First published in The Herald on 05 November, 2007.
How do you feel about making a free and frank confession of all your company’s carbon footprint transgressions?
It won’t happen – at least not in quite the way some “green” pressure groups might like it to.
But recent demands from environmental lobbyists that firms with a turnover exceeding £22.8m should make a full disclosure of their greenhouse gas emissions should arguably send an unpleasant little shiver up many a corporate spine.
This is one of those subjects which can start on the (hopefully wood-fired, low-emission) back burner before – through a strange alchemy of political high fashion, actual need and received wisdom – suddenly acquiring a dynamic all of its own.
The most recent calls are targeted at largish firms because, we might suppose, they’re inherently likely to be the biggest potential transgressors, and perhaps also because they are in some ways a somewhat slower-moving target than SME’s.
But in fact once the subject is seriously broached the whole concept of regulation becomes a genie out of the bottle, and we’re then into a discussion about relative levels of damage control, and who should pay what.
It may seem over-reactive to adopt a robustly defensive stance on something with little current substance beyond mere suggestion, but anyone who has followed the way regulatory imperatives develop may agree it’s never to early to take heed – or to look for answers to nevertheless real problems which will actually work.
You may recall how last year Tory leader David Cameron assumed many of the trappings of “green crusader”, in a series of headline-grabbing statements about the future of energy-efficient car production and other could-be measures. Detail about possible future policy under a Conservative government may have been vague, but it cleared up any lingering doubts anyone might have had about the green issue becoming a potential battleground in a future election.
In a UK electoral scenario where the main parties don’t look too dissimilar it isn’t hard to imagine politicians of all hues using a green quotient as part of their bid to gain a winning edge. Longer term the whole argument is clearly gaining momentum anyway, and it’s only prudent for companies – arguably of all sizes – to start preparing a credible riposte.
It’s also a good context in which to frame sensible requests for a green incentive – tax breaks for green-friendly cars is just one starting point. Other tax breaks for “green” equipment and machinery should continue. And we really do need the M8 extension to ease congestion. Both business and the environment will benefit from that.
This sort of argument tends to attract the accusation that one is a “petrol head” from the feistier sector of the green lobby, but we shouldn’t be afraid of pressing for temporary but absolutely necessary solutions while devising longer-lasting strategies – as with regulatory considerations we should never bow to mere dogma.
When it comes to emissions and the companies that create them there is no level playing field. Company A sits in an office in Glasgow and runs some computers, while Company B despatches representatives all over the UK by car and/or plane.
Larger firms may use air travel on a large scale, and having grown the business organically on that basis cannot be expected simply to throw in the towel and substitute a wildly different modus operandum.
But that doesn’t mean we cannot be “green”. The real dynamic is going to come from ever-rising fuel costs, an imperative which will dovetail more conclusively with carbon emission objectives than any government-imposed regulatory burden.
The sort of government system which imposes a tick-box list of targets for firms to meet is, at the same time, implicitly “contra-green” if companies end up expending more energy on infrastructure to impose that system than they could hope to save.
The very last thing any business needs is some sort of neo-Soviet burden which can’t hope to achieve anything of any real consequence.
There are abundant examples of “bottom up” solutions which should be encouraged and rewarded. Whisky distiller Morrisons of Bowmore’s use of recycled energy to power a community swimming pool is the sort of initiative you cannot devise by regulatory decree.
Perhaps this sort of industry initiative isn’t happening often enough or quickly enough, but increasingly it is companies’ employees who are helping to frame the agenda by routinely identifying the problems – and, very often, devising the solutions.
Give firms incentives, not obstacles, and we may see companies of different strengths and operating in many different ways outdoing one another in devising well-crafted bespoke energy solutions.
These will do more for the environment, in aggregate, than any scheme handed down from on high.
John Mason is a partner at French Duncan, Chartered Accountants
Back to In the News
Top
|
|
Recruitment | Contact Us | Home |