Are we there yet?

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Posted 12 July 2010

As I write my first entry to our blog I’m divided between diving in with a topical comment like .....

......thank God the ‘Climate-gate’ scandal about the validity of the science of climate change is behind us, and we can get on with the job of figuring out what to do about the near certainty that we have a global problem on our hands, see George Monbiot’s blog.

......or, go for the high-ground, and lay out an engaging agenda for an exchange with those in business who are finding ways to grow profitable companies while delivering real and absolute reductions in reducing GHG emissions.....

What the hell – let’s go for both, but first something completely random as a backdrop to this first post .......

When I was a kid growing up in South Africa, come the December holidays our family would decamp 50 miles to the coast to swap King Williams Town’s 30°C summer temperatures for the cool Indian Ocean breezes at the unspoilt hamlet of Kidds Beach.   Impatient as hell, I‘d leave early with Joseph, the driver of the flat bed truck requisitioned to transport our provisions, beds & bedding, and the family dogs.   

The first half of the journey, tarred road, always went well, although in the absence of a reliable public transport system, we’d stop to pick up workers and their families heading to the pineapple farms on the coast.  Each had luggage to load, livestock to tether, and other friends to pick up along the way.  We’d stop at a general trading store for luke-warm Cokes and sweets, and thereafter the inevitable ‘comfort-break’, during which the dogs might tear after roadside chickens in a short cacophony of distressed squawks and feathers.  The middle bit was calming – 10 miles through the Buffalo Pass on a winding road through a coastal forest alive with leaping blue vervet monkeys.  Then the final section – a heavily corrugated gravel road heading down to the coast.  Now we’d stop to offer a hydraulic-jack to a puncture victim, water for a boiling radiator, advice and comfort for a despondent truck driver suffering a broken drive-shaft.

Until we hit the gravel, there was absolutely no point in asking ‘are we there yet’, ‘how much longer’ because we were patently nowhere near our destination.  But now, with forest giving way to an expanding landscape of undulating green hills dotted with clusters of mud-huts and kraals, Joseph took the barrage of my questions with the wisdom of a grey-haired grandfather of many. 

“Be patient picanin (Xhosa for ‘young boy’), enjoy the ride.  We are close when you smell the ocean, .....and when the horizon turns from blue to silver .... that will be the sea – our destination”.  
I’d elbow the dogs aside from the open window, stick my head out too, eager to detect the first signs of arrival.

And here I am a good couple of decades on, experiencing the same sense of impatience, anticipation, and excitement.  We’ve hit the gravel after the disappointing turns of Copenhagen, and we’re suffering the ravaging corrugations of the recession.  We’ve got to be wondering – when will we get there?  When will we see that sliver of silver – the harbinger of a low-carbon world that allows us to grow profitable businesses, generate wealth, quality of life, without undermining the ecosystems that sustain the economy, and without undermining the many many trillions we have invested in fossil-fuelled assets.

So that’s a big question and for this posting, I’d like to focus down on one key aspect.....

Do we actually have a compelling vision of a low-carbon future? – one that keeps us motivated and moving forward through the tough times.  This could be our biggest hurdle.  To-date, that future has been painted green – a shade of green which is coloured with emotions of denial -- ‘we must stop polluting and consuming’ – rather than ‘we must start making better foods, cars, planes, fuels that cause no harm’.  It’s been articulated in the language of Corporate Social Responsibility – which removes sustainability from the ‘real’ business of business so that companies gain the appreciation of customers when dedicating a small proportion of earnings to fixing the impacts caused in the first place.  

Difficult as it is to work to an indistinct vision, The CarbonNeutral Company has built its business serving companies that want to be part of the solution.  In the specific area of climate change, our clients use offset-inclusive carbon management to ensure they reach scientifically informed reduction targets.  That means they address their greenhouse gas emissions as an integral part of how they do business, rather than after the fact.

So, is this approach pointing the way to a brighter future ?  Far too soon to tell, but the if the results of the 2010 annual survey of the Voluntary Carbon Market (for free download) are examined, they show a 12% drop in corporate offsetting in 2009 over 2008 – not a bad data point for a year of deep economic turbulence.

A next question to ask is whether collectively companies like ours – or more importantly, the clients of companies like ours are going to make the difference.  Will we be able to grow the 50 million tonnes of reductions through offsets in 2009 (a drop in the ocean compared to the global annual emissions of 30 Gigatonnes of CO2e) into Gigatonnes of real, permanent reductions within the next few crucial decades? 

John Elkington, internationally respected authority and commentator on the corporate journey towards sustainability, was invited by McKinsey’s to say whether pioneering, entrepreneurial companies working at the interface of business and environment can change the world.  John’s impeccably framed response is that while ‘social entrepreneurs’ can kick start a paradigm shift (i.e. such as a shift towards a low-carbon future), we need “.... way smarter mindsets, behaviors, and cultures—all drawing on (and helping shape) that new economic paradigm”.

I do agree.  However, few of our clients are driven by ‘a new economic paradigm’, and progress is slow and uncertain because we don’t yet have a clear and compelling vision of what this new economic paradigm looks and smells like.  We can’t yet answer the question ‘are we are there yet’ because we still don’t know whether we are headed in the right direction.

Next posting ....... Where do we find a compelling vision for a low carbon future?..............
 

Jonathan Shopley

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