I’m addicted to the Today programme and a big fan of Martha Kearney but I do wonder why she is broadcasting from Antarctica at the moment. There may be lots of reasons why Martha is in Antarctica, perhaps she is doing a whole series of filming and broadcasting assignments, but I do wonder whether the BBC record their carbon footprint in any way. And does the BBC have any plan in place to reduce their carbon emissions to help us get to a zero-carbon position by 2030 (Greens), in the 2030s (Labour), by 2045 (LibDems) or by 2050 (Conservative)?
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I am not such a fan of the BBC as you Mark. It makes me very annoyed when on a number of programmes such as Countryfile ,Coast and some wildlife programmes where the BBC are clearly filming from a helicopter. It is not that I am against these programmes but in the vast majority helicopter use it is just not necessary. The BBC should be put under great pressure to reduce their carbon foot print which I suspect is very excessive.
I suspect they use drones a lot more these days Alan….but I agree helicopters are not good environmentally nor do they do the wildlife they film any favours either….eg when you see footage from the air of seabird cliffs with thousands of birds erupting off the ledges as a direct result of the noise and turbulence caused by the helicopter itself.
As I descend into old man grumpiness I find myself getting more and more annoyed with the predictability of BBC presenters unnecessary globe trotting (although I’m sure other channels are equally culpable. I watched a Brian Cox programme the other day which was filmed on 3 different continents – it was about Saturn!
My ‘favourite’ example of this was where both Brian Cox and Iain Stewart ended up flying in a British made Lightning jet now based in South Africa in separate BBC programmes – to demonstrate the importance of atmosphere and altitude of course. It reminded me of the old joke about Ad agencies dreaming up ideas based in tropical paradises so they could go there to film them.
Sorry to hear you have an addiction to the Toaday programme Mark. I hope you enter recovery soon.It took me some years to break the BBC propaganda habit, a bit longer for the Guardian but I found reading Noam Chomsky helped.
What would the LCA measure? Is there an SI unit for drivel? Drivels/kgCO2e?
zero-carbon position by 2030 (Greens), in the 2030s (Labour), by 2045 (LibDems) or by 2050 (Conservative)?
by 2030- This surley involves replacing the whole car fleet with electic vehicles in ten years (or a little more 30s) and enough extra electic power generation and power points to power them.
Is this realistic? I have not been following this.
It may be symbolic but it’s also trivial – and I’m sure there’ll be CC deniers all too ready to jump on the bandwagon with the sole intention of sabotaging things that don’t suit them being reported. However, I do wonder how many more glaciers we need – and would rather see reporting (which might not require carbon expensive flights) from places where people are being directly impacted – both developing & developed world.
Well, at least she’s not on a birdwatching tour.
Excellent question Mark. I can’t find it asked anywhere nor any obvious answer. The nearest I can find to a BBC corporate website is here: https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/. No reference on it that I can find to carbon footprint, including not in their annual report or annual plan. By contrast, it took me 30 secs to find this: https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/a-renewable-energy-update-from-us
Which of course does not mean that Netflix are great and the BBC not. But….
Where exactly did you look? I typed ‘bbc environmental policy’ into google and found this at the top of the list of hits: https://www.bbc.co.uk/responsibility/environment
Whether the BBC could or should be doing more to reduce its environmental impacts I don’t know but in answer to Mark’s question, yes they do have some kind of plan and they do measure their carbon footprint.
I googled ‘BBC carbon footprint’ and found nothing (though the BBC does of course have much to say about others’ carbon footprints). I then looked on what appears to be more-or-less their corporate presence on the web, “About the BBC”, which includes their annual report and plan. And, as I said, found zilch. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place but the fact that I found nothing in the place I was looking does seem to say something. I’ll follow your link later.
“Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place but the fact that I found nothing in the place I was looking does seem to say something”.
I’m not really sure what you think it is saying. On the ‘About the BBC’ web page you mention there is a link entitled ‘policies and guidelines’ which links to a page with various corporate policies covering the sort of issues one would expect to be important to an organisation such as the BBC. Environmental sustainability is one of the polices in this list. This includes a link to performance information relative to its targets.
I have found the information about the BBC’s environmental policies with no trouble at all, both by a google search and by following the links on the page you refer to so I really don’t think it can be said that the information is hidden away or buried or that its location implies anything about the importance the BBC attaches to the subject. The information is pretty much where you would expect to find it on any corporate web-site.
OK, fair cop, but… I spent 20 minutes looking for their carbon footprint and could not find it. The link you mention is not on the top “About the BBC” page, it is a further level down: you have to click on “Reports and Policies” before you get to “Policies and Guidelines”. And then “Environmental sustainability” is one of 15 headings. Is that really the navigation a major public body should be offering for its environmental impact?
The page, when you get there, is quite interesting. Now I know about ‘albert’. But there is nothing on the BBC’s carbon footprint. Overall, I suppose I agree it might be what I would expect to find on any corporate website. Less good, say, than Marks and Spencer, better than…well I was going to make a possibly snobbish comment about Sports Direct, but then it took me all of 15 seconds to find this: https://www.sportsdirectplc.com/corporate-responsibility/environment.aspx
Where should the BBC be? In a much better place I’d say.
“But there is nothing on the BBC’s carbon footprint”
The BBC’s Environmental Sustainability Targets and Performance Report (which can be found via links from the environmental sustainability policy page) does provide data on the corporation’s carbon footprint. The last year reported is 2017/18 so it would certainly be good to get the figures for 2018/19 but I presume this will appear in due course.
At least the BBC are delivering news on the climate emergency. There are those who are taking wealthy tourists to Antarctica for a holiday at a time of climate emergency. Chris Packham for example. There are others. The BirdFair promotes such activities too.
Do you have similar misgivings over this? I certainly do. It’s not great to be doing these things at the moment, especially so if those concerned are campaigning on climate change. The CO2 doesn’t get up there by accident.
It’s high time such prominent people set an example. Plenty of us are doing it already and we need as much CO2 left in the carbon budget as possible if we are to meet our Paris obligations.
Tim – thank you for your third comment here – all of which have been about the Bird Fair. As far as Chris is concerned I think you’ll find that things have changed…
Absolutely right, Tim. It’s way past time that prominent environmentalists started setting an example instead of getting ‘sniffy’ about attention being drawn to their behaviour.
Thanks Sandra.
We are rapidly running out of carbon to play with in the budget. Every little bit is now important. I don’t mind if people want to fly off all over the place but if they subsequently complain publicly about climate change or ask us to plant some trees, they just don’t get how it works. Instead, if people like Mr Packham set a proper example, research shows it would have a lot of impact on others. We are effectively out of time already and are now simply trying to lessen the severity of the unpleasant impacts that we will face.
Getting those in positions of influence in the conservation / bird world to walk the walk, seems inexplicably difficult.