feature green broadcasting

Feature sponsored by Harris

Returning to her environmental roots after 25 years in the broadcasting industry, Janet West MSc, AIEMA, AISIE now consults to industry on environmental strategy. Here she offers some thought-provoking ideas for a sustainable future.

Is being sustainable cost effective?

or a few years now, much of the environmental news has focused on receding glaciers, poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and tsunami’s thousands of miles away - with limited evidence on what’s going on in our own backyard. The problem with global warming is that it doesn’t happen overnight; it fluctuates but is increasing in a non-linear way. Most of us know we must act but without a clear understanding of sustainable development, the cost of sustainability or the potential cost savings to business cannot be realistically calculated or appreciated. According to Bruntland [1], sustainable development is ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet

F

10 l ibe l march/april 2010 l www.ibeweb.com

Icebergs off the coast of Adélie Land, Antarctica (South pole)

(67°00' S - 139°00' E) with kind permission of Yann-Arthus Bertrand.

their own needs’. For business, this does not define ‘needs’. As sustainable development relates equally to economic and social development and environmental protection, the ‘needs’ within these three sectors require further definition to decide whether sustainable development is or is not in conflict with business objectives. Gilbert’s [2] definition of sustainability is: ‘financially viable development which moves towards environmental and social sustainability’. Social sustainability is where a ‘societal cohesion’ or community is necessary to work towards common goals meeting the needs of individuals with respect to human rights, shelter, food, education, health, well-being and cultural expression. Environmental sustainability considers maintaining the balance of natural capital so that resource use does not exceed the renewable rate or the rate at which waste can be acceptably disposed of. Essentially, business can no longer justify its activities solely with respect to shareholders. It must look to the rest of the world if it wants its business to last longer than the next few decades.

Sustainability doesn’t just centre on temperature increases, carbon dioxide levels and paying minimum legislation requirements. The broadcast industry needs to look beyond reducing its carbon footprint

and include its water footprint and earth’s resources - all valuable assets that cannot be depleted. Furthermore, although music and cinematic loudness might be synonymous with the enjoyment factor, levels like emissions frequently exceed healthy limits.

The entertainment industry has created an insatiable desire to consume electronic gadgets yet, since 1974, people in the developed world stopped getting happier according to Tim Kasser [3]. In the broadcast industry our desire for new electronics has resulted in format wars, premature retirement of most products, making products where only a few of the features are used, and server capacity requiring ever increasing real estate. So where do they retire? Between 2007 and 2008 the amount of WEEE for each person went from 3kg to almost 7kg - much of which ended up in landfill abroad. So for 61 million people in the UK that is 4,148,000,000kg [4]. If you find that difficult to conceive, imagine disposing of 180,350 elephants. However, it is not just waste - modern society cannot function as it does today without oil for synthetics, iron, copper and aluminium, all required in most electronic products.

Addressing the environment to achieve 80% emissions reductions by 2050 and ensure raw materials exist for manufacturing, we have to Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48