The Carbon Show 2010

I spent Monday this week chinwagging with the sustainability stars at The Carbon Show, held at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

The welcoming ceremony was interesting; a speech from Rt. Hon. Lord Michael Heseltine rather reminded me of my winter scarf (really rather woolly and a bit too long). It also transported me back to the 90s: ‘all evidence points towards climate change being a major issue, too large for the body politic to ignore’ and ‘what we need is a global policy framework’, cue me banging my head against the wall.

This was followed closely by a slightly more informative speech by Chris Huhne, MP and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, DECC who is pictured above (I had quite a good view). Perhaps this was to be expected as Heseltine appears to be a (somewhat outdated) spectator whereas Huhne is immersed in it and is obviously going to have is finger on the Carbon pulse. In classic politician style, he emphasised the three principles of his approach to carbon emission reduction:

1. Action on efficiency: promoting energy saving in the home and public/private sector estates alike. The Green Deal later this year will see many houses qualifying for efficiency schemes and there is to be one visit to every home by 2050.
2. Action on energy supply: at least attempting to dampen our oil addiction by cleaning up our energy supply with less carbon intensive alternatives.
3. Action on policy: take credible steps along the path towards a global emissions deal.

He spoke of how it is important to show that investments in Europe are tied to a low carbon economy as ‘green growth is the best for our future prosperity’. With The Green Deal imminent, the establishment of the green investment bank, a whole new multi billion pound retrofitting industry will develop creating thousands of jobs.

I admit to thinking ‘I wonder how many times a day he makes this speech and how much is actually happening’; we are, afterall, 25th out of 27 EU states in terms of renewable energy installations. I cannot fault his enthusiasm though and I believe this is what we need, as well as realistic targets with feasible means of reaching them. I particularly enjoyed statements like ‘where are future jobs going to come from? The answer lies here, in this room, today’.

His claims that the next global growth sector is green are not overly pie-in-the-sky either as the carbon market is actually proving highly successful. According to Huhne, carbon trading is an ‘economic curiosity’ and at only 12 months old is the fastest growing market in the UK with $91bn carbon traded in the first three quarters of this year.

Unfortunately Lord Browne could not make his speech as was caught up in the tube strike chaos so I roamed around the conference stalls meeting everyone there was to meet. Showcasing possible pathways to our low carbon future were solar companies including Beech Solar and SOL20, a few carbon management organisations such as Carbon Guerrilla (apparently corporations need to move away from using Excel spreadsheets for their carbon monitoring and onto these computer software packages) and reforestation projects.

Ironically, there were a lot of brochures and business cards flying around the place. In fact, I was highly disappointed when a certain unnamed smart metering company handed me a plastic backpack continuing not only lots of paper but also a mini smart meter key ring and even a squeezy mini-van toy with their logo on it. I took their business cards and promptly handed this rubbish back to them, whilst being surprised that they were surprised at this! We are at a CARBON SHOW aimed primarily at showcasing low carbon solutions to our society’s needs and reducing the pressure on the earth’s resources so do not hand me stupid pointless squeezy mini-vans!

Anyway, Green-Ex was offering a high tech alternative to brochures and paper business cards where you scan your business card in at a stand or choose which of their electronic brochures you would like put on a USB or emailed to you. I did feel like I was living in the future when a lot of the stands merely scanned the bar code on my lanyard and would then have my contact details and company with one bleep instead of a business card.

In a later plenary debate that I joined, entitled ‘Apathy and Indecision- Strengthening the carbon Markets’, Pierre Ducret, Chairman and CEO of CDC Climat, stated that it is the emerging countries that ‘hold the hope’ as they are going to lead the carbon trading game whilst Henry Derwent, President and CEO of the International Emission Trading Association made the point that offsets are essential in trading.

The after party happened to be at The Hoxton Pony, conveniently in the same building as my office. After a few glasses of free wine, most people were no longer talking about carbon and instead conversations turned to who can do the best moonwalk. Unfortunately, Chris Huhne had left by that point.