Ruminations

'Sustainable' companies

Image source: http://global100.org/

The list of the 2006 Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies was released at the World Economic Forum last Friday, and I must confess to being a little surprised at some of the inclusions. Take British Airways, for instance, how on earth can an airline be identified as being sustainable when it is one of the biggest players in an industry that contributes on such a massive scale to global warming? For example, according to a report in The Observer yesterday: 'The arguments against flying are compelling. One return flight to Florida produces the equivalent carbon dioxide to a year's motoring. A return flight to Australia equals the emissions of three average cars for a year. Fly from London to Edinburgh for the weekend and you produce 193kg of CO2, eight times the 23.8kg you produce by taking the train. Moreover, the pollution is released at an altitude where its effect on climate change is more than double that on the ground.'

It would appear as though the methodology employed by Corporate Knights Inc. is a bit suspect. In response to one of the questions in the Global 100 web site FAQ: 'How can a soft drink company and a weapons company make the Global 100?', they state: 'The Global 100 does not discriminate on the basis of how companies earn their revenues. Despite the fact that certain industries face greater social and environmental challenges than do others, some companies within those higher-impact industries may still be strong social and/or environmental performers. We believe that the blanket exclusion of companies based solely on which sector they belong to is a short-sighted approach, as there are no two companies exactly alike.'

Interesting argument me thinks ... rather like saying it's okay to murder so long as you don't rape and pillage.

Environmental league table unveiled at Davos

Image source: ft.com
According to a report published in Der Spiegel, the New Zealanders are the cleanest and greenest in the world. The 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), jointly produced by Yale University and Columbia University, is to be released today at the World Economic Forum. After the Kiwis, it ranks Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom second to fifth respectively. The United States comes in at number 28, behind most of Western Europe -- no surprise there -- but also below the likes of Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile. I wonder if things would have been different if Al Gore had not been robbed of the presidency in 2000. The subject of his new book suggests they might of.

Just when you thought it was safe to back into the water ...

Image source: Le Monde

I love France and French people generally and I try and get to France at every opportunity. OK, so the Gitanes aren't great for one's health in enclosed public spaces, and you have to traverse public footpaths with some care on account of the high preponderance of dog turds that litter the pavements, but these things I can put up with because the French culture and lifestyle suit me so well. What never ceases to shock and stun me about this country, however, is its utterly appalling and quite reprehensible lack of concern for those on the receiving end of ill-conceived nuclear policy. The Rainbow Warrior fiasco will never be forgotten, nor too will the nuclear tests carried out the Pacific. The latest debacle surrounding the Clemenceau is also likely to stick in the memory banks for some time to come. This time it's asbestos.

A French Judge by the name of Stéphane Brotons gave the go ahead late last year for the Clemenceau to set sail for Alang in Gujarat, India, where it is scheduled for dismantling. Outsourcing work to India is commonplace these days, of course, and the Indian economy has benefitted enormously, but one has to draw the line when a contract involves the export of pollution and potential ill-health. According to Greenpeace, Andeva (an association representing some 7,000 victims of asbestos poisoning or their relatives), and the environment group, Ban Asbestos-France, the Clemenceau still contains at least 105 tonnes of asbestos, and that the shipyard at Alang is not equipped to deal with such a dangerous pollutant.

The Clemenceau was built at the French naval yards at Brest on the western Atlantic Coast between 1955 and 1957, and was decommissioned Oct 1, 1997. The defence ministry sold it for scrap in 2003, but the buyer, a shipyard in Gijon in Spain, cancelled the sale after finding that the ship contained asbestos that had not been removed. The government tried to send it to Turkey and Greece for disposal but Greenpeace and other environmental groups stopped that move. Now it seems, the French government has found the least point of resistance in India, and is seemingly indifferent to claims that it is violating the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and threatening the lives of poor Indian workers.

Soros in Singapore (part 2)

To my amazement, AsiaOne (Singapore Press Holdings) ran an AP report today on Soros' comments about the lack of openness in Singapore society. An article entitled 'S'pore not an open society, argues George Soros' also made p. 7 of the 'Home' section in the Straits Times (albeit minus the names of opposition MPs who have been bankrupted through law suits). The ST piece also reported that: 'Responding to Mr Soros' comments on Singapore, a spokesman for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts said: "If we are not an open society, George Soros would hardly be able to make the comments at an open forum in Singapore, and be reported in the Singapore media."

So maybe Tommy Koh is right! A Singaporean friend of mine was not convinced. His comment was "What if you are a Singaporean/Malaysian and you said the same things. What would be the repercussions?" I don't suppose there will be too many people lining up to test this one, unless the Government were to take steps to actively encourage it of course.

Soros in Singapore

I attended a lecture this afternoon by squillionaire, George Soros, who is known more these days for his philanthropy and political activism (most notably in opposition to George Dubya) than his business acumen as a fund manager and destabiliser of national economies. Speaking on the topic of "A Global Open Society" in a country like Singapore was always going to be a bit of a challenge but in his speech he politely made no reference to the Singaporean version of democracy, preferring instead to concentrate on his criticism of US foreign policy. The discussants were equally as polite, although Dr Suzaina Binte Kadir from NUS did ask the question on many people's minds by asking Soros whether a concern for an open society was something one only thinks about when one is rich. The response was pretty much as I expected, namely that getting rich requires an open society, just as an open society requires people to be rich. It was a shame that Amartya Sen didn't get a mention because his Development as Freedom book certainly encourages sophisticated thought on this matter. Kishore Mabhubani is a bright bloke. He gave a good response to a question on what the international community should be doing to promote open society, the UN being the most obvious vehicle. Dr Mabhubani said that there first had to be reform of the UN in order to redefine what is understood by "international community". An SMU student, Benjamin Lee, the final discussant asked -- with the impetuosity of youth -- whether Singapore could be classified as an open society. After much embarrassed laughter (but quite loud applause!), Soros said that Singapore could certainly not be considered open so long as libel laws were used as they are to stifle free speech. I remember Christopher Lingle having to do a runner from Singapore after touching on this subject in the IHT in the mid-1990s. It could be, as moderator Tommy Koh pointed out, that Singapore is becoming more open as countries like the US are becoming less open and that it is okay to make comments like this in Singapore now. On the other hand, if you are George Soros I guess you can say what you like!

Introducing Senator Canute

Image source: Sydney Morning Herald

Some time ago, I blogged about the plight of low-lying Pacific islands like Tuvalu and the ultimate economic cost of global warming; namely, an economy disappearing off the face of the earth. Astonishingly, it was reported in the The Australian yesterday that this is really no big deal, at least not according to Australian Federal Government which claims their is no "imminent danger". Senator 'King Canute' Campbell has declared it "absurd" to suggest that Australia should accept environmental refugees, while a spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, stated that sea level rise was a "long-term issue and it is too early to provide an accurate assessment of regional trends". The sad truth of the matter is that while Kyoto Protocol signatory New Zealand has already agreed to accept any displaced people, Australia has now knocked back two requests from the Tuvalu Government to take in those displaced by rising sea levels. The likes of Senator Campbell may prefer to put this on the 'back burner', but it is a very real here-and-now problem. Late last year a UN study revealed that there could be as many as 50 million environmental refugees around the world by the end of the decade. Not all of these refugees will be a result of rising sea levels, of course, but the same study estimates that as many as 100 million people live in areas that are below sea level or liable to storm surge. As this Earthwatch Radio podcast [2 mins] points out, this is a creeping a problem that doesn't the get the same 'air-play' as the problem of environmental refugees created by tsunamis and hurricanes yet, potentially, it is far more catastrophic.