On March 28th 2008 on the 24th floor of the CIS Tower, Manchester, representatives of many key organisations gathered to explore the concept of a common vision for rising to the challenge of climate change. The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn MP, attended and said the event was
"the sort of thing I want to see happening in every city, every town, every village''
Speakers
Chair: Phil Korbel, Director, Radio Regen
Introduction
Phil Korbel welcomed the delegates and explained what the 100 Months Club was;
‘Well it really is just a bunch of people who got talking about climate change and what can be done about it in Manchester. Its aim is to be complementary of existing initiatives and responsive to the needs of organisations that are serious about doing their bit about climate change. We are non profit and have no political or organisational affiliations.'
After thanking the event's funders - Cooperative Financial Services - he then noted the wide range of people in the room and said that only climate change could unite such a diverse group people. He thought that Manchester was up to the challenge and that its history of ‘firsts' - such as the first passenger railway and computer - were a good indication that a Zero Carbon City Region could be created there.
Mr Korbel also alluded to the city as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution - it was where the city fathers had ‘pushed the carbon snowball off the top of the mountain', that avalanche was about to hit and that the city therefore had a certain responsibility to redress that damage. He also noted that the Manchester vision for climate change mitigation mustn't leave anyone behind in the wake of measures such as increased fuel prices and other such carbon reduction tools.
Tony Lloyd MP (Central Manchester) then gave a brief introduction where he praised the project and its aims, as well as telling delegates that Hilary Benn was genuine in his support for climate change action.
David Anderson (Chief Executive, Cooperative Financial Services)
Mr Anderson welcomed the delegates to the building and pointed out that the building, once iconic for being the tallest in Manchester, was now iconic for having the largest array of photovoltaic cells in the city.
By way of describing the ‘bottom line' impacts of climate change he said that in the six years prior to 2004, the Cooperative group saw a doubling in insurance claims from flooding and other extreme weather events. The ABI (Association of British Insurers) is predicting a 15-fold increase in environment-related claims over the next 1000 months (approx 80 years).
Since 2002 Cooperative Financial Services have become "carbon neutral" and is "carbon neutral plus 10%" to pay for ‘past sins'.
Mr Anderson addressed the issue of whether customers are getting involved in the issue and said that over 50,000 wrote to their MPs regarding Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign on the Climate Change Bill.
These key customers stay with the Cooperative Group which helps them to grow the business. He was also aware that these customers see through "greenwash".
Peter Mount (Chairman, Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals NHS Trust)
After acknowledging the inspirational lead in the field that the Cooperative Group represented, Mr Mount discussed the predicted health effect impacts from Climate Change. There were increased risks from extreme weather such as the 2003 European heat-wave. He said that there would be a greater risk of the spread of Malaria - and with warmer summers an increased risk of the spread of food-borne illness. This he felt put climate change firmly on his agenda as the results of inaction will be serious health issues.
Mr Mount then turned to the hospital CO2 footprint. It spends £6 million p.a. on utilities and its energy use produces 30,000 tonnes CO2. Hospital staff travelling to work : private cars - 4000 tonnes CO2, public transport - 1300 tonnes CO2. There were also some million patient journeys per year. All of which gave a total of some 42,000 tonnes CO2 (but not including suppliers etc).
It was time for the NHS to ‘join the party' and act in an integrated manner on climate change said Mr Mount. He noted that the NHS as a whole employs some 8500 people in Manchester with a £500 million annual budget.
He also recognised that there was possible improvement on procurement; his Trust's patients' meals travel some 176 miles from South Wales. He asked if there were no local food suppliers that can supply this food with less "food miles"?
Pete Bradshaw (Social Affairs Manager, Manchester City Football Club)
Mr Bradshaw said that the Manchester City community programme is the largest in Europe. The Premier League will be making Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities mandatory for Premier League clubs - but presently the Manchester City CSR Manager is the only one.
He described what do they do:
Environmental Impact Reports - written by independent auditors to establish the football club's footprint. They will shortly publish the 3rd annual report which matches the "damage" with the response. The following is taken from that report;
Recycling / waste management programme - aims to reduce waste at source.
Glass, paper, cardboard - is all recycled locally with an audit trail.
Plastics - MCFC use some 7 million containers / year (bottles, pots etc) currently crushed and pierced to minimise landfill impact - but this is not the right answer. Mr Bradshaw asked the delegates for solutions to this issue.
The Club has seen major reductions in the amount of waste sent to landfill: 2005 - a 64% reduction, 2006 - an additional 20% reduction, 2007 - a further 7% reduction
The Club has installed low energy light fittings throughout the stadium and an efficient air conditioning / building management system (BMS).
In 2007 the Club used 240,000 cubic metres of gas but in the previous year it was 280,000 cubic metres - a 14% reduction. The last year saw a 30,000 litre reduction in oil use.
Mr Bradshaw told delegates that the Club had a commitment to local procurement and that the average journey for the food for its conference meals was 7.5 miles.
The Club is committed to putting money back into the local community, through local employment, suppliers and product purchases. One suggested option for this was to establish mixed Combined Heat & Power (CHP) projects with local businesses, but Mr Bradshaw confessed that he was at a loss to source the Club's replica kit in the UK.
He felt that there was a real need for standardised carbon calculators and that there was a real need to get the fans signed up to the low carbon agenda.
He didn't believe that the Club is Carbon Neutral yet - but they are moving towards it.
Sue Woodward (Managing Director, ITV Granada, speaking in a personal capacity)
Ms Woodward said that Granada ITV has been slow to respond to these issues - it only appointed an Environmental Manager some 18 months ago and an Energy Manager 2-3 months ago. But she said that there is a business need:
ITV employs some 6000 people and would need to plant some 15 trees per year / per staff member to offset its CO2 emissions.
Ms Woodward suggested that we need visual imagery to help people understand messages clearly and that simple steps/messages to staff and viewers are essential such as a ‘Switch the Lights Off Day.'
She admitted that at ITV energy costs are not included within the "programme budgets" and that that was an issue she would look into.
We need a national Energy Campaign, Ms Woodward said, but probably not called that. She used the example of the National Clean Up campaign which had over a million people take part over a weekend. She said that these were small (individual) steps - but with huge potential for enormous (national) change.
On the subject of energy consumption - as a business this is only monitored and paid retrospectively - Ms Woodward said that we need real time meters to show what is being used in real time. She made a challenge that where there is public money involved all buildings must include smart meters.
Councillor Neil Swannick (Executive Member, Environment and Planning, Manchester City Council)
Mr Swannick described Manchester's Climate Principles document and plans for the forthcoming and ambitious Climate Change Strategy for the city.
(A summary of Mr Swannick's speech will appear here soon.)
Break- out sessions
You can find a selection of the comments from the break out sessions held at individual tables here. The notes are of individual delegate's comments and do not represent the views of the 100 Months Club.
The points raisd by each group were made by a spokes-person from each table for Hilary Benn to respond to.
Rt Hon Hilary Benn (Secretary of State Environment and Planning) - speech and response(s)
Mr Benn expressed his liking of this event saying that it was
"the sort of thing I want to see happening in every city, every town, every village''
First task is to spread awareness - ‘Do you recognize that we have a problem?
There is still a lack of public awareness - combined with a lack of basic science knowledge (a point raised by a 100 Months delegate)
There are supposed to be twelve EU demonstration projects for Carbon Capture & Storage. The UK is doing one of them - where are the other eleven?
There is also an issue of Global Social Justice and wealth distribution.
We have to have accurate ways of counting the carbon impacts and emissions - so that we can be sure that we are living within our carbon means and not being overdrawn at the ‘Carbon Bank'. The Climate Change Bill - people don't seem to have realised but this will set a national Carbon Budget for the next 15 years.
1st April 2008 will see the start of the CERT (Carbon Emission Reduction Targets)
It will also see a Green Homes Service from the Energy Saving Trust - 23-24 million homes need retrofitting to improve energy efficiency and insulation. 2016 will see the introduction of the Zero Carbon Homes requirement for new build.
Mr Benn also noted that there are many opportunities for developing low carbon businesses / technologies
Questions:
A business expert said that there is a need for the simplification of the language of regulation, especially tax - so that incentives can be more clearly sign posted. Mr Benn agreed whole-heartedly.
A climate scientist said that the ‘win win' (i.e. the idea espoused by the event that there are economic gains to be made from ‘early adoption' to climate change mitigation) wont work. What is the new economic model? We need to replace GVA targets for economic growth (i.e. those simply concerned with growing turnover/margins) with those that include environmental costs, sustainability and well-being.
Hilary Benn - This is a fundamental issue. The challenge is to get the right people to convey the message i.e. not well off/rich people telling poor people that they will have to have less.
Mr Benn also added that population is relevant to this and is a subject that many countries / people don't want to talk about. There are these key drivers for reducing population growth
a) Girls going to school (i.e. education)
b) Access to contraception
c) Economic development
An ecologist asked - What are the carbon reduction targets - 60 or 80% (with reference to the work of Adair Turner and the Committee on Climate Change)? His unit's work indicates that 80% cuts are as much as people can deal with. He also asked about Mr Benn's views on aviation's impacts and "exporting" CO2 by shifting production to other countries.
Hilary Benn;
The Committee on Climate Change has three key tasks
a) Set a carbon budget
b) Consider whether all Greenhouse Gases should be included (not just CO2)
c) Set the 2050 targets - 60%, 80% or higher.
Aviation - difficult subject
Embedded carbon - was described by Mr Benn as a "counting" problem.
Mr Benn then thanked the delegates for their time, wished the 100 Months Club every success and ended his talk in order to meet delegates before departing.
Delegates