Environment

It was gratifying to see a mention of the successful delivery of NPWD by the minister in charge of the packaging regulations, Ben Bradshaw. The full quote is below and comes from page 5 of the committee meeting minutes where Parliament approved the changes in regulations needed for the system.

“The hon. Member for Cheltenham mentioned IT costs. The cost that has been quoted is just for maintenance and some development. The database cost £400,000, of which £350,000 was put forward by the industry. He may welcome the fact that it is an unusual piece of Government IT in that has been successfully delivered on time and to cost.”

The reason it was delivered on time and to cost?  A combination of Kubernetes project facilitation, Solution 7’s development expertise and the right people from all the stakeholder groups on the project team.

The full National Packaging Waste Database went live this morning.

The NPWD project has now delivered an on-line system to manage the Packaging Waste regulatory regime. Jeremy Renwick from Kubernetes faciliated the 12 stakeholder groups involved in the regime (from both the public sector and industry) to capture and agree the requirements for the system. Jeremy also managed the process of implementation working closely with senior management in the Environment Agency and the developers of the system Solution 7 Ltd

The system has been delivered on-time and to budget, a significant result, given that the project deals with a complex area of government regulation and involves a very diverse user community.

I was gratifed to see that Mark Brownrigg in the Guardian yesterday agreed with me (Stern report and RKJ) about the need and opportunity to use more sea transport to reduce the greenhouse emissions from international trade. OK he does have a direct interest as Director General of the British Chamber of Shipping, but in that role he does also have access to the right statistics.

For those that don’t know, the Stern Review is the report published today that has the headline figure of the global economy shrinking by 20% if we don’t take action on climate change immediately. Robin Knox Johnson (RKJ) is the first man to sail non-stop around the world single-handed in 1968/9 and, at 67, is doing it all again as part in the Velux 5 Oceans Race. So the immediate response to my question is not much.

However if one is looking for Zero Emissions transport (or as close as possible), it is difficult to find a better candidate than a sailing vessel. Once the carbon has been used to create it, a yacht does not have to create any emissions to get from A to B. There are of course a few challenges.

• Yachts don’t go that fast and the wind does not blow all the time. However for freight, in particular, decent management of logistics can mitigate the effects. This will need a move away from “just-in-time” to having strategic stockpiles of e.g. raw materials which can be seen in the reaction to latest oil crises. It is also worth noting that the technology that powers RKJ, Ellen MacArthur, Steve Fosset and others around the world in under 60 days has not yet been fully exploited.

• The Ocean is a dangerous place. This is why I linked specifically to RKJ in that he had to turn back to port late last week for repairs after being knocked down in a huge storm in the Bay of Biscay. He is acknowledged as one of the safest and toughest of sailors so it must have been bad. One his favourite quotes is that more people have climbed Everest than have been solo around the world.

I suppose my real point is that if we are going to get to grips with climate change these are the nature of the challenges we will have to meet and overcome. Flying will not be a option for much longer so we all may have to endure storm conditions at sea.

This gives me one last thought. Gale force winds at sea when in on yacht really impresses on you the power of Mother Nature and how precarious your personal hold on life really is.

Having been sailing in strong winds (about half of what RKJ had) myself relatively recently, I’d like to suggest that everyone should spend a night sailing off-shore in a gale. The government could pay for it as part of the “marketing” of “green” taxes.