Surprise, surprise: businesses dont care about climate change
2008 is the year of greenwash. After years of denying climate change was real, or paying people to pretend that CO2 emissions weren't causing temperature rises, big business finally woke up to the fact that people aren't that keen on exploitation of the planet for material gain. Everyone, from Ariel ('wash at 30 degrees') to BP ('we're Beyond Petroleum. Please don't mention the Alaskan Tar Sands') was getting in on the act, with green adverts and strategies and targets and travel plans.
As ever there was just one teeny-weeny problem: for all their green plans, most businesses just make token gestures on climate change. Take flying: a survey out today by Barclaycard showed that although many businesses had green travel plans which discouraged flying, just 1% of the 3,000 business people interviewed thought they applied to them. The other 99% were obviously far too important not to fly wherever and whenever they liked.
This doesn't surprise me in the slightest - although it really ought to, because many sensible businesses have seen that sending their employees by rail actually benefits the company more than sending them by plane. Time spent on a train is generally more productive because the journey is longer and less broken up - there's no queing for 30 minutes to get through backage handling, or having to sit for an hour in departures while Ryanair staff squabble over how much fuel to carry. In other words, it may take longer to get from London to Edinburgh by train than by plane, but you can get more work done. Anyone with half a brain cell should be able to see that having employees working is better for your business than having them sitting on their arses reading Tom Clancy in a departure lounge.
Token greenwash fact: the bigger the business, the less likely they are to have a green travel plan. OK, so this is the same plan that those who have them ignore, but still: just 16% of large firms had one, compared to 22% of medium-sized firms. Of course that still leaves 78% of medium businesses without any green travel plan at all, but at least they're being honest.
So who should tackle climate change? Well, 40% of interviewees think it's the Government's responsibility. Certainly business isn't going to give up its emissions without a fight when there's profit in it, but why does every corporation squeal like a petulant child every time the Government suggests reducing emissions by a percent or two? Because they don't give a toss, that's why - and when our entire economic and political system is designed to make it nigh-on impossible for them to give a toss, there's little hope of them changing their minds.
If you're keen to find out more about greenwash, check out the Unsuitablog. Its author may not like Plane Stupid very much (our actions are too symbolic, basically) but he's pretty good at sniffing out corporate nonsense.
