“What happens,” asks one shrewd Internet commentator, “when hurricane season starts in the Gulf of Mexico and lightning strikes the oil slick?  FIRE-ICANE!”  The movie is, no doubt, already in production.  Yet the gallows humour masks an extremely uncomfortable truth – Deepwater Horizon is not an act of God but a disaster we have created.

Yeah, ‘we’.  It’s a funny thing, responsibility.  The Horizon isn’t actually owned by BP which means the explosion itself may not legally be their fault but the technicality is that as the owner of the oil rushing out of the wells they are the ones obliged to retrieve it.  They have a plan, too.

The dome idea they’re deploying, with mixed success, is actually pretty sound; at first I was wondering how they would seal it to the sea floor sufficiently to withold the intense subterranean pressure of the escaping oil but of course they don’t have to.  The oil will float up and displace the water above it, meaning that as long as they can pump pure oil out of the top of the funnel onto tankers as fast as it rushes up from below, the spill should be stopped – stopped from getting any worse at least.  It’s clever stuff, and getting suckered into being fascinated by the solution is to miss the point in precisely the way that led us to this situation.

Oil has, arguably, been as great a driver in technology as war.  In particular, oil exploration and retrieval has been pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible for forty years or more.  Rigs exist in places where their operators can barely survive unaided.  They drill far, far offshore in waters so deep the rig has to float because legs haven’t been made that would take the strain of such a height.  Along with these advances come risks of course but we’re happy to take them; the staff are well paid and we do need plenty of oil.  The Horizon was cutting edge when she was built in 2001 and became a record-setter last September, drilling the deepest well in history.  Yeah, she was riding high – until she exploded, sank and dragged her feed pipe down so badly that it split in two places.  And the safety blowout valve failed.

I doubt anyone involved in the Horizon is actually an environment-hating thug who took belligerent risks; they’re more likely to be top-flight engineers, pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible without being held back by too great a fear of environmental damage.  Anyone who watched the Brent Spar fiasco unfold will tell you, they’ll try anything on, that lot!  On the contrary, people like me (and famous boat-drivers Greenpeace) queue up daily to buy more and more oil as fast as they can suck it up out of the Earth.  I also don’t stand at the pump before a summer road trip and wonder how much of my £1.20 a litre is going to pay for oil booms and dispersal boats and I certainly don’t wonder how much more I would like to pay (and trust me, we will find out in a year or two that we can afford to pay a lot more for fuel) to ensure the environment is kept safe.  So if I don’t care enough to sacrifice my money or convenience, why should I expect the oil companies to think about cutting into their profits and efficiencies?

Sometimes it takes personal experience to bring these thoughts home.  I was changing the oil in my car this morning and, as I found myself digging through the sickly black waste looking for the drain plug, I paused a moment.  Barely a cupful was on my hands yet the cloying, repulsive sensation already reminded me that even a thorough scrubbing wouldn’t quite eradicate the vague whiff of oil from my skin until much later in the day.  Barely a cupful, compared to the 210000 gallons (i.e. about five times the amount required to fill a two bedroom flat in Richmond) of crude that’s belching into the Gulf every day.  Can’t honestly say I felt that happy about it.  The really awful thing is, it’s not yet the biggest spill we’ve had by some margin.

So what’s the alternative?  Well, reducing my usage of oil can’t hurt I suppose.  Local produce, train to work, avoiding plastic packaging.  And, instead of this weekend’s trip up to the Midlands, maybe I’ll have a pub-to-pub conference call with my friends.

But our green commitment extends to our day-to-day operations as well.  Like any company, we generate a significant amount of cardboard waste and paper waste.  None of this goes to a landfill.  It is collected by our recycling company, FirstMile, along with drinks cans, food tins, glass bottles & jars, drinks cartons, and even plastic bottles & bags.  Printer components such as exhausted toner cartridges and image drums are notoriously hazardous for the environment, so we’re careful to only use printers whose manufacturers offer a free recycling service for used parts, which we post back to them rather than throwing them away.

Decommissioned hardware poses an awkward waste disposal problem.  Ironically, the very servers which help to reduce CO₂ emissions by making conference calling possible pose a potential threat to the environment once they are replaced with more up-to-date technology and become surplus to requirements.  Our unwanted servers and network equipment are given to Secure IT Recycling, one of the few companies licensed by the Environment Agency to collect and recycle WEEE (“Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment”) according to UK and European law.  After securely wiping all data, SITR resell any working equipment which is not obsolete and pass on to us a percentage of the resale value.  Anything else is broken down into its component materials for recycling.

“Reduce, reuse, recycle” is a mantra that I remember having drilled into me many years ago at school.  The order is important: recycling is a complicated and labour-intensive process, so if something can be put to another use first and its working life extended, then it should be.  This is the principle behind Freecycle (and, in a sense, eBay) – why should somebody put a perfectly good desk in a landfill while somebody else is setting off (with that inevitable sense of dread) down the Purley Way to Ikea to buy a desk?

With this in mind, we came up with an ingenious solution to the growing stockpile of redundant desktops in the office.  Rather than have them collected for a fee by SITR, we decided to give them to Powwownow employees in return for donations to Cancer Research UK via JustGiving.  Through this scheme, we’ve so far given away six second-hand desktops at very reasonable prices, and raised £110 for charity (which will rise to £220 once everyone has taken home their PC and settled their debt!).  We hope to carry on this scheme in the future, lessening our environmental impact by re-using unwanted equipment, and simultaneously raising money for a good cause!

[Image courtesy of fluffysam]

How’s this for hypocrisy? It turns out that, despite all their preaching about everyone doing their bit to tackle climate change, the Department for Energy and Climate Change have been flying all over the UK on journeys that could quite easily have been done by train.

Apparently, their staff took just under 1,200 domestic flights, including 26 return flights to Manchester. A journey that can be done in two and a half hours by train or a little longer by coach. Surely they could have lift-shared at the very least?

Don’t get me wrong, I congratulate the DECC for the work they’ve done to help prevent climate change – and I’ve been an advocate for much of what they say. I cycle to work and try to leave the car at home if I’m going somewhere in walking distance. And round the house and at work I like to think I do my 20%. Just like I’m told to.

So it really gets on my wick when I hear that a Government department set up to tackle climate change can let their standards slip so remarkably.

What can their excuse for this possibly be? What valid reason could they give for not practising what they preach? Laziness? Expense? Because neither excuse is good enough.

It really devalues all the good work they’ve done on campaigns such as Act On CO2 – a campaign endorsed by this very blog – when figures like this are released. And it makes it hard for those of us who plead with others to try and do their bit. Because why would they when those at the top aren’t seemingly bothered?

Let’s not forget that this story comes in the same week that it was reported that the Government conceded it will not reach its emissions targets for 2010.

It just beggars belief, really. I’m just hoping the DECC are an organisation that learn from their mistakes.

If you’re a climate change believer there’s a chance that you’ve come up some pretty stubborn climate change sceptics, eager to denounce your opinion because they’re sure that climate change is fiction devised by some mad scientists with an agenda.

I wouldn’t be so short-sighted to say that the sceptics are wrong, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit of scientific evidence at hand for when you’re not as confident about the science as you would like to be? For example, when you’re in the pub and climate change sceptics who think they’re smarter than the scientists because they’ve read a few blogs or column inches surround you. Well, this is where the Skeptical Science app could help you out.

It basically has a list of every argument opposing climate change (there are 90 of them – so surely every argument?) accompanied by what the science has to say on each issue. Whip that out whenever you’re under fire and you’ll have a whole load of useful climate change information at your fingertips to silence the doubters.

Well, not really. Because, realistically, downloading the app is unlikely to make either side change to the darkside/lightside (depending on your point of view). However, app’s the level of detail makes it a really useful tool for anyone who just wants to learn more about the debate. Plus, it’s free to download so it’s certainly not going to break the bank. It’s available on the iTunes store.

[image courtesy of Daniel Bos]

One of the delights of the internet is that no matter how obscure your interests, you’re likely to find somebody out there with the same interests as you. Whether river dancing, Eastern European gangster movies or plate spinning floats your boat, you’ll have no problem finding someone else out there who’s into it, too. It’s just one of the reasons the internet is so great.

Of course it also means that those with more controversial views can find others with the same beliefs. A view that they may have seemed ludicrous to them when it first popped into their heads suddenly gains extra weight once they find other people with views in line with their own, no matter how extraordinary. Their views are reinforced and soon a mass of ‘believers’ form.

And I can’t help feel that this is what has happened with a lot of climate sceptics. After a couple of experts backtracked on predictions made many years ago about the effects of climate change, many have been quick to call conspiracy.

For instance, this month the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change retracted a claim that the Himalayas’ glaciers will all have melted by 2035. While yesterday New Scientist said the IPCC needs to become more open to criticism because “its closed world of peer review is no longer possible, let alone desirable”.

The sceptics now have their ammunition, and now we have a whole faction hell bent on completely dismissing the idea of human-assisted climate change, despite it being a very real possibility, if not a probability.

Now the responsibility lies with the experts to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes again. They’ll no doubt be eager to make sure they get their facts straight before they release what will now always be heavily scrutinised information.

As the Government’s chief-scientific adviser Professor John Beddington said this week, scientists must be more open with their data and he admitted that recent unreliable statements about climate change have been “unfortunate.”

The key, I believe, for both theorists and sceptics alike is to keep an open mind. Nobody can yet be sure about the true effect human behaviour has on climate change and only assessing new scientific evidence both sensibly and methodically will ensure we really find out the truth in the future.

[Image courtesy of Marquisa]

The recent ‘big freeze’ that has struck the UK and large parts of the northern hemisphere has pushed global warming right back into the spotlight (if it was ever out of it) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the climate change sceptics are quick to use it as evidence of the ‘myth’ of global warming. Surely one of the most prolonged cold periods in recent British history surely suggests that the earth is not getting warmer? Well, according to this rather interesting Greenpeace blog, it has no relevance whatsoever. As they point out:

“Winters will always be colder than summer, and the possibility of snow will always be there. What climate change will likely influence is the frequency and severity of extreme weather events: droughts that would have been called “once in a century” might become “once in a decade”, or worse, “once a year”.”

So far no-one has presented that decisive evidence that proves climate change is indeed cause by increased and prolonged carbon emissions by an increasingly industrialised world but, even if you think climate change is a myth, surely there can be no harm in preparing for something that could turn out to be a certainty. Cutting down on your personal emissions isn’t hard and can only do good – for your bank balance, for a start!

A large part of the problem must come with the now dated expression ‘global warming.’ The phrase has needed a ‘re-brand.’ Scientists refer to it as climate change, not global warming, because their beliefs now claim that the damage to the earth’s atmosphere is more likely to result in unpredictable weather conditions, not just a rise in the earth’s temperature.

Many sceptics say that this supposedly freak weather is such a peculiarity that little can be done to prepare for it in the future. But who’s to say that this sort of weather won’t become the norm in the future? As the Telegraph reported this week:

“The floods in the Lake District last year were passed off by the Environment Agency as a ‘once in every 1000 years weather event’. Unfortunately, once in every 1,000 year events will start to occur with alarming frequency now that the effects of climate change are starting to be felt.”

And if so, how long will it be before the sceptics sit up and take notice and try to do something about it?

That’s how it seems sometimes. If I want to exercise my right as a purchaser and buy the green/ethical/morally upright option, I have to pay extra. Someone somewhere is taxing me for my beliefs.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive about this. After all, if I go into my local supermarket, I’m presented with normal coffee or fair trade coffee. I accept that fair trade coffee will be more expensive, but I don’t mind buying it because (a) I can afford the extra few pennies and (b) a decent price is paid to the farmer. In short, it makes me feel good. I like to think that Western consumers like me are doing our bit to divert wealth from multinational companies to small producers.

But where I struggle is with the idea of environmentally friendly products (as opposed to just ‘fair trade’ products) being more expensive. This struck me when I considered (briefly) the benefits of paying more for a green tariff for my home electricity. To my shame, I opted for the cheaper tariff and promised to turn off more lights and not leave the tap running.

But why should green always be more expensive?

A little web research confirms the wider existence of the green tax. Eco-marketers Shelton Associates published some useful facts on their blog to prove my point:

The top product category in which consumers are searching for greener products (according to our [Shelton's] Eco Pulse study) is home cleaning products.  And green cleaning products carry a price premium of 11-30%, depending on the brand. The price premium for organic foods and beverages (the number two category on consumers’ lists) is 23-118%, and the price premium for a hybrid car (the number one category in our Green Living Pulse study) is 18-43%.

But, happily, this is not always the case, and the key lies in changing behaviour, not just changing products. For example, cycling is cheaper than driving, whatever kind of fuel you were planning to use. Turning the thermostat down will save on electricity – renewable or otherwise. And, if you plan your food shopping properly and avoid letting food go out of date, you will spend less money there too. It’s about your choice of behaviour, not your choice of product.

Which is why, here at Powwownow, we are delighted to see so many businesses changing their behaviour – ie by using conference calls instead of driving or flying to meetings. Despite the disingenuous claims of low-cost airlines that they are driving down the cost of business, this is one example where the green option really is less expensive. The cost of a flight to Munich may be pretty low, but the green option – through us at least – will always be less.

Because it’s free.

Image credit: photos8.com

Here at Powwownow, we don’t mind a bit of honest competition. But recent advertising from the people at Flybe.com seemed a little less than truthful. So we felt we ought to take a little direct action with our own ad, published today in the London Metro.

OK, so it’s a little cheeky of us to take their ad and throw it back at them. But we felt there was something important missing in their claim that face to face meetings – and particularly face-to-face meetings that involve air travel – are ‘better’ than conference calling.

It’s not just that they were knocking our business, or that many of their statistics were questionable (more about that in a moment). It’s that they seem to think that the only cost of air travel is financial.

We don’t agree.

As you and I well know, air travel is highly hazardous to the environment. When the rest of the world is trying to do what they can to minimize the impact of business activities on the environment, Flybe are cheerfully endorsing the eco-unfriendly option. But the thing that gets us is that they don’t even acknowledge this, thereby suggesting that businesses see the monetary price of a ticket as the only factor here. If I was one of their customers, I’d be insulted.

Anyone who has read our blogs here will know that we are proud of our green credentials, and that we are not leaping onto a bandwagon for commercial reasons. Many of our customers are small, cost-conscious businesses who know all about keeping outgoings to a minimum. But they are also aware of their wider responsibilities, and are proud to ‘do their bit’ for the environment. So suggesting they don’t care is really not fair.

But what about the ‘facts and figures’ quoted by Flybe?

They say, for example, that face-to-face meetings will turn 40% of potential customers into customers, compared with only 16% without face-to-face contact. But they fail to mention that this figure comes from a non-peer-reviewed US study sponsored by two industry groups, the US Travel Association and the Destination and Travel Foundation. The latter’s website says it exists to “bolster the destination marketing profession and travel industry”. Come on guys.

Flybe go on to say on their website that conference calls simply don’t win business. Well, the fact is that you can meet far more often if you only need to pick up the phone – and you don’t need a researcher to tell you that the more often you meet, the better your relationships. And don’t forget that your environmental credentials are increasingly requested in new business tender documents. Your ecological attitude clearly matters – not just to the planet, but also to your attractiveness as a business. Since when did a poor environmental record help you win business?

And we’re not the only ones picking up on this: see also this excellent piece from the Guardian.

Horses for courses

But let’s be reasonable for a moment. Sometimes, face-to-face is best – of course it is. And sometimes – if Flybe were big enough to admit it – they would agree that it’s really not worth travelling when you can have a perfectly good meeting over the phone. The thing is that, every time you avoid travelling, you don’t just save a stack of money, you can also pat yourself on the back for doing the right thing by the planet.

We just felt we needed to put the record straight. For the sake of the truth, for the sake of all businesses with a conscience – and of course for the sake of having a bit of fun by making a parody of their ad for millions of commuters to see this morning.

PS: If you want to avoid air travel, why not register for free and start enjoying our free conference calling service yourself?

Do you ever wonder, given the sheer scale of the climate change problem, what difference we can make as an individual?

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I do. But the constant efforts by little people and big people alike continue to encourage me. Seeing the semi-constant Twitter messaging and online buzz about Copenhagen, for example, tells me that we can achieve something big through lots of small efforts – because there is belief that change is possible.

But it also got me thinking about whether I make a difference in what I do for a living. Do companies have the same kind of belief? Are they faceless money-making machines? Or do they have a soul?

Speaking from my own perspective, I can confirm that they do. In fact, I believe they HAVE to. Ethics and economics are essential to a successful business. If a company exists just to create revenue, they may be successful, but they will never be as successful as the company that believes in what it is doing.

Here at Powwownow, we are a humble conference call provider. A pretty good one, and we have lots of people around the world using our service. It brings in money; it pays the wages. But everyone here knows that there is another dimension.

We know that if people use us more, they are travelling less. Every conference call means a little CO2 stays where it is instead of disappearing noxiously into the atmosphere. And that makes us feel good. In a little way.

Every day, employees around the world make a conscious decision about how they will exchange their time for money. Largely, this depends on their skills, their time availability and their geography (and unemployment levels of course). If you want to live and work in a rural setting, merchant banking is not for you. If you can’t drive, don’t become a cabbie. But beyond that there has to be an incentive for people to work where they do.

Give me money, but also give me something that makes me happy and fulfilled as an individual. And when you work for  company with belief you end each month with two pay packets: one that pays the bills, and one that we collect on behalf of a much bigger cause. If it was translated into money, it would not amount to much, but put it all together and the Little Guys in the Little Companies are definitely doing their bit.

I was delighted to see the other day that the WWF had released a document onto the web to explain the importance of the forthcoming Copenhagen Summit meeting.

As you may or may not know, it is an event that is crucial to our futures: as the guide says, it is an opportunity to agree on an actionable way forward to reduce CO2 emissions. This is something we have not done and something we must do – and part of the challenge is educating people by spreading content like this on the web. Bravo WWF.

The guide is available freely on the web (just click here for your copy) but here’s my question: did it have to be so complicated? So intense? So unwelcoming? I was anticipating a nice easy read – a five minutes over coffee to get a grip on what Copenhagen was all about. Instead I get a 26-page rant, made even less readable by the angry, orange & red design style, a hotch-potch of typefaces. It rails against this and that and, frankly, after a few minutes I’m turned off by the whole thing. Here’s a sample:

Which is such a shame. OK, it’s an important issue and there are things that need saying. But isn’t it also important to get some communications out there for the casual reader – which is most of us? I care, but I’m not sure I care enough to wade through this…

Over here in our little corner of the world, we heartily support the cause – but question the methods… I’m no graphic designer, but I wonder if there are some out there who could offer an opinion? Comments here, please!