It's not easy being green

I am not carbon neutral. For a start, I come from a long way away and rack up flying time measured in days, not hours. I drive gas guzzling vehicles with a heavy right foot and take ready advantage of cheap petrol.

I may have district cooling at home – lauded as environmentally friendly, but murderous on the wallet – but I waste it because I have to pay a high fixed charge, regardless of how much I use.

Economists would suggest that there should be an incentive to encourage me to use less. They’re right. But apparently not right enough to have local developers pay any attention.

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Economists, however, have also come up with other clever incentive schemes to aid carbon neutrality. Carbon credits are an artificial economic device layered over the real economy, allowing companies to buy their green credentials and off-set any carbon they spew into the atmosphere, through the purchase of theoretical trees.

Online businesses are flourishing, selling peace of mind to the carbon guilty, after helping them calculate just how bad they are. Airlines like this too. Some include it as an option when you buy a ticket: ‘would you like to off-set your carbon?’ No thanks.

Carbon credits are nonsense. The point of trying to be carbon neutral is to stop wrecking the planet’s atmosphere. This should be a genuine effort, not an economic sleight of hand. Buy enough carbon credits and you can off-set anything. Anyone fancy a carbon-neutral coal-fired power station? Or perhaps plant a tree with your next six-litre V8? Pointless.

Real change can only come after genuine effort. Yes people, if you want something, you have to work for it. For FMs that means encouraging, coercing, or just outright forcing the people you work for and with, to use environmentally sound products wherever possible.

There will be a price to pay for this. Not only is it not easy being green, it’s usually not cheap either. But that’s just in the short-term. Longer term lifecycle costs typically compare more favourably to the low-cost, carbon-heavy alternatives. So, use your position to wave the flag for decent green products and do the world a favour.