Daily Archives: August 1, 2007

1 Degree

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Rupert Murdoch announced In May 2007 that News Ltd would become a Carbon Neutral Company by 2010. That is a great commitment by itself. However, what was more important was the focus of Murdoch on the audience that his papers captures.

He said:

Our audience’s carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours… That’s the carbon footprint we want to conquer. We cannot do it with gimmicks. We need to reach them in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content– make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior

The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

My conclusion was that, The real message in the speech is this: The unique potential– and duty– of a media company are to help its audiences connect to the issues that define our time.

Now, News Ltd has a launched a initiative called One Degree where they plan to continue the two goals suggested by Murdoch.One Degree

The website provides information on what News Ltd is doing to tackle climate change. Information on what consumers can do in the areas of water, recycling, lifestyle and energy. In addition, links to Climate Change science and questions about its validity are provided. Every refresh of the webpage provides a fact regarding climate change. And the website is a refreshing blue colour.

To continue their goal of connecing their audiences to the issue, The Advertiser, a News Ltd paper for the state of South Australia will start a “A 10-part series, outlining the history and challenges of climate change and how readers can make a difference, will be published in coming weeks.” This series will start from 6th August in Adelaide for a period of two weeks. In addition, an Ad in the paper yesterday mentions that there will be daily tips in the paper.

I will be buying the paper from next week for the magazine and it will be interesting to wait and see the effect this has on the employees in my organization.

China’s Green Incentives

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Incentives matter. China has been promoting and rewarding its local officials around the country based on GDP growth figures. This incentive model has played a part in the creation of the great Chinese growth miracle of the last two decades.

The Age reports that China has changed its incentive model:

CHINA has announced a new promotion system under which local officials’ careers will be judged by their performance in meeting environment protection and energy efficiency targets. The move comes as fears China’s surging economy is overheating and domestic unrest about environmental damage mount.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, is working on an environmental veto system under which green performance will be decisive in determining the futures of Government and Communist Party officials, a senior policymaker has told China Daily, the Government’s English-language newspaper.

This is a good major step taken by China. Even though with a communist background China has been clever enough to use some of the most important principles from Capitalism to drive its economic growth.

It goes back to the idea which Schelling talks about that government’s even though wanting to meet targets and deliver outcomes; the best they can and should do is concentrate on inputs and direction. In this case, the energy efficiency targets set by the central government will be supported by the green incentives to the party members. Hopefully this deliver the required outcomes. The bottomline is that this is a better model than mandating targets.

Focus on carbon ‘missing the point’

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I mentioned previously that there has been an excessive amount of focus on carbon emissions in relation to other environmental and social issues. In Climate Change: A Design Problem I suggest that carbon emissions are a an effect and we need to look for changing the design at the core to solve this and other related problems.

Eamon O’hara in BBC’s Green Room focusses on similar issues:

Is it not time to recognise that climate change is yet another symptom of our unsustainable lifestyles, which must now become the focus our efforts?
[...]
Undeniably, climate change is a serious problem but it is only one of a growing list of problems that arise from a fundamental global issue.

For many decades, the symptoms of unsustainable human exploitation of the natural environment have been mounting: species extinction, the loss of biodiversity, air and water pollution, soil erosion, acid rain, destruction of rainforests, ozone depletion – the list goes on.
[...]
The solutions currently being put forward, such as those being championed by the European Union, focus almost exclusively on reducing carbon emissions
[...]
Every day we wait, another 30,000 children needlessly die; between 100-150 plant and animal species become extinct; 70,000 hectares of rainforest is destroyed and another 150m tonnes of CO2 is released into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, another $3.0bn (£1.5bn) is spent on arms and weapons of mass destruction.

We urgently need to think about the more fundamental concept of sustainability and how our lifestyles are threatening not only the environment, but developing countries and global peace and stability.
[...]
In my view, we need to embrace this as an opportunity and not see it as a responsibility. Living a more sustainable lifestyle does not have to be a burden, as some people fear.