource depletion is a massively important issue that will affect us all in many different ways and peak oil is one of the most urgent and important. With reference back to my resilience post of a few weeks ago, imagine how we would live without cheap fossil fuels. Our whole complex society depends on each complicated component being sourced from wherever it can be made most cheaply and delivered Just In Time to wherever it is needed. This can only work in an era of cheap oil. Currently oil is not as cheap as it was, bouncing around $100 per barrel.

At the same time that there is a global problem with oil, there is a national problem. The UK was, for a good amount of time, energy self sufficient thanks to the North Sea oil and gas fields. This is no longer the case. Last year we had to import more than 40% of our gas. 40%!! No wonder the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) produced The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan in 2009. It wasn’t just about climate change. To a large extent it was about keeping the lights on for all of us.

I spend a fair amount of time keeping up with what is happening with resource issues and I occasionally read through the comment threads as well. When I’m feeling strong. More often than I care to remember there are major skirmishes about how best to deal with these, whether governments should try to legislate to bring down consumption and hence protect out current comfortable lives for longer or whether the market should be allowed to operate without control. The argument is that as prices increase due to scarcity the almighty market will step in and cause the production of more of the important commodity. This only works if there is more of the commodity available to be extracted within a workable timescale. With oil it takes around ten years from discovery of a resource for an oil well to become fully productive. Oil wells are also no longer being drilled in easily accessible places where the return on investment is high so prices have to be consistently high for a long time for new well to be worth developing. If this does not work then the market is supposed to rush out and produce hyper-efficient vehicles, power supplies and the associated infrastructure. Also, presumably, people will be induced, by the cost, to look at minimising their own energy usage.

This is a wonderful idea as was the idea of taxing pollution sources with a tax escalator on fuel prices. The recent UK budget has, again, dealt a blow to the theory. Oil prices are rising so the chancellor has stepped in and instead of raising tax by the expected 3p/litre has reduced it by 1p/litre. I know that all drivers and transport companies are struggling at the moment with high prices but how is the omnipotent market supposed to save us all if the government steps in whenever we reach a level where it should start to work?

Interesting link

This is a useful and interesting chart which puts radiation fears into perspective. Have a look here.

On yer bike!

Well life has been very exciting at ECUS these last few weeks. We are now fully installed in the Meadowhall office and are settling in nicely. As predicted we are missing the charity shops, the independent cafes and restaurants and Margaret, our wonderful cleaner for many years. There are those who think that Meadowhall is a suitable substitute and there seem to have been a few trips out to M&S and Greggs. Chris has even found a possible replacement for Vittles to provide lunches for the EMS Internal Auditor course that I’m running next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

One of the things that continues to be a topic of conversation for us in our new place is how we all get to work. Most of those who have always driven continue to do so, finding the easy access from the M1 is a boon. Those of us who walked to work are considering out options.

One of the main reasons I used to walk to work, other than the fact that I got rid of my car and First cancelled the bus, was that it gave me some exercise that didn’t involve treadmills, aircon and MTV. Catching two buses, one into town and the other out to Meadowhall on the other side, would do away with that. Also, it is expensive and takes a long time. My first solution has been to walk to the station, it takes about three quarters of an hour, hop onto the train to Bridlington at 8.41, get off again five minutes later at Meadowhall and walk along the Transpennine Trail to the back gate into the car park. This has turned out to be both quite pleasant and good exercise. Because I’ve hardly been in the office lately and one thing and another, I’ve done that trip to work several times but not the trip back. The trip that involves the long uphill drag home.

This morning I was all set to walk in again but, predictably, I ended up running late. Oops! Not to worry though. I had an alternative just waiting to be tried. I couple of weeks ago I went shopping. Now I’m not a woman who enjoys shopping. Shopping for clothes is always disappointing because I’m not a size 10 and shopping for food is boring. This was different though and I had a personal shopper and everything. A helpful young man called Tom. I went to the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative at Nether Edge in Sheffield. I told Tom what I wanted and within a matter of minutes I had a bike ordered and all the extra stuff you have to buy these days; pannier rack, lights, locks, helmet, mudguards (!) and cycle clips. Which I immediately misplaced but a couple of red Post Office elastic bands do very well. A week later I was in possession of a beautiful white Specialize Ariel bike, a girly bike (no cross bar). I love it.

So when I was already five minutes late I looked to Ariel to save me. I manoeuvred it onto the road and then walked it down the hill. It’s got good brakes but that hill is too scary to ride down. I doubt I’d be able to stop at the bottom. And then I rode it, via back roads and cycle-paths, to the station and loaded us both on the Brid train. A special reason for choosing that train is that it arrives on the platform allowing immediate ramped access to the Transpennine Trail. I arrived at work on time and happy.

Full of myself and my achievement I decided to cycle the entire route home. There was plenty of advice available, both on the internet and in the office. I was assured that the best route back was following the Five Weirs Walk. Unfortunately the map I printed off was too vague to be useful and anyway, it fell out of my pocket at some point. I didn’t worry though. This is such a high profile path that it would be bound to be well signposted. Or, as it turned out, not. And it was getting dark and I had to get home under my own steam as a bike that fits in a train doesn’t fit so well on a bus or in a taxi. The off-road sections of the route were wonderful. Some of the route was on-road though. I could have coped with the occasional on-road section if I hadn’t found that the red cycle paths petered out without a sign in sight to point to where to go next. Luckily, at one of these junctures, I recognized the 69 bus route that I had taken three days last week and followed that into town. I had been hoping to avoid bus routes but the drivers, perhaps recognizing an unconfident cyclist, gave me a wide berth. I finally arrived home with a great sense of triumph and a need for a soft cushion to sit on.

What I learned from this exercise in unprepared confidence was that really a bit of pre-planning would have been useful. We’ve produced some great travel plans over the years and have given lots of advice about how best to ensure people travel safely. We recommend that copies of the, often, free maps are obtained and kept at the office. We recommend all sorts of information and help, much of it available from the council or organizations like Pedal Ready and Sustrans and, again, much of it free or very reasonably priced. We’ve just been a bit busy sorting out what fixtures should be in the toilets (we women would like a mirror for example) and who brings in the milk, to do this important job. I think I might volunteer.

George...don't do that!

It wasn't just Alison out and about recently - we all went to this event but Alison wrote it up:

Leaving work on time and a glass of wine always heralds a good start to an evening. And this one was no exception. The environmental management team minus Catherine :( but plus our most faithful groupie (Sally, Yvonne's daughter) trooped off to see one of our heros in action the other night at the Showcase.

George Monbiot was in town for one night only. I wasn't sure what to expect. We frequently read his blog and almost got him to agree to meet us for lunch at our last Away Day, but aside from knowing he is an excellent scribe with very well-formed personal views on a progressive society, we didn't know much else.

The format worked well - George opened the event with a 10 minute speech presenting an opinion on the changes to the NHS. And then he opened up the discussion to the floor. It was well attended with young and old there in equal numbers. He has done these events a lot in the past few years and took care to allow equal comments from men and women. Whilst I expect he was preaching to the converted in many cases, it was also a great opportunity to challenge our own opinions by listening to comments from a wide range of people in the audience. There were chatterboxes, quietly considered opinions, rambling comments, rants, left wingers, right wingers and bang in the middle wingers and swearers. We talked about the economy, society, the power of individuals, climate change, fossil fuels, supply and demand models and prostitution.

But the one thing I took away from it is the huge variety of opinions that are out there and the correspondingly huge privilege we have in terms of being allowed to express our opinions in public in this country. I agreed with some and I completely disagreed with others. But that didn't reduce the respect I had for anyone in the room. They are all entitled to their opinions. It would be great if we could find a way to get more and more people from all walks of life interested in sharing their views in this way.

So George....please keep doing that!

A 'lean' approach to sustainabilty

Alison has been out and about again. Here she reports on an interesting topic:

I can honestly say that I never stop learning in my job. That is a privilege but also hard work sometimes! It means you constantly have to review how you think, what you are doing and how you are advising your clients.

Working with the manufacturing sector has taught me a lot about efficiency and waste, and not just tangible efficiency and waste. Time, use of raw materials, distance travelled, stock management, communication between the office and the shop floor; all of these elements of manufacturing have the potential to create tangible waste and intangible inefficiencies in the system.

However, when I look at that list of potential wastes I immediately think about sustainability as opposed to lean manufacturing. It is clear that the two are inextricably linked. Generally speaking, efficient processes, efficient use of raw materials, reducing miles travelled and improving communication are tools that we use in our jobs to discuss the environmental element of sustainability with clients.

Sustainability is about the environmental AND social impacts of the economic activities that we carry out. So we can’t forget the social side of this too. It may be that more efficient or ‘leaner’ processes in manufacturing leads to loss of jobs as processes become streamlined or automated. That is a challenge for society as a whole – if you ask a manufacturer what their primary aim is it will probably be something like ‘creating value’ not ‘creating jobs’.

On Tuesday I was at an excellent event on ‘Lean Office’ organised by the very practical and supportive Manufacturing Advisory Service. Despite the potential challenges of having ‘lean’ organisations on society, it is a tool that can be effectively linked to sustainability. Carrying out value stream or process mapping of any organisation’s processes can highlight areas of waste within the system that may be able to be managed out. Reducing physical waste has an immediate cost benefit to the company and will help you conform to the new legal requirements of adhering to the waste hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle).

We need to start taking a broader approach to all these tools and concepts available to organisations – sustainability effectively challenges us to see the bigger picture and look at things as a whole, without forgetting people and the environment. Taking a ‘lean’ approach can be an excellent starting point.

Alison Fanshawe

Resilience - some thoughts

I’m doing a college course at the moment and one of the requirements is that I put together and deliver a five-minute presentation on a subject of my choice. It mustn’t be work related. Five minutes is a scarily short amount of time. When I’m training we usually haven’t even got to where the loos are by five minutes. I tend to be garrulous. Crikey!

So, if not work related, what? There’d be too much setting up required to talk about science fiction, my abiding passion. I’m not sure a knitting demonstration is what the tutor had in mind, and I’m not allowed to talk about climate change. Then I had an epiphany. I’m going to talk about resilience. It is related to work but, although I touch on it in relationship to environmental issues in some courses, it isn’t something that is central to my job and it is something that I’m concerned about in my personal life. Here’s the first draft:

I’m going to talk today about resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a shock. I think the opposite would be brittleness or fragility. It is a concept that can be applied to all sorts of things, from a material to a civilisation. Hands up those who think our current civilisation is resilient.

You might guess that I don’t. The fragility of our modern British civilisation first impacted on me in the early 70s. I remember it vividly. The family was watching Star Trek and some horrid black blob beast had battened onto Spock’s back when, Bang! The lights went out. This, our first power cut of the miners’ strike, dropped us from the far galaxy spanning future directly into the cold dark scary past.

At the time we lived on a modern housing estate. When it was built a large underground oil storage tank had been provided to serve the heating needs of the whole estate. Oil was pumped through to the central heating boiler of each house. No electricity, no light, no heat. In my grandparents’ home there would have been warmth and some light from the open fire. There’d have been hot water from the geezer and the gas cooker would work for a while until the gas pressure fell. And, coming from the generation that lived through the war, they had a healthy stash of candles.

Our modern and efficient house contained exactly one candle, the advent candle. By the time the lights came back on there was only a stub left… And there was a run on candles the next day in the village. None available, not even for ready money.

I think the experience had a salutary effect on me. That and the extensive reading of disaster SF. It’s not at the forefront of my thoughts all the time but the awareness of fragility squats at the back of my mind. I’m convinced we haven’t learnt from our experiences. Our systems are terrifically efficient and terribly brittle.

What could possibly go wrong? Drought in Russia, floods in Australia, land used to grow biofuels, a growing appetite for grain fed meat in the new middle classes in China and India, speculation in commodities; all leading to escalating food prices. Not immediate enough? We’re all rich enough not to go hungry after all.

We import over 40% of our gas now. Another very cold winter, low gas storage levels, a disruption similar to the one that affected central Europe whilst Russia and the Ukraine squabbled about who was or was not stealing gas. How would we fare? A lot of our electricity is gas powered now too.

Or imagine the same very cold winter, more likely as the climate changes, causing water pipes to freeze and burst. It happened in Northern Ireland this last winter. Weeks with only bottled water.

How about another volcano? A problem with oils supplies? Remember the oil refinery blockade a few years ago? No petrol at the pumps? Very quickly little food in the shops?

Just in Time deliveries are extremely efficient but they are not resilient. We have spent the last several years working to become super-efficient, to trim down to the bare bones. A system without fat is fine if there is no famine. Resilience is all about redundancy though. When the main system fails a secondary system takes the load. If that fails there is another backup. That’s not efficient. Efficiency is fine as long as everything goes to plan and nothing breaks down.

OK. Given my awareness of the dangers have I organised my life so I am safe from these failures? I have candles, I have a newly installed woodburning stove, I have a decent amount of food storage. I feel happy that I could weather a week’s disruption without pain but more than that? Water would be a problem in my urban environment, and a build up of waste. In reality my life can only be resilient in the context of a resilient society and not only do we not have one of those, our society is getting more and more brittle all the time.

OK, now I've got to see if I can say all that in five minutes and make it interesting.

Moving

ECUS has been comfortably ensconced in Endcliffe Holt as long as I’ve been there. It’s a lovely old building owned by the University of Sheffield and leased to us. Someone told me that it used to be the Master Cutler’s house. It must have been very grand in it’s time. Not so much now. It’s looking very tired and most of the land that must once have surrounded it has had student accommodation built on it, leaving a small amount of green where we have built a pond to attract wildlife. It could be made really lovely again but a huge amount of money would have to be spent on it.

We’re all torn about this move. When we go I won’t miss the poor insulation leading to nasty chills in the winter, the antiquated heating system leading to nasty chills in the winter or the freezing loos and kitchen. I will bid a happy farewell to the nasty chills. I will, though, miss the beautiful high ceilings (in the summer), the ability to push up the sash windows to the top and welcome in the honeyed scent of the enormous Buddleia (in the summer), the magnificent views over the valley to my house, the tremendous old trees surrounding the place and the fabulous birds you can see flitting around the place; owls, nuthatches, long tailed tits etc. I will also miss being able to walk to work in 20 minutes. And the rich diversity of charity shops, and eateries, and the York, in Broomhill.

The new place is, I understand, pretty much under the M1 at Meadowhall. There are many good things to say about it. It will be much easier for our training delegates to get to, being just off the M1 but also within 5 minutes walk of the Meadowhall interchange where there are buses, trains and the Supertram. It’s well insulated, we will be open plan so our little enclaves will open up to a wider social interaction and it backs on to the Transpennine Trail with Concord Park on the far side of the railway line. It’s amazing how much green there is around this formerly industrial area. I looked it up on Walkit.com which says it’s 7.4 miles, door to door and would take me 1 hour 59 minutes to walk if I walked fast. I’m undecided about how best to get there. If I go by public transport it is two buses or a bus and a tram or a bus and a train. And quite a lot of time. I’m thinking it might be worth investigating biking to work. It would mean using the roads (scary) to get into town but following cycle routes and along canal paths going out the other side. And then, of course, there is always car share. I feel a green travel plan coming on.

In the meantime we are bidding a lingering farewell to the old place. Lingering not because we hate to break away, although that too, but because the company providing the cabling to the new building have utterly failed to get it done by the deadline set in the contract. We had an evening saying farewell to Broomhill last week and there’s probably going to be another one this Friday. We could keep this up for weeks. Our nice desks and filing cabinets have gone over to the new place so we are using old and broken desks and living out of cardboard boxes. It’s amazing how much Stuff we’ve all accumulated too. I’ve been here four years and have had to dispose of huge amounts of paper. I must learn to put it out for recycling in a timely manner instead of hoarding it.

We’ve had a lot of fun at the old place. The barbeques were awesome. The car park Tetris was interesting. But who will rescue the baby foxes that fall into the cellar from now on? Who will feed grubs to the resident robin? And will I ever walk through Endcliffe Park again? Ah well. One era draws to a close and another one opens, ripe with possibility and excitement! I’m quite looking forward to it.

News from the manufacturing sector

Alison recently attended an event run by the Manufacturing Advisory Service in Yorkshire which contained an update on the government's thoughts on supporting this sector.

- The government have decided to support high growth manufacturing businesses (i.e. +20% growth for more than 3 years!) – this only represents about 6% of all manufacturing companies or 1500 across the UK. They will identify and support them through a Business Coaching for Growth Support Service. MAS will remain but at a lower level, probably at a regional level but the jury is still out on how the service will work. Business Link will no longer be supported

- One CEO of a manufacturing company is sitting on the board of the new Sheffield City Region local enterprise partnership (LEP) which covers Sheffield, Chesterfield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster, Bassetlaw & North East Derbyshire. These are NOT replacements for regional development agencies (RDAs like Yorkshire Forward) and no-one is quite sure how they will work or what their remit will end up being. The good news is, they are totally industry-driven to give support to business in the region from other businesses in the region. No more quangos or middle-men. There is only approximately £10m funding available for the next three years for each LEP and the first round of bids obviously shows massive over-subscribing. But each LEP is free to pick what will best fit the region. Key aims for our LEP: advanced manufacturing, employer-led skills and support, finance (i.e. access to finance for SMEs) and a digital hub.

- Skills – SEMTA is the Learning Skills Council for manufacturing. There was interesting information on skills gap (at skills level 2 + 3) – primarily lies in the 25-40 age range (i.e. the managers of the future). This is a big problem that needs sorting.

- The Leadership Solar System (by Bill McGrawley) – 4 planets, which I thought fed nicely into ECUS' Environmental Management vision and values. This states that you need the four qualities below to lead.

1. High morality

2. Optimal product portfolio

3. Unleash people

4. Understand strategic landscape.

In addition you need prudence, the ability to listen, decisiveness, honesty, communication, no greed, don’t exploit, diversity (skills) and a measured response to challenges.

Having visions

I haven’t written about what we’re doing at ECUS recently and there’s plenty going on, but more of that in a later posting.

First I want to talk about Environmental Management and what we’re doing. As you may recall the team is four strong now. There’s our Glorious Leader, Alison, who is a great boss. What makes a great boss? For me it is someone who listens to my wild ideas and suggests that they’re worth a look and asks if I can make them work – go flesh them out. Then there’s Catherine, our legal obsessive – every environmental department should have one. We rely on her to make sense of the legalese as ever more regulations are issued. She has taken our newest consultant under her wing as Amanda expands her auditing experience. Finally, I am spending a lot of time at the moment developing and presenting a range of training courses.

One of the most exciting, though, is the one I’m delivering next Friday, training our potential new trainers. Catherine is so knowledgeable that we think she should start passing that on to our clients. Amanda will be taking on some of the waste courses; ideal with her background in the Environment Agency. We’re also training some of the Ecologists who occasionally need to present to clients. Being able to present training in an interesting and interactive way is a real skill and much of it comes from experience and a thorough knowledge of your subject but a lot of the skill can be passed on. We are considering making the course available to those of our clients who are interested.

Our team is looking at how to provide the best service we can. We have been considering this for a long time and a week or so ago we had an ‘away day’ where we looked at our strategy moving into 2011. I’ve suffered through a ‘Visions & Values’ exercise in the past where I felt that the visions were already decided on and the actual embedded values were not necessarily what the company professed. That consultation seemed like a box to be ticked. Not so this time. We spent the morning with Siobhan facilitating our debate about what exactly our aspirations for the department are and the afternoon getting down to the nitty-gritty – ‘given what we want to do how do we start?’ At the end of the day we had a working strategy.

The vision that emerged from our day away was:

Unlimited thinking, unlimited potential, fulfilled through work

Given that we are all working in the environmental field because we want to make a difference the mission that emerged is:

· Improving the environment through encouraging, convincing and challenging our clients

· Changing the world for the better through knowledge and influence

· Helping to integrate the environment and sustainability into our clients’ core business

· Selling solutions not services - working with clients in order for them to achieve self-realised business improvements.

We have an action plan, suitably SMART, with responsibilities and deadlines allocated. I’ll let you know how we progress.

FYI - to public transport or not

I wrote a few days ago about using public transport as part of my professional life. To help people make the decision within my company about whether to use public transport or not, I have put together a flowchart. This, obviously, works for us. As they say, Your Mileage May Vary.

Double click on the image for a clearer view.

An atlas of pollution.

There is a fascinating datablog from the Guardian showing who is producing what carbon and whether the emissions are increasing or decreasing. The UK is the 10th largest emitter which is rather interesting, especially given our huge contribution to the historic build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The close up picture is here. The worst information is that even the global economic slow down has not reversed the increase in carbon emissions.

A transport of delight

I was talking about my preferred mode of travel during the lunch break of a course I was delivering last week. It's come up a number of times in recent months, maybe because of the inclement weather. I travel by public transport.

Many years ago, when I was the environmental management representative for a company implementing ISO 14001 we had an environmental consultant visit us to do a legal compliance audit. I asked him for his car registration to let reception know because we always played car park Tetris - double parking was necessary. 'I came by train,' he said and I vividly remember thinking, how very odd! I am now doing that odd thing myself. I think it is a function of being aware of all the environmental issues. As a consultant I spend an appreciable amount of time keeping up with environmental news and researching environmental impacts. Transport is one of our big ones. Not only does it emit about a quarter of the UK's greenhouse gases, the congestion and pollution caused is choking our cities and making them unpleasant places to be. We cart around large quantities of steel, plastic, glass and polluting liquids to get us from one car park to another and during some parts of our commute we move so slowly and intermittently that we are almost parked then. On Tuesday morning I walked towards work in Sheffield. I stopped to chat briefly to an acquaintance at Hunter's Bar roundabout and was overtaken (very slowly) by a huge Co-op delivery lorry. After completing my conversation I headed up Brocco Bank. I'm not a power walker, in fact my preferred speed is the gentle stroll, but on reaching the top of the hill I had to hang around for a couple of minutes for the lorry to appear in my photo. It's not very effective to travel by powered transport in Sheffield at rush hour.

So, yes, but public transport. Isn't that a bit horrid? I haven't found it to be horrid at all. It's generally very relaxing as long as you reserve a seat when travelling on the more popular trains, and none of the buses I've caught have required me to stand. What it does mean, generally, is that I have to set off earlier and arrive home later than I would by car, although by no means always. The journeys usually take longer but that time can be used. I dislike driving to a venue to present training because it means I have to review the slides the day before rather than on the journey. Similarly, when I have performed an audit I will get most of the report written up on the train on the way home. The time is not wasted as it is when driving; listening to drivel on the radio. If I don't want to work I can read, knit, or just look out of the window. The train journey from Sheffield to Manchester through the Pennines is lovely in the summer and preferable to the impatient idiots overtaking on the Snake Pass at any time of year. The journey to Edinburgh or Glasgow along the East Coast line is also lovely with stunning views at Durham, Alnmouth and Berwick and along the coast up to Eyemouth. I love train travel everywhere but around London, where I tolerate it because the alternative is so much worse. I've had some fascinating conversations (except around London) and when I'm feeling anti-social I plug in my i-Pod.

In order to make sure I get a reserved seat I book my train travel on the internet. I use the East Coast website because it doesn't charge you for using a credit card or for picking the ticket up at the station. And because I'm used to it. Other train companies and the Trainline sell tickets for all journeys. I book as far in advance as I can and doing this means not only can I get a seat but if I can be sure of my travel times I can usually get cheap tickets. The Moneysaving Expert has useful tips on this here. I also keep a lookout for offers. East Coast sent me one around Christmas which had a single to anywhere on their network for £8. I promptly booked two weekends in Scotland. The travel for each weekend cost £16. You certainly couldn't drive for that.

Yes, but if you're not going to a city centre a train is no good you say. I must admit that the integrated transport system that the various governments have said we will have anytime now still doesn't seem to be in place but in the last four years there's only been a couple of places I haven't been able to get to by public transport, both in Yorkshire. Apparently it used to be possible to get to Heckmondwike but the service was discontinued. It's possible to get to the top of the M606 in Bradford but it takes hours. When I drove, though, it took going on for three hours. About the time it would have taken by train and bus. The M1/M62/M606 were pretending to be carparks on the day I went.

It is a good point though. I often need a connection from the station to my final destination. I use two methods here. One is the TrainTaxi website. This lists all the train stations in the UK and the local taxi companies serving that station. Obviously if you are arriving at a large(ish) station like Sheffield you can expect black cabs and the site notes this. For smaller stations it is prudent to call the day before. My only problem with taxis has been because I haven't kept an eye on the calendar and neglected to get in with an early booking on the two days of travel during Eid. Not a mistake I will make again! The wonderful A.B.Cars still got me from Garforth station to the Holiday Inn in time for my presentation and amazingly cheaply and then brought me back the purse I'd dropped in the cab. I never used to use taxis. I thought them an extravagance, but the cost of a taxi on top of the train fare has only once been comparable to the mileage and is often much less, and I pass these savings on to the client.

If money is tight, as it has been these last couple of years, you might still decide to avoid the cost of a taxi. I did this recently on a trip to Tanfield Lea in County Durham. I looked up its location on Googlemaps and realised it was about equidistant from Durham and Newcastle, around 14miles. That looked like an expensive couple of trips in a taxi so I looked on Transport Direct. It turned out that there was a bus that took me to within a couple of hundred yards of my destination and though it took 3/4 of an hour longer the entire journey was pleasant. Not so much going back. Someone threw themselves in front of the train just outside Sheffield. We were waiting an hour whilst the emergency services dealt with it and probably the train driver dealt with the emotional problems he/she must have felt. At least, though, we were warm, in a lighted carriage and could go to the loo. After quarter of an hour there was also complementary hot drinks and those going past Sheffield got sandwiches too. Very much more comfortable than the hours I've spent on various occasions sitting on motorways waiting for debris to be cleared.

The only advantage I see to driving to places for work is that you can take lots of stuff. Indeed, when I had a car I had to occasionally empty out the accumulated stuff and take it back into the office. The ecologists couldn't head off with their newt traps on public transport but with a laptop & a bag of paper I can and I feel that should, not just because of my environmental principles but because it makes my life better.

Climate & weather - and not losing our balance

One of the joys of working in environment is the comments we get when it snows. Lower than average temperatures anywhere in the UK at any time are taken as proof positive that climate change isn't real. I can understand why people would like to dismiss the whole concept. If climate change is real and the effects on our children and grandchildren are as predicted then we all ought to do something about it. To make a real difference we are going to have to make large changes. It's so much easier if we can deny it. Unfortunately the science points to climate change being real and mostly our responsibility.

People tend to forget that there is a difference between weather and climate. Weather is what we get day to day. It is variable and difficult to predict accurately. Will it rain on 3rd July? We don't know in January. Climate is the big picture and is more predictable. We can be fairly sure that it will be warmer on 3rd July than it is today. In the UK our climate is temperate maritime which means it is generally mild and damp and subject to a lot of weather. Oscar Wilde said, 'Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.' In the UK it is one of the safest conversational subjects, suitable for all, especially at the moment when it is the second winter to be unusually cold following a prolonged run of mild winters. During last year's winter a taxi driver in Sheffield (font of all knowledge) commented that there was a whole generation of drivers who had little experience of driving on ice.

What we should remember is that weather is local and climate change is global. As you can see in NASA's temperature map below whilst November was unusually cold in the UK and northern Europe there are whole areas surrounding us that are very much warmer then normal. The other thing we might consider is that climate destabilisation can have a marked effect on our local weather.

I have been saying for quite some time now, in my entirely unscientific way, that continuing arctic ice melt can only result in strange weather. That huge amount of ice at the top of the world, covering the sea and reflecting sunlight must have a large effect on the weather we experience in the UK. The gardening book I am reading at the moment, 'The Resilient Gardener' puts it very nicely:

'Climatic changes cause irregularities in the patterns of ocean currents and winds. The local effects of those changes are huge compared with the few degrees cited as likely increases in average global climate in the next few decades. A change in wind patterns that brings Arctic inland air masses to you instead of mild ocean air will matter much more than a few degrees higher average global temperature.'

This may be what is happening at the moment. Arctic sea ice is lower than usual, as can be seen on the Arctic Sea Ice News website. Scientists are already at work looking at the potential effects of lower sea-ice. The Oslo Science Conference website, reporting Dr James Overland's comments summarised, 'a warmer Arctic climate is influencing the air pressure at the North Pole and shifting wind patterns on our planet. We can expect more cold and snowy winters in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America'. Recently Vladimir Petoukhov and Vladimir Semenov have issued a press release based on a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) arguing that Global Warming could cool down winter temperatures over Europe, and a reduced sea-ice extent could increase the chance of getting cold winters.

Whenever I come across any climate related news I head straight for Real Climate, a blog about 'Climate science from climate scientists'. I have to concentrate really hard to remember my physics and occasionally do background reading to fully understand what they are talking about but it's worth the effort. They didn't let me down with these stories which are discussed in a recent blog posting. They critique the JGR paper and suggest that further work needs to be done before the link they describe is confirmed but conclude, 'It is nevertheless no contradiction between a global warming and cold winters in regions like Europe. Rather, recent analysis suggest that the global mean temperature is marching towards higher values, and Petoukhov and Semenov argue that the cold winter should be an expected consequence of a global warming.'

NB The temperature anomaly map is for November 2010, the most up-to-date at the time of writing.

Snow & Ice - and staying on our feet

Last week was cold here. It snowed lightly on Friday and the light dusting turned very quickly to ice making the roads treacherous. On Saturday night it started to properly snow and we had several inches.

Despite that, on Monday I set off for Manchester to deliver a training course. Luckily it was an afternoon course and I'd given myself plenty of time to get there. I set out at ten and arrived at 13.30 to find the room not set up, no flip chart and only four delegates. By the time I'd sorted out the room the delegate numbers were up to just a couple short of the expected numbers and we made an enthusiastic start.

To be fair, I had quite a pleasant day. There was a long wait at Sheffield Station as I'd allowed plenty of time for the bus to be delayed, which it wasn't, although the train was over half an hour late. In the new world of high-tech connectivity I didn't waste that time. I bought a coffee in order to be allowed to sit and work at a table and got on with all my outstanding stuff. The trip over the Pennines was spectacular - at this time of year I rarely see it, it being dark for both the outward and return trips. By the time we got into Manchester Piccadilly we were running so late that they turfed us off and set off back to Cleethorpes leaving us to scurry along and catch the local train to the airport.

By the time I arrived back to the airport station on my way home, one minute after the scheduled departure time, they were back to running strictly to time and I had another 55 minutes to catch up with outstanding stuff. I must say that although public transport was disrupted by the snow I never for an instant though about trying to drive to Manchester which involves either the Snake or Woodhead Passes (often closed by this sort of weather and amazingly slow even when not) or the M62, a long way round and probably carrying the burden of the traffic from the other routes.

On Tuesday morning I checked National Rail Enquiries to find that the train to Leeds was running on time. Walking through fresh snow, even down my scary steep hill, was fairly pleasant so I caught my bus, then the train all bang on time. At Leeds the train to Garforth was delayed so, following a problem the week before with the taxi company (during Eid there are very few taxi drivers available in Garforth), I took the opportunity to call ahead and ask for a taxi to be waiting for me. At this point, standing in the snow on a frigid platform, I learned that none of the drivers were prepared to drive from the station to the training venue. Hmm. Luckily one of the delegates was already there and quite happy to brave the snow and pick me up. He had a front wheel drive car and so had rather more control than the posh BMW sitting in the car park, revving but going nowhere. It was a good training course and a lovely day in Garforth where it was cold but sunny all day long. Back in Sheffield though, the difference of forty miles was clear. Whilst it had been bright and biting in Garforth it had snowed all day in Sheffield. I was tremendously grateful that the taxi driver at Sheffield Station was prepared to risk taking me towards home. He wasn't prepared to chance going off the bus route because even that was a couple of inches thick with snow. Off this the roads were about six inches deep.

By Wednesday, when the snowman was built, the snow was fifteen inches deep and we reluctantly postponed the course in Birmingham scheduled for Thursday. There was only a light dusting there and the trains were running less than 30 minutes late but there was no safe way to get to the station in Sheffield carrying a laptop and all the paperwork or, more importantly, back to my house in the evening. I worked at home Wednesday and Friday and, given that it was -10C last night, the pavements and roads are icy, and I don't fall gracefully, I am working at home today, hence the catch up. Tomorrow I'll attempt getting to Birmingham. Because there is only so much stuff that is outstanding.

CLP Regulation

Here's a post from Catherine:

1st December this year will see the first registration deadline under REACH for those manufacturers/importers supplying a substance above 1,000 tonnes/year. Perhaps slightly less well publicised but equally important is the coming into force of key provisions of European Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures, otherwise known as the CLP Regulation. This Regulation is the method by which the EU has adopted the agreement on a Globally Harmonised System (GHS) on the classicisation, labelling and packaging of chemicals. Changes to the system include terminology changes such as ‘hazardous’ replaced by ‘dangerous’, ‘risk phrases’ replaced by ‘hazard codes and statements’, ‘safety phrases’ replaced by ‘precautionary statements’ and ‘warnings’ (irritant, corrosive etc.) replaced by ‘signal words’ (warning, danger etc.). Although the legislation was approved in January 2009, it won’t come fully into force until June 2015, and the transitional period coincides with some of the key REACH deadlines. However, the CLP Regulation is going to have a much wider impact than just REACH as much national legislation is based on the existing CLP system. For example, the classification of hazardous waste is partly based on risk phrases, so will the Hazardous Waste Regulations have to be overhauled? It will be interesting to see how the knock-on effects of the CLP Regulation will be dealt with in the UK. The transitional period will also mean an overlap between the new and old systems, so some downstream users of chemicals will receive data sheets from one supplier using the old system and some from a different supplier using the new system! Interesting times…