Case studies
What are the companies in the Taskforce doing to address the risks from peak oil themselves?
As a public sector transport operator, we are having considerable success in encouraging people to shift modes from the car to a more sustainable bus and rail service. Our initiatives, such as discounted ticketing and offering businesses green travel incentives for their employees, are helping make public transport a cheaper alternative to the car. In partnership with local authorities, we are focussed on widening the availability of park and ride facilities across the UK to encourage intelligent car use, reduce fossil fuel and consumption and carbon emissions, and help cut congestion.
We are also working hard to improve energy efficiency across our own business. Our UK bus operations use a fuel additive which reduces fuel consumption and emissions by 5%. In addition, Stagecoach is heavily involved in testing alternative renewable fuels in our bus and rail operations. This includes our pioneering BioBus project in Kilmarnock where a fleet of our buses is powered by 100% bio fuel produced from recycled vegetable oil and animal fat, and this approach will be extended to Cambridge next year. We have dramatically improved the energy efficiency of our facilities across the UK and are also investigating the potential of new hybrid and electric technologies for our fleets.
We are designing and supplying clean solar technology, scaling up operations to prepare for the inevitability of mass markets in solar photovoltaics and solar thermal. We constrain our operations according to the elite environmental standard, EMAS, one of very few renewables companies to do so. We have an active commitment to reduction in travel and energy use. One of our ten working principles says: “As a team we aim to live the life with minimum impact on our surroundings…”
The notion that global oil production has reached its peak, or is shortly to do so, raises very serious concerns for all economies that are built on a bedrock of fossil fuel dependency. Tightening supply and margins will lead to an increase in prices which in turn will threaten the viability of many businesses and increase the cost of living for all consumers. As such it is one of the UK’s most serious threats to security and standard of living. To overcome this threat, robust Government action and changes in consumer behaviours are essential.
(SSE) is playing a key part in addressing the likely threats that peak oil brings by tackling both sides of the equation. It is already the UK’s leading generator of renewable electricity and plans to invest a further £3 billion over the next five years developing renewable alternatives to fossil energy. It is also in the process of significantly improving the efficiency of its existing fossil fuel power stations, including upgrading its coal fired power stations to run on an increasing amount of biomass products rather than coal. On the other side of the equation SSE is working actively with its customers to help them use less of its core product and through its ‘Better Plan’ was the first energy company to financially reward customers for reducing their energy consumption.
Virgin has taken a twin pronged approach to Peak Oil - our main transport businesses (Atlantic and Rail) have supported the research into the development of sustainable biofuel for aviation fuel and train diesel. We have tested a blend of biofuel in a flight from London to Amsterdam and continue to support the research. The group has also put an initial $100 million into the Virgin Green Fund to invest in a range of growth and expansion companies in the renewable energy and resource efficiency sectors in the United States and Europe - aimed at reducing our dependence on oil and helping to develop commercial alternatives.www.virgingreenfund.com
As a global firm of design and business consultants, the biggest impact we can have on preparing for peak oil is through our clients. We have a formal process at the beginning of every project where we bring our clients’ attention to the issue of sustainability (which includes climate change and resource depletion), and we encourage them to take account of these factors in their projects. In addition, we spend our own money on research to explore the real drivers of change in the built environment, including the development of ‘energy-models’ for the national economy which we believe will become vital to future economic policy.
While architects cannot solve all the world’s ecological problems, we can design energy efficient, socially responsible buildings and we can influence transport patterns through urban planning.
In the industrialised world, transport and industry consume half the energy we generate and are responsible for half the carbon emissions, while the remainder is consumed by buildings and the activities within them. Architects clearly have a role to play in challenging this equation. Sustainability requires us to think holistically. The location and function of a building; its flexibility and life span; its orientation, form and structure; its heating and ventilation systems and the materials used; together impact upon the amount of energy required to build and maintain it, and travel to and from it. Only by finding new solutions to these problems, and by challenging patterns of transport and consumption in parallel, can we create a more sustainable future which addresses the threat of peak oil.