Green BEERS 29 July 2020 - Aide Memoire - Discussion points on Build Back Better

The Green BEERS group is full of ideas for how we as individuals, and working together, can contribute to the drive to build back better after COVID 19.   From across finance, technology and policy, there is a growing awareness that we cannot sit back and leave it only to the corporate world or to Government to take action in a coordinated way. 

The notes below are ideas from discussions and breakout groups at our Zoom meet 29 July.   Please feel free to use and employ them. 

Societal/community breakout group

·      Create a "FIT for Food" – Chris Blake in our group is creating a paper on this and is going to provide to the group.  Idea is that it would be like the energy FIT, but for food to support healthier, more local choices of food; local feed-in tariffs for food produced and consumed locally.  (There is potentially something that could be done with this in relation to those who can't afford food.) 

·      Sustainable transport.

·      Healthcare and sorting out carbon in the supply chain

·      Start up local groups and mutual aid communities.

·      Roof top solar and promotion of it.

·      Get people interested in nature.

·      Better maternity leave.

·      VAT supplement on unhealthy food (linked to the food FIT idea above).

·      Centralisation of energy efficiency schemes and move from this being done by Suppliers to a more organised local/regional approach.

·      Improve the reputation of the energy sector, given the work that they did during the lockdown - they enable hospitals and food!

·      Great work on community retrofit in Manchester https://carbon.coop/people-powered-retrofit-services/

Technology breakout group

·      From a technology perspective not enough emphasis is placed on the consumption side of energy – it’s all focussed on supply issues such as renewables and hydrogen. 

·      The US fracking industry is unravelling due to high well depletion rates and debt burdens, and the UK’s support for nuclear is a ‘complete non-starter’. 

·      Energy efficiency is not as ‘sexy’ and yet it is supposedly the starting point for a sustainable future. UCL has a database showing the energy efficiency performance of buildings.

·      Aggregation could be one answer to group together forthcoming government grants to negotiate discounts on insulation work done. 

·      Germany is setting a good example, and electricity use is forecast to decline there. Perhaps because it is more decentralised.  Maybe also example of engagement of the consumer and more sensible consumption. 

·      Political influence from the fossil fuel lobby remains strong. 

Finance breakout group

·      Impact of Covid shut down shows it isn’t impossible to shut down the economy - price to do that.  Can’t any longer say – what is unimaginable.  It is possible to limit carbon out and carry on. 

·      Once can put a number on it - becomes imaginable? 

·      Unthinkable policy responses; historically told no money for x and y.  But we’ve seen if there is will there is a way. 

·      Stephanie Kelton - deficit myth.   Government debt is not household debt. What can governments afford and can’t. 

·      Issue re recessions and environmental agenda dropping.

·      Concern over re-emergence of green wash. 

·      EU - recovery packages: concern of a push through of “green” when it is just previous work and projects repackaged. 

·      Resilience and just transition?

·      Gains in Europe re greens. 

·      Future of sustainable tax system?

·      Current pension system doesn’t work.

·      Capital gains tax doesn’t work.

·      Carbon tax?

·      TFCD – Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure - how is climate affecting your business - and the investors - and what are you doing to manage. 

·      Differential - corporate taxation less for companies that are successfully and consistency reporting on TCFD.

·      Financial risk disclosure.  (NZ it is mandatory - using COVID as an opportunity to bring in.) 

·      Business that are reporting - lower risk.  

·      Tax more risky businesses? 

·      Nature Based Solutions. 

·      Ecological wealth.

·      Requires business to say how environment is going to affect business – and also investors to speak up.  How are we going to respond over the next 15-20 years. 

·      How to finance natural solutions – seen as investment risk

·      How to finance longer term assets.

·      Pension fund - long term.

·      Use measurable benefits from one area to pay for actions in another using the savings (or projected savings) made.   Example of NHS: measurable benefits in one area pay for related actions and initiatives. 

·      Escrow of savings?  Social escrow? Energy efficiency savings schemes.

·      Think about the cost of carbon; not valuing it sufficiently now.  How do we avoid discounting it – and instead count it at the risk of future cost.   Think about the time value of money and actions:  of the cost of making savings and of cost and value of benefits.   Ecological wealth. 

·      Circular economy funding from EU?

·      Look at carbon sequestration 

·      Paper: 'Can Sustainable Investing Save the World? Reviewing the Mechanisms of Investor Impact' Julian F. K?lbel, Florian Heeb, Falko Paetzold, and Timo Busch.

General group discussion

·      Our focus should shift to the point of consumption. The UK’s policies are ‘pussyfooting – putting a green gloss on a brown package’. 

·      Book recommendation: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/replacing-gdp-by-2030/1583BE07055EAD85CBFECE1FC5EF6442#:~:text=Unless%20this%20changes%2C%20the%20'beyond,and%20National%20Accounts%20(SGNA).

·      Also Nicholas Stern and others have suggested moving away from using GDP as the primary yardstick of progress. 

·      What is the paradigm and what is the measures of success.

·      Energy suppliers should not be in charge of energy efficiency programmes. As well as the obvious disincentive to implement efficiency measures in order to sell more energy, the public has a mistrust of energy companies. 

·      Market disconnect between endusers and payment.

·      Demand side response programmes.

·      Decentralisation and digitalising.

·      Affordability – engaging vulnerable customers and ensuring they are not left behind. 

·      Investment and insurance communities - focus more on the “S”, the social aspect: fuel poverty, energy efficiency, etc.

·      Hungry City, Caroline Steel.  Book recommendation. 

·      Noted that there’s a glut of wool in the UK; farmers can’t get good prices. 

·      Hydrogen Council – example of diverse workforce.

·      Competitive model – who is going to help you reduce? 

·      Virtue signalling. 

·      Change Council Tax to base it on efficiency per ft2.  Perhaps offer a rebate for energy efficiency upgrades.

·      MSC has a micro generation certification scheme.

·      What international examples should we adopt? 

·      Airtight build with controlled ventilation

·      Local trusted suppliers in Cambridge: www.scuseme.co.uk

Sandy Abrahams, Angela Love, Caroline Gentry and Nicola Steen

July/Aug 2020