Jessica |
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Islington and Hackney CRAG meeting, Monday 5 January 2009 –
our fourth settlement meeting – minutes.
Present – John, Doug, Jax, Alison, Tom, Jessica, Lucy
Guest – Jess Sherlock
Apologies – Deborah
Review of ‘green’ electricity tariffs.
1. We revisited our perennial favourite: which purportedly ‘green’ electricity tariffs should we allow a discount on, and on what basis?
2. For 2008 we allowed allow 5% discount for a ‘slightly green’ tariff – eg, Ecotricity – and 10% discount for a ‘very green’ tariff which means that the company actually retires ROCS – ie, Good Energy and one other company John knows but couldn’t recall the name.
3. John said this still wasn’t accurate, as Good Energy did not even retire as much as 10% as ROCS. We had previously allowed 20% ‘very green’ discount for Good Energy, but John felt this was unjustifiable and 10% is the max we should have.
4. Tom said we should ignore ROCS altogether and consider the primary energy content. ROCS are just an administrative intervention by government and will never be an accurate reflection of carbon reduction. So we should instead look at how much fossil fuel has actually been burnt to produce the electricity the company sells to the consumer. Defra has an audit which records the fuel mix for each company.
5. Jessica thought this would not help us with accurate measurement of carbon reduction, because the fuel mix changes all the time according to supply and price of different fuels, so how could we make a decision on what tariff to choose, as we can only know the emissions figures retrospectively?
6. Also, Jessica and Alison said that they were content with the present system, because the group has never said that we were trying to be completely accurate as to CO2 figures for electricity. We had wanted to avoid companies whose green tariffs were a sham, but we wanted to encourage people to buy green tariffs which used renewables and/or invested in them – hence the token discount, as otherwise what would be the incentive for us to pay rather more for a greener tariff such as Ecotricity or a lot more for Good Energy? We had begun in 2007 with a 50% discount, on this incentive reasoning, but had since agreed that was too high.
7. We took a vote on whether to continue on the basis of giving a token ‘incentive’ discount, or to calculate carbon usage and ROC retirement. Tom and Doug voted for the latter, Alison, Jax, John, Lucy, Jessica for the former (Jess also favoured the former, although does not have a voting right). So we agreed to stick as we had for the last settlement, on 5% slightly green discount, and 10% for very green.
Settlement for period 1 December 2007 to 31 May 2008.
8. The last settlement (for period ending 31 May 08) had never been properly finalised nor sums exchanged, due to queries over figures and conversion factors (eg, adjusting the green tariffs) and absentees, but John had now been able to resolve the anomalies and proposed a finalised settlement. We considered John’s proposed settlement.
9. As previously agreed, John had backdated to 1 December 2007 the change from 50% discount to 5% for ‘slightly green’ electricity tariffs.
10. We agreed that John would adjust Lucy’s elec and gas from 1 December 2007 to give her the full 20% discount for home-working. This would mean that the settlement would change.
11. Otherwise, we were all content with the proposed settlement. The only person who had exceeded their credits during this period was Doug, by 894kg. Therefore, once the settlement had been adjusted to take account of Lucy’s change, Doug agreed to make a payment to John of the amount of credit he needed to buy (c£44), which John would distribute direct to the eight creditors’ accounts.
Settlement for period 1 June to 30 November 2008 – the present settlement.
12. We each got a new allocation of 1822 credits on 1 June 2008, which was added to any credits we had rolled over.
13. Deborah was on holiday and had sent her apologies that she could not attend the meeting and that she didn’t submit all her figures in advance. Neither John nor Jessica had heard from Sibylle regarding the meeting or her data, so we proposed to leave Sibylle out of the settlement.
14. We agreed it was not ideal that we had not received all of Deborah’s data on advance, but that we would include Deborah for the 30 November 2008 settlement. Alison said she would contact Sibylle to ask for her data. We agreed that we would finalise the settlement for 30 November 2008 once we received a complete set of data from Deborah (expected shortly), and that we would include Sibylle if John received her data shortly.
15. John had prepared a draft settlement, absent Deborah’s (and Sibylle’s) data, which we considered.
16. John noted changes to living and home-working arrangements for this settlement: Lucy, Doug and Jessica would receive 20% ‘home-working’ discount off gas and electricity for use of their homes as offices during the day. Lucy, Doug and Jessica had also declared new house shares which changed their energy fractions.
17. John asked that:-
(1) when we change house-sharing arrangements, we tell him the relevant moving dates and get meter readings for those dates;
(2) when we are entering travel journeys on the calculator, we put in specific dates, except for aggregated local journeys.
18. Jessica noted that she had asked John to correct the conversion factor for European TGV rail travel, which currently erroneously had the UK public transport factor. There was some discussion and it was agreed that it would be worthwhile trying to get more accurate factors for UK and European rail travel, particularly to enable better comparison between flying and long-distant rail. John will try to find different conversion factors for different trains. This is quite complicated, but he will try to at least distinguish between UK rail and European trains like the TGV and Thalys which have significantly lower emissions due to using French nuclear power.
19. We discussed the draft settlement. John said that, once the settlement had been finalised, he would analyse the figures and draw out some conclusions and propositions.
20. Doug and John agreed that they would do some calculations to work out how much we have reduced carbon as a group over the last two years.
21. The group asked John to find a way of arranging our website so that each person’s 6 month’s pie chart could sit alongside a space for them to tell a narrative story of that 6 month’s emissions. We agreed that for future settlements we will each prepare this narrative online in advance of the settlement meeting, ready to discuss at the meeting.
22. We also agreed that at our next settlement meeting we should each have detailed print-outs of our individual footprints to reference, as well as the group settlement figures. Jessica will action this before meetings if John can finalise the data online in good time.
23. Lucy said that this year we should draw up a paper on what iCRAG has learned over the last two years and our advice, etc. We should put it on the website and make it into a short and accessible leaflet. It was agreed that it was time we did this.
24. Jessica said this matched with a project she had launched on the CRAG website in late 2008, to seek views from the whole network on their experience of CRAGs so far and how they think CRAGs should develop. Jessica would like to be able to post iCRAG’s story online. [NB. A couple of CRAGs have provided interesting replies already, and we hope to get in further views in due course. http://www.carbonra tioning.org. uk/fora/threads/ two-years- of-crags- whats-your- story Feel free to comment direct on the website too.]
25. We agreed to have another meeting soon, on Monday 2 February. We wanted to discuss the points above on how we analyse iCRAG’s progress, present it for others to read, and plan our future development.
Our footprint narratives for the past 6 months.
26. Tom. In June 2008 flat had remedial plumbing and he added a thermostat and timers for hot water, set at 48 degrees F. Has the water on once a day, to heat the tank. As of June, has two heating zones in the flat, and a thermostatic valve on each radiator, so that he can control the heat in different rooms separately. His gas use is down 68% compared to June-Dec 2007. Found that the plumbers and energy assessors he used did not have expertise in energy-saving techniques.
Tom is working with Islington Energy Action, Time Bank and the Green Living Centre and has funding to train people to give energy advice.
27. Lucy. Has really seen how foreign travel bumps up the footprint. Also thinks climatecare.org calculator is too low a conversion factor for flights, as against the calculator on Seat 61 website. John agreed to check this out. Used her car so little that the battery went flat three times! Group discussed car-sharing in future, or borrowing others’ cars.
28. Doug. Took two return short-haul flights, to Amsterdam and Croatia.
29. John. Replaced front windows with Argon-filled double-glazed windows, using the same frames. Put draught-proof seals around windows, from ‘Ready Seals’. The six windows cost £1800 in materials, and John did labour himself. Intends to try internal insulation, using a thin material with a high U-value. When came back to flat after Christmas when many flats in the block had been empty, it was noticeably much colder.
30. Jax. Found it very cold on boat this winter, and hard living off-grid. Has to go to library to use internet. Has an emergency bag of coal but hasn’t used it yet. Car is still the biggest emitter.
31. Jessica. After another cold winter, resolved that will never live in an end-of-terrace again. Paid £400 for labour and materials to get loft insulation topped up to 28cm and some boarding put in loft. Hard to measure difference, as house-use changed during autumn 2008. Partner working at home every day with laptop and wireless broadband on means electricity use, and gas heating use, has gone up exponentially. Can’t see any way to reduce this yet, but intends to measure electricity use by computer.
ACTION
1. Next meeting: Monday 2 February. Everyone to try to come for an important meeting to discuss past and future after two years of iCRAG.
2. John to check out climatecare.org calculator for flights against the calculator on Seat 61 website.
3. Doug to make payment of May 2008 settlement debt to John, and John to distribute.
4. Deborah to get last data to John asap, and John to finalise and post Nov 2008 settlement.
5. Sibylle to say if she wants to be in settlement, and if so, to provide data asap.
6. All to ensure:
(1) when we change house-sharing arrangements, we tell John the relevant moving dates and get meter readings for those dates;
(2) when we are entering travel journeys on the calculator, we put in specific dates, except for aggregated local journeys.
7. John will arrange our website so that each person’s 6 month’s pie chart can sit alongside a space for them to tell a narrative story of that 6 month’s emissions. For future settlements we will each prepare this narrative online in advance of the settlement meeting, ready to discuss at the meeting.
8. Lucy to lead group in discussion and drawing up a paper on what iCRAG has learned over the last two years and our advice, etc. We should put it on the website and make it into a short and accessible leaflet. We should feed this and any other information about our stories and views into the ‘Two years of CRAGs’ thread on the CRAGs website.
9. Jessica will prepare a final draft of the iCRAG rules for everyone’s approval.
10. John will find different conversion factors for different trains and update calculator, and inform group.
[RAIL TRAVEL> Jessica found this Guardian article by Fred Pearce, 22/1/09, on rail travel emissions, highlighting large disparities in emissions. The public comments under the article may also help in pointing to figures and websites. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/22/greenwash-train-travel
Other useful rail travel information. The Seat 61 ‘take the train’ website now has a carbon calculator. Jessica had found the website co2 balance best for UK rail journey distances. http://co2balance. uk.com/co2calcul ators/rail- travel/
Jessica had also found a Czech site which seems to have every big train station in the world on it and will tell you distances. You can press the UK flag for english translation. http://jizdnirady. idnes.cz/ vlaky/spojeni/
Both sites also have some other transport info.
Also, see Travelfootprint, project that enables you to compare the lifecycle environmental impacts of the main methods of passenger travel in the UK. It also allows a detailed emissions comparison of cars available since 2001. You can even calculate emissions caused by your cycling, according to the type to diet you eat! http://www.travelfootprint.org/