Green Issues

One of the great areas of growth on the high street in the noughties was the boom of the American style cafe. The likes of Starbucks and similar brands popped up on every high street, in supermarkets, hotels, petrol stations and even pubs. With the American theme came the over disposable nature of American life. Throw away everything and, in the case of the tea and coffee drinks, throw away paper cups, paper cups selves and their plastic lids.

Of course, it's been like this for years before, but not on this scale. Cup sizes have increased from a what I thought was a standard tea cup size to something akin to a flask - all to add 'value'. Cups then went crazy with plastic coatings to improve the look, highly coloured prints, thicker paper, more more more. It's 2010 now and things are tough for everyone and a lot of the over marketing of a simple cup has disappeared almost as an affluent excess that turns people off the very product being sold.

The craze of putting these cafe facilities into businesses (as an effort to make a lot of money for the companies hosting these franchises) has just pushed further waste into companies that are not designed or largely required to recycle their waste. Almost every private sector company I visit has bins full of these cups, sleeves and plastic lids.

Clearly there are some big companies out there mitigating these excesses - IBM being one of them. Their introduction of recycling facilities at just about every office is a commendable first step. This is one among a few though. Even the most evangelical capitalist (or ConDem) would admit that Private Companies cannot be expected to 'do the right thing' and recycle their waste.

It's the simple paper cup waste that says it all for me. We have soaked up the throw away society slowly over the years. Adopted the American disposable culture and largely forgotten the cost of this excess. Cost in the creation of the product - paper from trees, plastic from oil and coal; cost in the disposal of the product; the cost of our greed over farming areas to produce parts of our consumed product; the cost to people in our ignorance of their lives and working conditions; the cost to our future and future generations. The true cost of our excesses will far out strip the financial troubles in the world. Let's hope that we are not hated by our grandchildren for our ignorant consumer 'bliss'.

People also are quick to judge BP for the disaster, especially in the US where blame is always the first thing sought. I wonder how often the people directly affected in the US blame their own consumption of oil? their own disproportionate need and greed for energy? without their need these companies would not have been financially inspired to go and get the oil from such risky places.

I can only hope perhaps that With the ever increasing oil spill in the gulf, that it is the oil industry itself that will recognise the risks taken by the business to produce a product ultimately in decline. BP has over the years diversified into areas outside of oil production, but more recently has scaled back it's investments into renewable and alternative energy systems.

It surprises me that the opportunity for our UK oil barons to become 'clean energy' leaders has been lost. Simply investing their vast profits into the badly needed next generation of energy systems would ensure that their business is sustainable going forward. They risk their corporate future by doing so and squander their profits to meet the chairman's perceived 'immediate needs' of shareholders.

With ConDem Right/Centre Left coalition in the UK it is unlikely that significant investment in renewable energies will come from the centre, but it is likely that they will look to business to be the pioneers. This perhaps is where the likes of BP can regain it's reputation.

I do hope BP survives. There are a lot of good people at the company, these people have shown innovation and I'm sure if put to the right use BP and our other dirty oil giants could be world leaders but in my opinion they should be world leaders in renewable and sustainable energy systems and help us all wean ourselves off our oil addiction.