Five years on

In our regular critical review, we revisit stories we identified as interesting back in 2000 – and check where they’re going now.

Little green fingers

The flowering of the daffs this year has special significance for kids in the Schools’ Organic Network, who have been busy planting bulbs, digging vegetable plots and building compost heaps in school gardens up and down the country. What started out as a local scheme run by the Henry Doubleday Research Association to help teachers set up gardening projects [GF21, p13] has grown into a nationwide network encompassing over 1,000 schools. The gardens not only give the kids a chance to let off steam, but offer teachers a more inspiring way to cover the curriculum. Get the kids to do a wildlife study and they’re using their science, as the factsheet explains. Ask them to write a poem about it and they’re improving their English skills. With new sponsors Duchy Originals, the company behind those posh biscuits from Prince Charles’s estate, it’s not surprising that teaching the kids to appreciate homegrown wholesome food is at the core of the project too.

Healthy eating is also on the menu for the Soil Association (SA), which is working to get fresh, unprocessed, local and organic ingredients into the canteen. Several hundred schools are keen to make changes, and around 40 schools and local authorities have actually started serving up local and organic food.

A quirky idea came from Southdown Infants School in Bath, a winner in last year’s Organic Awards, where the tuck shop – perhaps the healthiest around – sells little bags of organic carrots, dried fruit and fresh seasonal fruit for 10p a portion. The Association’s Sue Flook admits that it does start with small changes like this. “It’s not something that can be fixed easily. But changes can happen – it might just be a case of starting to get beef from a farmer down the road.”

The ultimate goal for the Association, though, is to see school meals included in Ofsted inspections. Now that’s something to keep the catering staff on their toes. – Hannah Bullock

Schools’ Organic Network, 024 7630 8238,
www.schoolsorganic.net
Soil Association, 0117 9142424,
www.soilassociation.org,
www.localfoodworks.org

Carbon offset catches on

Back in January 2000, long before the combined efforts of Brown, Bono and Sharon Stone transformed it from dry corporate summit into celebrity telethon, the World Economic Forum at Davos was breaking new ground – almost literally. It became the world’s first major event to declare that it was offsetting its carbon emissions by planting thousands of trees. Five years on, ['Jet Watch'] and there’s a fast-growing thicket of events organisers signing up with the UK’s two main offset companies to ‘neutralise’ their carbon impact. Future Forests, which did the Davos deal back in 2000, has signed up everyone from high profile eco-summits such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Kyoto Protocol conferences, to showbiz bashes such as the Brits and the BAFTAs. And Climate Care’s list of events clients is doubling year on year, says its director Tom Morton, with around 40 currently on the books, including the Association of British Travel Agents, Norwich Union and the Energy Savings Trust. The appeal of offset lies partly in its affordability. Adding 40p to the cost of a £10 ticket seems a relatively light price to pay for a clean green conscience. What has changed since Davos 2000, though, is a shift away from planting trees that soak up carbon already out in the atmosphere, to investing in renewable energy as a way to reduce emissions at source [see ‘Out of their trees?’, GF29, p36]. Climate Care’s ratio of trees to energy is now just 30% to 70%. The target, getting down to 20%, says Morton, “reflects the fact that 20% of greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation and forest fires”. Given its name, and its early success in doing a wonderfully sexy PR job on the idea of trees-as-solution, it’s no surprise that Future Forests has more of a 50-50 mix. Nor that it’s facing a tougher task in re-educating its clients. “They come to us wanting more forests,” says FF’s Jim Peacock, and we say, ‘Yes, but have you thought of investing in solar power in Sri Lanka?’” On the surface, it may not have such talismanic appeal as a tree, but Peacock insists that the social benefits of investing in poor communities can be just as appealing in the long run. – Martin Wright

Climate Care, 01865 207 000,
www.climatecare.org
Future Forests, 0870 1999 988,
www.futureforests.com

How deep in denial?

When the more forward-looking oil majors and motor industry giants started to desert the climate change ‘contra’ camp five years ago [GF21, p10], we wondered whether the writing was on the wall for the deceptively named (and vigorously anti-Kyoto) Global Climate Coalition. But when the GCC was wound up in February 2002, it could claim that its evil work was done. The Bush administration had unequivocally repudiated Kyoto, and set its face against any controls on carbon emissions that could constrain US economic growth. Today, has the picture shifted? Well, the global scientific consensus has continued to strengthen on climate change – it’s happening, it’s a serious threat, and it’s linked to human industrial activity, not just natural cycles. The Kyoto treaty, with the first mandatory restrictions (however modest) on industrial nations’ emissions, is now in force. The US (and Australia) stand outside Kyoto, but many US states are pursuing their own emission reduction strategies, keen to keep abreast of the opportunities that low-carbon technology can offer. And there’s a growing roster of major companies resolved to demonstrate a forward-looking stance. In five years, membership of the Pew Center’s Business Environment Leadership Council (www.pewclimate.org) has risen from 21 to 38. But what of ExxonMobil? A staunch supporter of the GCC to the end, it now likes to think it is open-minded and even-handed on climate change. But campaigners continue to identify (and boycott) it as the arch-opponent of effective action. While competitors make much of their (as yet minor) stake in a post-fossil-fuel future, there’s no sign of real diversification in its forward planning. And somehow, whenever some two-bit body with a maverick scientist or other academic on board gets disproportionate media airtime to ‘balance’ the now orthodox acceptance of climate change reality, there turns out to be some Exxon money underpinning their efforts. Leopards may find it difficult to change their spots, but surely they can learn that it’s better to back a horse with legs? – Roger East Global Climate Coalition,
+1 202 682 9161,
www.globalclimate.org

15 March 2005

Hannah Bullock, Martin Wright and Roger East