environment magazine

The Deal!

  By Chris Hines MBE Hon.D.Sc

Sometimes you don’t see the wood for the trees! As a species living our daily lives on planet Earth this is often the case.

I’ve been privileged to live on this amazing planet for nearly fifty years. For the last twenty one years I’ve been an environmental campaigner and a driver of positive change. This has often been a difficult path to follow, running against the opinion, conflict, often making decisions on principles rather than security of income and career, but I think I have been fairly true to my beliefs.

During that time I’ve learnt and developed a few fundamental themes that I think can apply to anything and everything!

Change is good, not just for changes sake but it is needed to make things better. Tension is inevitably part of the process and, like a shot of adrenalin in fight or flight, it helps focus minds.

There is a need to inspire people and there is no better way than encouraging acceptance of “the deal”. The deal being that: because we get to live on this amazing planet in what for the vast majority of us in the western world is a pretty comfortable lifestyle, then we should all give something back. So take that bit of time every day just to look at something natural and amazing, for me it’s the sea and the trees but there is a little bit of magic everywhere.

To try to be a little bit M.A.D, to Make A Difference. A young student asked me recently whether I felt guilty about having a car. There followed a discussion about where that threshold is. We all need to live and by the very act of living we have a footprint. Mass suicide of those who care is NOT the way forward as it would just clear the pitch for domination by those who are just interested in themselves and the money they can make! I concluded that we should make sure our lives count then that justifies your footprint. Give something back, be part of the solution and then your impact is balanced.

Being part of the solution is vital, because we are all part of the problem. In the 1990s when I was running Surfers Against Sewage, one of the key factors that helped us stand out as a campaign was that not only did we know what our aim was (clean seas) and what the problem was (400 million gallons of crude sewage every single day, despite Margaret Thatcher’s claims that it was “all treated”) we also had found the solution and were strong advocates and supporters of water companies that did the right thing. I duck dived into the mouth of Jersey’s UV treated short outfall pipe to stand by my oral evidence to a House of Lords Select Committee. I’d said that I’d feel fifty times safer doing that than bathing on many so called “passed” beaches. Obviously Jersey’s tourist department thought this would be good PR. The technology was cleaner and cheaper and was soon widely adopted. We even opened sewage treatment works for Dwr Cymru/Welsh Water and Wessex Water.

Next up is communications and campaigning. Being ahead of the game, being savvy, being a bit campaigney. When you’re campaigning against or even trying to establish a new business or technology you are taking on what exists and guess what…Often those existing technologies, companies etc. don’t want to change. Understanding and appreciating the pressures on those is important. For some they have invested their careers and maybe large sums of money in technologies. Nowhere is this more evident than the big energy, oil and gas companies. They have a massive investment in continuing as normal. Of course they’ll play but essentially these are oil and gas people and the renewable element seems often tokenistic.

Once you recognise that resistance to change then you understand that need for smart, highly efficient campaigning. You have to overcome them and play as good a game as they do with their huge lobbying, marketing and financial clout. When you consider the odds you realise how good you have to be. For Surfers Against Sewage in the early 1990s there were ten water companies, the National Rivers Authority (shortly to become the EA), DEFRA and the Government to overcome. Even the tourist industry didn’t want the issue dealt with, instead burying their head in the often filthy sand like the Mayor of Amity Island in some warped version of the Jaws film and novel. “No great browns in our water!”
Two quick current examples of failure to have that quick, campaigning thought process:

Firstly, why was no-one at the University of East Anglia prepared to be hacked? You’re taking on the oil and gas industry and they’re not going to get into your emails? Come on. I’ve heard people say that it’s unfair to expect academics to have to think about things like that. Well even if they didn’t the University’s communications department should have. A good rule of thumb is never put anything in an email that you wouldn’t be happy to see in public. Be smarter!

The solar energy fiasco – what a bit of political manoeuvring. Harness the likes of the Telegraph and Mail to stand up against the big bad solar companies planning 5MW plants on behalf of households, and then when you’ve won that game you slash it for households. Divide and rule! Worth noting that the most efficient way of generating energy per pound of subsidy was always the bigger 5MW schemes due to efficiencies of scale. But anyway that middle class solar bling will now be binned too. There was even a case in Cornwall of a second home owner getting FITs from the solar PV used to heat the swimming pool at their second holiday home (pass the vomit bucket please!). You could see this coming but the solar and renewable industry took way too long to activate.

Leadership is another key element of the deal. At this point I look at the letter that has just arrived from one of the big six energy companies offering advising me to choose the business energy experts. I look hard for the line about green tariff. I can find the energy saving but nothing about renewable. I ring the company and point this out, they say they are doing renewable but just not flagging it up to businesses. I ask them to note my call and encourage them to help lead the debate, encourage, after all if lots of businesses said there were interested then that would indicate that investing more in renewable portfolio would be a safe bet. This is all noted and taken on board by a very helpful manager. Its only later whilst writing this that I notice all the info about the make up of the energy is actually all there in a little box on the back of the page. THIS IS FRONT PAGE!!! If you want be a leading 21st century company then act like one!

Phew! This may sound all a bit heavy, a bit of sucking the joy out of life! For that reason I think it’s really important to celebrate sometimes. To applaud the amazing things we are doing, the progress that is being made against what at times seem staggering odds! Twenty years ago this was still on the fringe, it is now far more main stream but there is no room for complacency. The world needs us all to do our best. The stakes are massive but the prize is amazing. Just be reading this magazine you are becoming part of the solution, So raise your glass to the environmental industry sector and vow to give it your all to play your part in “THE DEAL!”