The green agenda: What exactly IS the agenda?
Lots has been written about the Coalition government reneging on certain policies that were supposedly all part of the acceptance that the UK was ready to go green, and was prepared to pay a price for doing so. In the new period of austerity this assumption has been questioned and found wanting. The energy companies offer ‘green’ tariffs that include greener energy sourcing and some carbon offsetting, but these cost 20% more than a standard tariff. Needless to say, the number of people on these types of tariffs is small – effectively you are giving a charitable donation or paying a voluntary tax to support greener energy.
Such noble actions though are not being supported by companies like BP, who put a measly 5% of their exploration budget into greener forms of energy. So it’s all a bit of a sham.
Zurich, the pensions company, claims its Environmental Opportunities Fund will invest in ‘companies and institutions that actively enhance the global environment and community’, yet almost a sixth of the fund is in oil companies’ shares.
The ‘planet’s first low-carbon restaurant’, Otarian, opened in London a few weeks ago, and despite a proper and intense marketing programme has failed to attract much custom – at least in its Wardour Street branch. No meat is sold in Otarian, so it was always going to be a niche offer – yet I suspect they didn’t expect it to be quite so niche.
There was a revealing story in the Guardian about how ‘locally sourced’ Devon products in Tesco, produced within a stone’s throw of the store, were travelling hundreds of miles to a central distribution centre and then hundreds of miles back again, making the ‘local’ claim a bit redundant. Factually true, but implying a green benefit that doesn’t actually exist.
As a nation we have become much better at recycling things, using fewer plastic bags and using low-energy light bulbs. We all feel like we are doing our bit to save the planet, therefore we don’t feel too guilty about doing the bad things, when there is little perceived option. An amusing response to Prince Charles’s sustainability project, confusingly called Start, has received a fair amount of cynicism – “Its all very well for him to eat organic foods, when all he has to do is order his butler to go and get some vegetables from his massive garden. If you live in a council estate watching every penny, its totally different”.
This all begs the question – has the green agenda lost its way? Lots of individuals and lots of companies all doing a tiny bit, but lots of smoke and mirrors at the same time. As Tony Hayward, the deposed CEO of BP, found out, ‘smoke and mirrors’ is not an easy strategy to defend. Only when companies (and governments) put authenticity as a prerequisite in their green strategies, will we see consumers begin to trust those companies, and then in turn it will give those companies the confidence to go beyond paying lip-service to the green agenda.
At the moment though it feels like a real mess.