CEO's Blog 9th December 2009

Carrying on the President's last theme of climate change, I was at a very good meeting yesterday of the new "2020 Group".  For those who missed snippets on the news last night, it is a new group set up by the Scottish Government to advise it on how we can save the planet - or least advise how Scotland is going to achieve its world leading emissions reduction target of 42% by 2020 (and ultimately 80% by 2050).

Using the wonders of technology, if you click on the link below, it will take you to a two minute video outling what the group will do with some words from Alex Salmond and the group's Chairman.



I am sitting on this group wearing an agriculture and land use hat, given there is quite rightly much expected of our sector.  The company I was in yesterday included people such as the Chief Executives of Lloyds TSB, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Executive, John Lewis Partnership and business leaders like Brian Souter of Stagecoach.  So there is real buy-in to making a difference

I was heartened by the Scottish Government contribution yesterday about making proportionate moves to reduce our environmental footprint.  That means, in our case, we're not going to see pressure to reduce meat production in Scotland only to see it produced abroad to probably worse environmental standards and then imported into the country. 

Sadly that kind of grown-up debate around climate change wasn't grasped by the Daily Mail who decided the best news angle on tackling one of the biggest threat's to humanity was to phone all those on the new 2020 Group to ask them how they travelled to the meeting, held at the Falkirk Wheel.

My response was fairly blunt - I drove in my own car (turning down the opportunity of a barge trip along the Union Canal at 7am).  The point I tried to make to the journalist from the Mail - not brilliantly articulated in the quote printed in today's paper - is that we need a more sensible discussion around climate change than an analysis of how I travelled 30 miles yesterday.  

In the last few weeks, reading the papers, you will have been roundly criticised if you drive a car anywhere, eat meat as part of your diet or have the odd family holiday abroad.  It's a crazy approach to take and risks doing more harm to the climate change movement than almost anything else just now

Trying to make people feel guilty for any of those things is ridiculous and is in danger of turning them off the climate change debate when there are realistic things we can all be doing to make a big difference.

So instead of criticising people for driving a car, lets focus on more fuel efficient vehicles and perhaps slightly slower motorway driving.  Instead of trying to turn the world's population into herbivores, lets debate how our meat is produced and where we get it from.  That can make a difference and is more likely to engage the average person than telling them only to power their vehicles by electricity and their bodies by lentils (slight exagerration but you hopefully get the point).

Of course none of that common sense debate makes particularly sexy news headlines, so I'm not holding my breath for a sea-change in approach from some newspapers.  Fortunately though, all of us in the meeting yesterday share a real commitment to drive forward meaningful change and engage the public and industry in doing their bit. 

As one person said yesterday, in the end, whatever your views are on climate change, much of the action required makes good sense in terms of business efficiency and quality of life.