WBCSD Liaison Delegate Meetings
8 - 12 October 2010, Montreux, Switzerland

With a venue on the edge of Lake Geneva, with blue skies and a surround vista of white topped mountains and more than 400 business delegates from every conceivable part of the world and guests from the UN, EU, and other international government and ngo bodies, attending this Liaison Delegate’s Meeting of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development was about as international as it gets.

 
Launching the event, WBCSD president, Bjorn Stigson, said the “green race is on”. But for countries seeking to be winners it was “a must they build scale in their domestic markets first”. The key issues are – energy; transport; urban infrastructure; food and water. Agriculture and farming accounts for 30% of GHG emissions and the issue of meat provision is a major problem. There is a growing gap between water availability and demand.

National governments think in the short term with targets related to finance, jobs and the priority of getting re-elected. Global leadership is up in the air and there is a growing role for business. Yvo de Boer on his departure from the IPPC said there was a need for “new partnerships with the business sector”.

But business needs to be clear on what it aims to deliver. And trust in business has gone down. The G8 has lost its way and G20 seems now more relevant.

“We need to connect all the dots – investors – banks – business – to create the green economy. We cannot wait for governments to make up their minds. The gloves are off. Business is not afraid to tackle problems. It is time for business to stand up and be more aggressive. It is something that would be welcomed by negotiators”. 

The theme of business taking a more aggressive lead was echoed throughout the event.

 
The report presents new opportunities for business in a broad range of business segments with the foresight to lead their societies on a sustainable business development agenda.

Vision 2050 spells out the “must haves” – the things that must happen over the coming decade to make a sustainable planetary society possible. These include incorporating the costs of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water, into the structure of the marketplace; doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used ; halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests: halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems and improved demand-side energy efficiency, and providing universal access to low-carbon mobility.

This pilot idea which brings together people from the worlds of urban design and build, IT and ICT, cars, logistics, fuels and other elements that when assembled make up a low carbon, sustainable urban world is being sponsored by Advantage West Midlands, Cenex and Coventry City Council.

 
PSM is free to exhibit, attend the debates and visit the exhibition. Exhibitors include:

3M; Advantage West Midlands; AGK-World Ltd; Axon Automotive; Bennett Williams; Business Council for Sustainable Development – UK; Business Link West Midlands; CABLED; Cenex; Coventry City Council; Coventry University; DPE-Automotive; Earth Wind & Solar; ECC Infracharge Ltd; Ecotec; EU Connects; GenetINKS Ltd; GloballyLocal; Graviton Dynamics UK; Lafarge Aggregates; Martineau; Midlands Eco Partnership; Midlands Environmental Business Co; MIRA Limited; Niche Vehicle Network; Our Local World; Plexus Altitude Limited; Quickmap; R2Powertrain Ltd; RESCO; Stadco Ltd; Sustainability West Midlands; The Low Carbon Economy Limited; The Prince’s Mayday Network; Tweedale Limited; UK Trade & Investment – Environment & Water Team; Urban Futures; Willmott Dixon; Zenith International

Involved in the debate are:

Dr David Benton (Director of Research and Development, AFS Limited, specialists in a programme of research and development based on liquid fuels from atmospheric carbon dioxide and hydrogen); Peter Braithwaite (European Head of Sustainability and International Lead for the global Sustainability Collaborative Working Group at CH2M HILL which has responsibility for the stewardship and growth of its sustainability related services); Robert Evans, (Chief Executive, Cenex, the UK's first Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technologies at Loughborough); Andy Gunnell (Strategy and Communications Manager Power and Process Europe, AMEC and also acting as the UK  co-ordinator and supply chain development manager for a low carbon city development in South Korea); Malcolm Harbour MEP (Founder of the European Forum for the Automobile and Society); Toddington Harper (Managing Director, LowCarbonEconomy.com. a central resource for the low carbon economy, connecting people and organisations with low carbon news, products, discussions and community); Michael Hurwitz (Director of Office for Low Emission Vehicles which sits in the DfT but has DEFRA and BIS people in it as well); Dr Kayvan Karimi (Director, Space Syntax – a leading specialist in how value can be created through the analysis, understanding and skilful manipulation of space. Also involved in zero carbon city developments around the world);
Federico Parolotto (a founding director of Milan based MIC – specialists in urban transit system design, deeply involved in low carbon city developments at, for instance, Masdar); Hugo Spowers (founder of RiverSimple – former racing car designer and builder now committed to developing new city cars but with a radical new business model).

In addition there is a panel of “four wise men” who will seek to identify real nuggets of output from the debate. They are:

Jeff Tetlow (Chairman, Business Council for Sustainable Development – United Kingdom. Globally respected for his expertise in major chp projects. Formerly with ConocoPhillips); Dr Paul Brooks (Group Director, Environment, Tata Steel and a founder member of the BCSD-UK); Jim Rushworth (Head of Sustainability at Lafarge and based at their UK HQ in Birmingham); Rory Tait (Specialist energy lawyer with Birmingham and London based Martineau and a founder member and company secretary to the BCSD-UK).

Some of the questions to be explored in the debate include:

• Where does the money come from the develop green economies
• Do we really need to move to a low carbon world
• Are we identifying and backing the right winners?

Entry to PSM is free. To register e-mail  evelynen@ebc-info.co.uk or phone 0121 693 8338

 
His forthright introduction to his thinking and aspirations – given under rules of confidentiality - provided us with an understanding of where the “Government’s Green Monitor” is heading now with Will at the helm having taken over from founder Chairman Jonathon Porritt. In the changes society has to undertake there is big opportunity for business not the least in the retrofit programme – including for SMEs. He also felt it was good timing for organisations such as the BCSD-UK to be talking to Government. The whole transitional issue is challenging to government including major questions such as “what does a sustainable economy look like?” – with the work of Prof Tim Jackson, the SDC’s Economic Commissioner, raising difficult questions.

Issues Will covered included – too many indicators pointing in the wrong direction; the overwhelming scale of the challenges we confront; need joined up thinking and responses in Government; need for sustainability to be a central issue for Government; the need to maximise alliances; concerns about levels of trust in Govrnment and the business community; the dominance of the need to satisfy value for money demands. He called for a focus on solutions and less on negative issues. “We need to change perceptions that sustainable places are bad places to be.”

Sustainable Development Commission Website 

BCSD-UK member David Symons from WSP Environmental attended the Carbon Trust’s Annual Stakeholder event for the BCSD-UK. The Trust’s report covering the 250 projects and companies it has supported, the 23 million tones of carbon it helped companies save, the £1.4 billion savings it has helped companies achieve, and the 5,000 carbon footprints it has certified are highlighted in the report that was the focus of this meeting. It can be seen on the BCSD-UK web site.

To view the report click here

  
Recent surveys suggest that fewer than 150 of the 5000 organisations impacted by the CRCEES have taken any measures to assess, report and reduce their carbon emissions.

Are laggard entities missing a trick? We think so.

Not only will bad preparation guarantee you a lowly place on the CRC league table, thus impacting your brand integrity, but crucially, it will expose you to increasing financial burdens in the form of penalties, carbon purchases and rising energy costs.

There's no denying that CRCEES compliance will be an enormous task- that's why we're making it easier for you.

Executives charged with spearheading CRCEES compliance campaigns will be gathering at the Barbican in London on May 18th and 19th to hear case studies and presentations from leading organisations who have already begun their journey towards a low carbon operation.

Join your industry peers at this decade-defining event and learn how to:

• Map organisations for accurate reporting
• Create a compliance team
• Understand landlord and tenancy issues
• Financial Planning and Budgeting for the CRCEES
• Analyse data to improve energy efficiency
• Devise strategies for quick wins across the board
• Include renewables in your energy resources

Act early and create lasting competitive advantage 

Funding has been awarded to E.ON and ScottishPower for design and development studies as part of the competition to build one of the world’s first commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration plants.

The funding will support Front End Engineering and Design studies, which will enable the bidders to further their designs for the projects at Kingsnorth and Longannet respectively. These studies involve detailed engineering and design work and will be completed within twelve months, after which the final competition winner will be selected.

This is one of the first set of studies of end-to-end commercial scale CCS on coal power plant in the world and will be used by project developers to examine and refine initial plans and reduce technical risk, so that more detailed project plans can be drawn-up and costed.


Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said:

“These two promising projects are at the forefront of the UK’s efforts to build one of the first commercial-scale clean coal plants in the world.

“The award of design-stage funding demonstrates our commitment to this breakthrough technology. It has the potential to support tens of thousands of jobs and bring billions into the economy.

“CCS is the only technology that tackles carbon emissions from fossil fuel power stations, and given the world’s dependence on coal, is a vital technology to securing the world’s future energy needs and tackling climate change.”


ScottishPower’s Chief Executive, Nick Horler said:

“We are delighted to have been selected for the next critical stage of the government’s competition."

“The real work of finally making CCS a commercial reality begins today as this funding will now enable ScottishPower to take the technology from concept to design stage. It will tell us exactly what we need to know so that we can quickly build this new and essential technology."

“It also puts the UK back at the head of the pack when it comes to delivering full-scale commercial CCS on a global stage.”


E.ON UK’s Chief Executive Dr Paul Golby, said:

“This is excellent news for the development of clean coal in the UK coming as it does hard on the heels of our announcement about our scoping application for the Kingsnorth CO2 pipeline last week. "

“It’s absolutely vital that we get CCS right and it’s especially heartening to see that we’re getting some real movement here in the UK now. "

At the end of last year, UNEP convened its annual Business and Industry global dialogue meeting on the theme of “Business and Biodiversity” and in partnership with the Secretariat of the Convention for Biological Diversity, in Jakarta, Indonesia. The event attracted over 200 participants from business, governments, NGOs and academia and resulted in a renewed commitment by stakeholders to work together to address the biodiversity challenge and the identification of recommendations for scaling-up the business contribution to biodiversity conservation efforts.

The WBCSD is pleased to inform you that its new Regional Network went on air today! This video is based on the interviews they shot at the Washington Council Meeting last October. In a near future, we hope to be able to update the video with input of regional partners who have not been portrayed in this version.

For more general use, we have also cut a shorter version of the video (about 2 minutes), featuring only the generic information on Regional Network. In addition, we have produced a fresh new standard presentation on the Regional Network with several animations, which you will be able to download and adapt for your purposes (more information on this soon to follow).

Entries must be received by 26 May 2010

Categories:

• Carbon Reduction 
• Green Corporate Initiative 
• Green Retail Initiative 
• Local Government Initiative 
• Renewable Energy 
• Sustainable Construction 
• Sustainable Transport 
• Waste & Recycling
• Water

Do you have a project that could influence the future of environmental management in your sector?

Have you gone beyond good practice and helped to shape the sustainability agenda in your sphere of operations?

Have you taken action that has had a significant impact on your organisation's environmental performance?

If so, we want to hear about it.

Run by edie.net, Europe's leading website for those with a professional interest in protecting the environment, the Awards for Environmental Excellence seek to recognise projects that set new standards in this area and can act as exemplars for others to follow.

Enter your project online: click here   

or contact Carl Myers on 020 8651 7134
or e-mail envawards@edie.net

A green transformation of Britain’s homes will take place over the next decade – making them more comfortable, warmer and cheaper to run – under new plans set out by the Government today

• Paving the way for ‘pay as you save’ green finance to make energy efficiency pay from day one 
• Up to 7 million British households to benefit from eco upgrades by 2020 
• Up to 65,000 jobs in the green home industry 
• Energy companies and local authorities to join forces to help consumers 
• New standards for social and rented accommodation to be proposed

David,
 
You asked me to let you have some details on this new project.
 
I have listed the main highlights of the project in a tabular form which hopefully will make it easier to understand:

1. Shropshire County Council is the lead authority. 
2. The project will be delivered by local delivery teams based in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Telford & Wrekin and Staffordshire. 
3. The project is being funded by Advantage West Midlands and an offer has already gone out to Shropshire for the funding. A contract has not yet been signed in view of the issues below. 
4. Total funding is for £4 million over a three year term. 
5. The project will offer SME’s free energy assessments and capital grants to purchase renewable energy equipment. These capital grants will offer a 50% intervention rate with a maximum grant of £35K. Larger schemes with a higher grant may be offered by exception. 
6. The local delivery team in Staffordshire currently have an “expression of interest log” with 40 plus businesses already identified.

As I mentioned to you the project is currently stalled until written confirmation is received by Shropshire County Council on the issue of the capital grants and Feed in Tariffs. The main question seems to be whether the grants are sufficiently delegated away from central government not to be considered as state aid. This has resulted in Shropshire’s present stance and the contract not being signed. I can appreciate their point of view given that there are apparently three separate government departments involved in the “discussions” around this subject along with AWM and the Head of Service from Shropshire C.C. This delay is extremely frustrating and as a result the many businesses we already have on the log are left pondering - why the delay?
 
My thoughts are this is a very important project and if we are to make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions we need to find solutions to these “administrative” issues very quickly!!

We have now contacted David Kidney MP and Energy Minister to see if he can find a solution to the problem to get the project up and running without delay.

I hope this background information is useful and if I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to let me know.

David Middleton
CEO
BCSD-UK

EBC Ltd
Unit F3 The Arch
48-52 Floodgate Street
Birmingham  B5 5SL

Email: davidm@ebc-info.co.uk
Tel: 0121-693-8334
Fax: 0121-693-8448