In my inbox today - “Introducing Jetstar’s Carbon Offset Program”:

To celebrate the launch, we are going to be paying for all carbon emissions on every international and domestic flight, for all of our passengers, on Wednesday 19th September - the first day of our new program.

This single day offset will have a six figure price tag and is a real sign of our commitment to protecting our environment…

The program is accredited by the Government’s Greenhouse Friendly program, which includes tree-based offsets in the mix of accredited products. (I’m not a fan of tree-based offsets - investment in renewable energy, like that offered by Climate Friendly, is preferred in my book.)

Unlike Virgin, Jetstar have embedded offsetting into their booking page on their website - right after the “excess baggage” section. This is a good move (and one of the criticisms I had of the Virgin program.)

A flight from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast - which, fortuitously I need to book today - adds $2.52 to the flight cost. By contrast, Climate Friendly’s price for the same trip are $13.04. This is partly because Climate Friendly also include other factors in their pricing - such as the contrails and other impacts of flights - as well as using more expensive credits.

That said, Jetstar do go to some effort to explain how they calculate the cost and it seems they are factoring in a few things specific to their airline, which may also lower the cost. They also claim that they “will not make any profit from Carbon Offset transactions”.

The offsetting doesn’t apply to Jetstar’s business operations, nor is it compulsory for all passengers (it’s not even ticked by default). But they do claim to be taking measures to increase operational efficiency:

Jetstar is focused on the implementation of several conservation strategies relating to energy, water and waste usage across all facets of its operation.

They also tout the benefits of their younger plane fleet’s fuel efficiency as one of the “measures” they are taking (although I doubt environmental benefit played a significant part in their decision making process).

Unfortunately for Jetstar, like Virgin, their core business, low-cost flights, are actually contributing significantly to the increase in flights being taken, which in turn contribute to global warming. So moves like this will do little to dent the scepticism of many a hardened climate campaigner.

But as I’ve mentioned before, I think, on balance, programs such as these do help, because they result in investment in renewable energy (and in the case of tree-based programs, landcare and bushland regeneration). And with our government lagging behind in introducing any concrete targets or legislation, this can only be a good thing.

Find out more about the program on Jetstar’s site.

After having a late night coffee, I sat up last night and finished reading Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart.

I’d heard good things about this book, especially from the folks at work, and given I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where I want to go professionally, and eco-design being a big part of that thinking, I thought I’d borrow a copy and have a read.

It’s a fantastic book for anyone interested in eco-design (in the broadest sense of “design”, but especially product design). Although some of the core ideas are now finding wider acceptance (I first heard about the Cradle to Cradle approach through Worldchanging, and further via Joel Makower and Gil Friend) there are still many insights, ideas, methods and examples throughout the book that make it well worth the effort.

McDonough and Braungart’s vision is a compelling one. The basic gist of it (and I certainly can’t do it justice in a short review) is that we have an opportunity to rethink the way we design things - from architecture to products to systems - that work in harmony with nature, rather than just doing “less damage”. Not just doing “less bad”, but actually playing a restorative role - or moving from “sustainable” to “nurturing”.

They use the metaphor of a cherry blossom tree, and how in the tree and surrounding ecosystem - there is not concept of waste in nature. The “waste”, as it were, become nutrients to the earth and organisms around the tree.

They invisage a design thinking that creates products that become nutrients for both biological (e.g. can be safely buried) and/or technical systems (re-used in original form for industry etc.). They imagine buildings acting like a tree - cleansing water, purifying the air, creating habitat for local species (including humans). And if we have buildings that act like trees, they extend the metaphor to imagine a city acting like a forest.

As the book progresses they introduce additional tools and insight into how we might make this shift in thinking - from “eco-efficient” (less bad) to “eco-effective” (nurturing).

The book is not a “how-to” guide - it is very much putting forward the Cradle to Cradle. The examples serve to show that, in fact, it can be done - factories that clean the water that they use, that are net positive in terms of energy consumption (i.e. they collect more energy than they consume) - rather than demonstrating how it can be done.

Overall I was really inspired by the book and got a lot out of it. Even though some of the concepts were already familiar, reading them “first hand” really cemented some of the ideas much more solidly - I feel I now have a better sense of the nuance in the argument, rather than just the broad brushstrokes I had previously.

I’d highly recommend it - 5/5 stars - I really can’t think anything that could be improved…

Blog action day:

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment.

Let’s hope I remember to blog on that day - chances are it’ll be on topic if I do

Oh - they ask the question “what would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?” I’ll take a (cynical) punt - not much except a bunch of bloggers feeling good about themselves. Not that that’s such a bad thing :p

NewMatilda.com have a good overview of the issues with kraft mills like that proposed by Gunns.

The Federal environment minister has announced that their open to comment on the grounds of the EPBC act - I got the email announcing this in my email today - 2 days before the due date (and with no link to the actual page for comment). Methinks they don’t actually want comment, but I digress…

GetUp are running a petition opposing the mill (I’m a signatory).

Well… sometimes.

David highlights some Economist stats that demonstrate that sustainability doesn’t necessarily cost more. In fact, sometimes it can save money.

David makes the point that although overall these measures are cheaper, often the decision makers are not the ones who benefit from the reduced costs. And as a result they don’t actually implement these simple measures that have a societal benefit, because they don’t get to see that benefit on their bottom line.

I’ve kind of had this thought before, but never fully put two and two together. In buying our unit in Newtown we were really aware of the poor water management and lack of sustainability features like water recycling, rain-water tanks, solar panels or motion sensor lighting (the body corporate did look into installing a motion sensor lighting system after the fact but the cost was too high to install then - no doubt it would have been significantly cheaper if it had been incorporated at build time). We had limited options due to our financial situation - but mostly it was a case of the “green” options simply not existing.

Virtually every place we looked at neglected the simple measures - which was immensely frustrating for us as buyers. We did end up in a place that was north facing and has good insulation, but had to forgo some of the other things we were aware would have saved us money and been better for the environment.

My view, much as I hate to admit it, is that the buyer has no influence on this - we can ask about it, but in the end we kinda have to accept what’s available (”no influence” is probably too strong - but it certainly is negligible in the grand scheme of things). Even if we chose not to buy, waiting for an enviro-friendly place to come on the market - the market (i.e. developers) don’t know this, and aren’t incentivised to do so. A market failure caused by lack of information perhaps…

I wish there was a way for us all to flag what we were looking for so developers could take heed (assuming we could get sufficient numbers interested in sustainability measures). But there is no such mechanism as far as I can see. So ultimately I feel that government intervention is the only way.

If I were building or buying a house it would be a different story - I’d have a lot more options and choices and my dollar could be focused more effectively. But living in Sydney I can’t see any way that I can afford a house, let alone build one - so I’m stuck relying on developers of apartments and other urban housing. I think the situation is even worse in high density buildings.

But I’m not holding my breath - as I understand it the BASIX laws have actually been clawed back to support developers who claim that it’s too expensive (i.e. too much of a hit on their profits) to do some of these things. It’s really so short sighted and neglects the state of the environment in the name of profit - two steps forward, one step back.

TreeHugger: Thailand Gets the Green Light.

If Australian car makers are struggling now, look out in a few years time when Thailand and China are ahead of the game in terms of eco-friendly vehicles…

Hilarious: High CARB diet.

However, we are actually delighted by the way this [fuel cell] bias finds implementation in the ZEV [Zero Emission Vehicle] mandate. For the results of this mandate is that all of our potential EV competitors – all the big car companies – remain mired in non-productive, deeply-expensive fuel cell programs, keeping them out of the EV marketplace, and indeed out of the serious ZEV marketplace entirely.

Just wanted to highlight an excellent post that Duncan, one of my colleagues at Digital Eskimo, wrote on the (newly launched) company blog, entitled Sustainability v1.1.

This Joy of Tech cartoon made me laugh out loud - very funny…

Seth Godin suggests that arguing for less (emissions, food miles etc.) is the wrong approach.

Instead we should be pushing for more: bigger energy efficiency, more kilometres per litre etc.

As much as I’d prefer not to indulge this idea of “more” it makes sense as a way to achieve results based on the current mindset (which as Seth points out is not so new).