Europe as counterweight to tragedy of the commons

I didn’t get chance to take any photos at the Ecodesign For Better Products meeting I went to yesterday, which is a shame, because some interesting things came out of it.

A bit of background first – the EU Ecodesign Directive, which regulates the manufacture of ‘energy related’ products from a manufacturing perspective – is due to transition into UK law on 20th November. It’s a revised version of the law which covers traffic light energy ratings on white goods, extending it a range of other products (eventually around 80% of all ‘energy related’ products, which is quite a broad spectrum) and including a framework for design guidelines that goes beyond mere energy efficiency.

It’s dry, bureaucratic, completely over researched and – at the same time – under-resourced, virtually invisible to the public, been held back by delays, too reliant on voluntary action (imo)  and still doesn’t come close to helping Europe reach its carbon reduction targets, let alone meet the expectations of green activists (Greenpeace and the Coolproducts for a Cool Planet campaign have been instrumental in applying pressure for this). It’s also been described to me as ‘the last ditch attempt to do something before it’s too late’. After the anti-climax of WEEE and ROHS legislation – which have huge loopholes regularly exploited – some green campaigners see this as the last chance for the European Union to actually do something.

The conference did give rise to my favourite description of the EU ever. Matthew Spencer, of the host organisation Green Alliance, said that this is exactly the kind of “tragedy of the commons issue that the EU was created to tackle”.

A ‘tragedy of the commons‘ is a phrase not used often enough in discourse these days. It’s when everyone acting in their own best interests create a situation to the detriment of all – classically described with the example of sheep grazing in a meadow. If you and I are both shepherds with access to a particular meadow, the analogy goes, we both know that overgrazing the land will destroy its fertility. However, if one of us decides to move away from the meadow and the other doesn’t, the one who stays gets extra grass. If we can’t come to an agreement acting in our mutual interest, the chances are we’ll both stay on the meadow until it’s feasted barren. Tragedy of the commons appears, naturally enough, in game theory.

It’s easy to forget – in all the hysterical debates the tabloids engage in about Europe – that this is its raison d’etre. In this case, the chances of any one country disadvantaging its manufacturing base by imposing stricter environmental legislation than the others is unlikely. Climate change is already happening and inevitable, but only a centralised effort is going to change consumer behaviour.

On which note, the phrase ‘edit consumer choices’ came up a lot yesterday, which sounds terrifically Orwellian, even when it applies to something which, on the whole, appears to be from sound motives.

I’m not entirely sure what was actually achieved yesterday – it was a good debate, but there still seemed to be a lot of divisions about the usefulness of the Directive and the direction it should take after its next revision in 2012. Some manufacturers, like Dyson, said it didn’t go far enough in providing legislative powers. Others, like Boots, that voluntary agreements are best. The split is that unless there are strict rules rigidly enforced, nothing will ever get done – on the other hand, companies like Boots and B&Q have pushed forward quite impressive internal schemes off their own back.

Personally I think it’s obvious why the companies that are most exposed to consumers have better voluntary codes, because they need to be seen to do something. As we only buy one vacuum cleaner every god-knows-how-many-years, the chances are that Dyson’s competitors don’t see environmental scores as important to their customers.

By far the most interesting thing was that the EU representative, Marie Donnelly, sounded genuinely surprised at the current UK government’s commitment to this particular process, saying it ‘exceeded expectations’. Also, Lord Henley, the DEFRA spokesperson, gave this commitment:

“We are facing fairly severe cuts in DEFRA,” he said, “The prime minister has made it clear that tackling debts is the first and primary job of government, and we have to tackle that, but we will not allow that to interfere with the service we deliver on (this) particular point.”

I wonder if those words will come back to haunt him?

Goodbye, Nick

Funnily enough, even though I’ve always considered myself politically driven I’d never actually joined a political party until this election. Partly this was to convince myself I was unbiased, and partly it was because most of the constituencies I’ve lived in have been safe since 1997, and I was happy with the incumbent. This time round, I actually did put my money where my mouth was, so to speak, and joined the Liberal Democrats. It seemed they were in with a fighting chance down our way, and needed all help available to capitalise on the post-debate popularity.

It didn’t work, of course. There wasn’t actually a lot of effort put into trying to win Worthing East and Shoreham, where the local MP (Tim Loughton) has been sitting since the seat was created. Eastbourne, just a few miles away, was the key marginal that all available resources were thrown into.

Still, I’ve remained a party member, even as the message from central government has got more and more appalling, believing that possibly there was a tempering influence being exerted by the Liberals. This is the tweet that’s ended my brief flirtation with party politics, though.

It’s an out and out lie – and you’d have thought that after the student demonstrations Clegg would have been careful about that. The number one reason for everything this government does – as reiterated by Lord Henley at a conference I attended today – is to address the deficit. If there is a ‘single, over-riding principle’ it’s to save cash, not to get people back into work. Not at the same time as cutting hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs. This comment from a Guardian reader sums up my feelings about the new welfare to work plans and the punitive actions against claimants who stay on the dole that have been announced today. Maybe, just maybe, if there was a promise to invest the money saved in the benefits system in public works programs that create jobs – basic Keynsian economics – it would make sense.

Even on an idealogical level, it’s inhuman to penalise the poor. What many conservative theorists forget is that built into the very fabric of capitalism is the demand for a mobile workforce – that there has to be a body of unemployed people to cope with the ebbs and flows of supply and demand for labour. Even IDS’ own mentor, Bob Holman, has voiced concern about about the social wisdom of forcing the out of work to take up demeaning voluntary jobs.

People, on the whole, do not remain unemployed through choice. However, they can choose their political affiliations. Which is why I’ll be posting back my membership card in the morning.

Specialise and innovate

Just playing around with Picasa's focal B&W effect here

Barcelona, yesterday.

I’ve just returned from Avaya‘s partner conference in Barcelona*, the annual get together for the telecoms vendor and high ranking members of its EMEA supply chain. I don’t, as a general rule, go along to these things often as it’s a long time out of the office, and it’s rarer that I blog about them. But it is good to go along every once in a while too meet old contacts and discover new ones. I also find that when you have a group of senior execs together they tend to be more, rather than less, open about what goes on inside a company.

I’ve never been to Barcelona before, and the CCIB conference centre is not, I imagine, particularly representative of the rest of the city. Less Gaudi, more gaudy, and ever so slightly souless at this time of year when it’s cold and there’s no-one in the streets. Lots of tall hotels and big concrete plazas, not many old churches down here.

I’m writing up a couple of features about the conference for Comms Dealer, which I’ll link to once they’re done, but there was an interesting message that the company was keen to convey that I think is appropriate for this place.

First – a bit of background. Avaya is an old-school telecoms company, which was spun out of AT&T via Lucent a decade ago and sells an enormous number of phones and phone systems into small businesses. Last year, it bought Nortel, another company with its roots in Bell, but which was more concerned with large scale corporate communications and networking. Nortel was the kind of company which gets called in to cable up the Olympic games, for example.

Joining the two companies up – ‘integrating’ in borg-speak – hasn’t been easy, but it’s generally accepted that Avaya has dealt with the complications pretty well. Knowing, for example, when and where to drop a product line from one company which is essentially a competitor for a product from the other company without upsetting existing customers is very much an art rather than a science. Mistakes have and will be made, but some leeway is allowed.

This process is coming to an end for Avaya, though, and it’s keen to move on. And in order to do that, the message it gave to its partners in Barcelona is one that will be familiar to anyone who’s read Wikinomics or Adam Westbrook‘s Next Generation Journalist writings. Specialise, innovate, differentiate was the mantra. Learn your market and your customers well, become an expert in a small field, don’t sell a broad range of product just because you can.

The argument which sounded very familiar to me was that it’s the innovative companies that are successful. Innovation drives growth, partners were told. The question posed was: you can walk up to a CIO and offer to cut their costs, or demonstrate that you understand their business and caan transform it to make it more effective while still cutting costs – which approach do you think will win the contract?

I think this advice and example cuts across all fields at the moment. Whether it’s business, journalism, interational development… it’s the same argument that crops up time and again. I’m also the worst offender for not taking the advice – I often have a scattergun approach to projects I’ll take on driven by personal interest rather than a desire to develop a niche. But hearing the same advice I’ve heard from journalists and photographers I admire greatly in the formal world of a business conference does make me wonder if I should rethink.

*In the interests of disclosure Avaya covered the cost of transport and accomodation.

Typo or phonetics?

annoying typos I’m still getting to grips with the phonetic reading books Tabby is bringing home from school which complement the system they use. It seems to be working, she’s learning to read very quickly. I can’t work out whether this sentence is a phonetic learning tool or just a typo though. Kind of bad, either way.

Lost snowman


I should probably have posted this about 12 months ago, but Tabby just found a stash of 200 photos i’d forgotten about in my phone. Including this.

Macrowikinomics: no Kindle edition yet

My wife bought me a Kindle for our wedding anniversary. I was going to wait to buy an ereader until general purpose tablets got good enough/cheap enough, but it’s quickly turned into a vital posession that accompanies me everywhere. Even if I still have huge reservations about Amazon’s DRM, it’s ideal for catching up on classics and picking up cheap editions of books I’ve not yet read. And I could actually see myself carrying it around as well as a tablet like the Galaxy Tab eventually.

I am noticing a peculliar trait emerging, though. I’m suddenly reluctant to buy new books. Maybe it’s because I want value for money from the Kindle, or maybe it’s because our flat is already full of enough dead trees to start a library. I really want to read the new book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams – Macrowikinomics - but can’t bring myself to buy the paper edition.

A shame, as the original Wikinomics is a classic, and still the best description of the new collaborative economy which describes freelance work in all industries there is.

BRACE

The world's most phallic first-person shooter

_1030273, originally uploaded by nisuspi.

Been a bit quiet here as I’m still catching up from last week’s tour. At some point, I’ll blog about the very interesting event at the Frontline Club ‘Where next for the international aid budget’ that I went to a week ago. In the meantime, here’s how last week ended. On a barge in Oxfordshire (no relation).