Strathclyde Police spent more than double the amount of any other force, with a bill of £22,536 since 2007.  Scotland’s biggest force, which has 1,121 vehicles in its fleet, recorded 185 incidents of misfuelling.

Fife Constabulary had two instances, both in 2008, each costing £5,100, giving a total spend of £10,200.  It said there had been no other incidents between 2007 and 2012.

Grampian Police, which has had a total of 76 misfuelling incidents since 1 April 2007, spent £9,936 fixing its vehicles.

Lothian and Borders and Tayside paid out a little more than £5,600 each.

However, while Tayside recorded 26 incidents, Lothian and Borders only had seven.  One incident in 2007 in the Lothian and Borders force area, involving a BMW, cost £5,221.53.  The vehicle had been run after it was misfuelled, meaning it needed a completely new fuel system, tank, new fuel lines and injectors.  A spokeswoman for the force said: “The job was carried out at a BMW dealer to keep the warranty valid and therefore there were high labour costs as well.”

Central Scotland Police has recorded 25 incidents since 2006, costing £5,339.51, while Dumfries and Galloway paid out the least of all Scotland’s forces, with a bill of only £526.31 for 10 incidents.

Northern Constabulary said it was unable to provide annual figures as they were not stored electronically but said it believed the number of incidents was down to “one or two per year”, costing up to £150 each time.  It said: “The fleet manager notes that we have a reducing number of these incidents each year as officers are made more aware of the potential issues.  “We have fitted misfuel prevention devices to most of our vehicles.  Our most recent vehicles already have a misfuel prevention device fitted.  It is standard practice that the vehicle converters fit the devices to vehicles prior to initial deployment.”

Lothian and Borders Police, which has 620 vehicles in its fleet, said: “The majority (of) Lothian and Borders vehicles are filled at a bunkered site, which is key controlled to the product.  This eliminates misfuelling internally.  In all cases the vehicles were diesel models and were incorrectly fuelled with petrol.”

Campaign group Taxpayer Scotland said such mistakes could cost police forces a “fortune” in cash and resources.  The group’s Robert Oxley said: “Simple measures such as reminders on fuel caps would help ensure officers don’t repeat this kind of avoidable error.  “Individuals should have to take responsibility for the costs incurred if they continually make the same blunders.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-18051953

Greenpeace asked web users to send an £80 gift to fund Greenpeace activists ‘redecorating’ power station chimneys

The advertising watchdog has given Greenpeace a dressing down for running an “irresponsible” ad campaign to raise funds to takeover and deface property to make environmental protests.

Greenpeace ran a campaign on its website, www.greenpeacegiving.org.uk, calling for donations to support direct action protests against power station chimneys.

The text asked web users to send an £80 gift to fund Greenpeace activists “redecorating” power station chimneys with slogans, such as “stupid” and “no new coal”, and was accompanied by a person in a climbing harness occupying a site.

There was one complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority that the campaign was harmful and irresponsible because it encouraged consumers to sponsor illegal activity and encouraged and condoned anti-social behaviour.

Greenpeace said it took non-violent direct action to protect the planet from environmental harm and that it did not aim to break the law.

The group added it took non-violent direct action based on the intention to protect the planet from environmental harm and they did not aim to break the law.

While Greenpeace might not have fallen foul of the law, other similar activity might lead to acts that were illegal or anti-social, the ASA ruled.

“We considered that defacing property would generally be viewed as anti-social, and would in some circumstances be illegal,” said the ASA. “We therefore concluded that the ad was harmful and irresponsible because it encouraged and condoned anti-social behaviour.”

The ASA told Greenpeace it cannot run the campaign again.

Source :Guardian

A team of conservationists is setting off to Sweden on a mission to collect up to 100 short-haired bumblebee queens before releasing them at the RSPB’s Dungeness reserve in Kent later this Spring. The project to return the bumblebee Bombus subterraneus to the UK is a partnership between Natural England, the RSPB, Hymettus and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and forms part of the wider Natural England funded Species Recovery Programme.

The short-haired bumblebee was last recorded in the UK in 1988 near Dungeness. It suffered declines throughout the last 60 years as a result of habitat loss.  However the species has fared much better in the south of Sweden where, thanks to efforts of farmers, healthy populations of the bees can be found in areas of the province of Skane. Conservationists are now ready to begin the delicate work of transferring a small number of the queens to new habitats in England, in the hope they will re-colonise meadows and farmland in the south east.

Over the next two weeks, healthy queen bees will be collected from Skane province using bee nets, and then carefully transferred into vials.  These will be placed in refrigeration which will make the bees drowsy and induce a temporary hibernation.  The bees will return with the project team to England by ferry before being placed in quarantine at Royal Holloway, University of London to ensure they are free from diseases or parasites which could affect our native wildlife.

Dr Nikki Gammans, Project Officer added: “We have been carefully planning this expedition for months with our Swedish colleagues – it’s very exciting now to be heading off to collect the queens which we hope will be the first of a new UK colony.”

“This project is about restoring a lost piece of the jigsaw for our countryside wildlife and it is going to be a very special moment when we finally introduce them to their new home later this year.”

Dr Pete Brotherton, Head of Biodiversity at Natural England added: “Bees play a vital role in the countryside and the loss of the short-haired bumblebee serves as a stark reminder that many of our bees are in real trouble.”

“But this species recovery project shows that when conservationists and farmers work together we can really turn things around. The bumblebees now have ideal habitat waiting for them in Kent, giving them an excellent chance of re-establishing themselves. We are really excited about their return to England – these bees belong in our countryside and it’ll be great to have them back.”

RSPB ecologist Dr Jane Sears said: “We’ve lost 97 per cent of our wild flower meadows in the past 60 years and this has had a devastating impact on our precious native bumblebees.”

“Through this project we want to show that by working together we can restore lost wildlife to our countryside. But this isn’t just about one species – we want to create a healthy, vibrant habitat for a whole range of insects, wild plants, birds and other animals.”

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s CEO, Dr Ben Darvill said: “In the last 70 years two bumblebee species have become extinct and many more have declined dramatically.

They are of course familiar and endearing garden insects but they also have a very important role to play as pollinators. Without their free services our flowering crops would be less productive and our wildflowers would set less seed, leading to sweeping changes to the UK countryside.”

Source: Natural England

The guidelines, which are published as a Staff Working Document, were prepared for the Commission by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in close consultation with Member State experts in the EU Climate Change Committee. The review will be coordinated by a review secretariat at the EEA assisted by a technical expert review team.

The 2009 Effort Sharing Decision lays down, for the period 2013-20, binding national limits on annual greenhouse gas emissions not covered by the EU ETS. These emissions concern sectors such as transport, buildings, agriculture and waste. Emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) are not included in the Effort Sharing Decision.

The Commission intends later this year to set the 2013-20 national emission limits in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent on the basis of the reviewed and verified emissions data. The review will cover Member States’ emission inventories for the reference years: 2005, and 2008-2010.

The pledge was made seven years ago by then-prime minister Tony Blair when London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics.

Bigger, more beautiful, cleaner: all Olympic Games make the same promises. But what becomes of the concrete infrastructure, the miles of new roads and the tonnes of waste?

“It’s a slight oxymoron, the idea of the Olympic Games being sustainable,” said John Sauven, the executive director of the UK branch of environmental organisation Greenpeace.

“When you put on any event that lasts a weekend or a fortnight, it’s very hard to make it sustainable in nature, because it’s a very short-term event.

“You’re going to have an awful lot of people flying in for a very short period of time, consuming a huge amount of resources, and flying out again.”

However, the London Games do not measure up badly, he explained, because of the transformation they have brought about in Stratford, east London, and the legacy they will leave once the Olympic flame is extinguished on August 12.

“This was a fairly polluted industrial site,” Sauven said of what is now the Olympic Park.

“It has been restored, obviously a massive regeneration programme has been going on and it will be integrated into the fabric of the city, so it’s not like the 2004 Athens Olympics where a lot of the facilities are just abandoned ruins now.”

David Stubbs, the head of sustainability at the London Games organisers LOCOG, said: “From the beginning, sustainability was part of the project.”

Some two million tonnes of polluted soil has been cleaned up and re-used on the site and rainwater is stored and re-used.

Construction materials with low carbon content were given priority in building the stadia on the Olympic Park, with the aim of reducing carbon dioxide missions by half compared with normal construction standards.

While they acknowledge the effort, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth regret “missed opportunities” such as the scrapping of a wind turbine project on the site.

The decision made the percentage of renewable energy used on the park drop from the original target of 20 percent to 12 percent.

Above all, “corporate sponsorship of the Games has become controversial and tarnished the green image of the Games,” said Sauven.

BP, heavily criticised over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and Dow Chemical, which bought Union Carbide, at the heart of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster in India, are among the Olympic ‘partners’.

The total “carbon footprint” for the Games is a far from negligible 3.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Compare that with Britain’s total carbon footprint for 2011, which was 549.3 million tonnes.

“We can still make improvements. Events of this nature should be carbon neutral,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, who has visited the Olympic Park.

“Olympic venues and Olympic Games are a tremendous opportunity to bring a positive experience. If you have better public transport, if you have less waste, if you have clean air for the city, these are all good things that Olympic Games can accelerate.”

That could be the main plank of the Games’ legacy.

Poor areas of east London will inherit modern transport systems, affordable homes (48 percent of the 2,800 apartments in the Olympic village will be converted for this purpose), a major new shopping centre, sports and community facilities plus a giant new park.

Additionally, the River Lea has been cleaned up and opened up, with new bridges and pathways allowing people to cross between neighbourhoods.

“There was a dirty hole in the lower Lea Valley and it’s become a biodiversity spot,” said Kathryn Firth, design chief at the London Legacy Development Corporation.

The body’s projects for managing what comes after the Games are ambitious: transforming the site into the public Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by 2014, filling up to 11,000 new homes, 11 schools and nurseries, while creating up to 10,000 jobs at new “employment hubs”.

And if the economic recovery doesn’t follow?

“It will happen, but more slowly,” said Firth.

SOURCE NDTV

Changes to temperatures and rainfall in Europe as a result of climate change will influence patterns of food and water-borne diseases, as well as diseases carried by ‘vectors’, such as mosquitoes and ticks. This change in distribution of infectious diseases is difficult to predict and only a few studies have been able to link changes in disease patterns to climate change.

The researchers surveyed national health experts in all 27 Member States of the EU, and Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein, to explore the potential impacts of climate change on infectious diseases. The surveys took the form of two questionnaires, given in 2007 and 2009/2010, to officials in charge of institutions or scientific bodies that provide independent scientific or technical advice for the prevention and control of infectious diseases, including governmental health protection agencies, ministries of health and governmental infectious disease surveillance centres. The study also looked at how prepared national institutions are to deal with changes in infectious disease levels as a result of climate change.

The questionnaires asked the participants to indicate which infectious disease they thought would be most likely to be affected by climate change, based on their expert opinion. In addition, they were asked which outbreaks in the previous 10 years could be attributed to the effects of climate change. The majority of representatives believed that climate change would have an impact on all major categories of infectious diseases. For example, vector-borne diseases judged likely to be affected by climate change in the future included Lyme borreliosis, West Nile fever, and tick-borne encephalitis. Around a quarter of respondents also believed outbreaks or increases in the incidence of these diseases during the last decade could be attributed to climate change. Water-borne diseases thought most likely to be affected include Leptospirosis and cryptosporidiosis. For example, more rainfall in northern regions could increase the numbers of the parasite that causes cryptosporidiosis in water treatment and distribution systems.

Food-borne infections, such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, have a distinct seasonal pattern that has been linked to climate. Approximately three quarters of the survey respondents believed that food-borne infections will be affected by future climate change. However, respondents did not attribute food-borne outbreaks in their countries to recent temperature changes.

Despite each country carrying out research on infectious diseases, few national institutions are in place to monitor climate-sensitive infectious diseases. Experts from just seven countries indicated that they had conducted a national climate change assessment that covered infectious diseases adequately. A total of 80% of government officials admitted that current surveillance activities need improvement.

The researchers claim that in the absence of scientific certainty, expert assessment gathered in this way can provide important information for policymakers to prioritise areas for action and make informed decisions. The results of recent research confirmed the experts’ opinions and highlighted the reliability and value of the information collected in the surveys.

Source: Semenza, J.C., Suk, J.E., Estevez, V., et al. (2012) Mapping Climate Change Vulnerabilities to Infectious Diseases in Europe. Environmental Health Perspectives. 120(3): 385-392. This study is free to view at: http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.1103805

The former champions had earlier gathered outside the Circuit de Catalunya garage for a team photograph to celebrate Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado’s first career victory and their first in nearly eight years.  Team founder and principal Frank Williams, who is in a wheelchair, had been in the garage when it filled with smoke and flames but was quickly wheeled to safety, his daughter Claire told Reuters.  The blaze was fought by staff from Williams, Caterham and Force India from the pit lane side before circuit fire services arrived.  The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement that all but seven of the 31 team members who went to the Circuit Medical Centre had been released.  The seven were transferred to local hospitals for treatment.

Williams said the fire had “originated from the fuel area” and three of their staff were in hospital.  “The team, the fire services and the police are working together to determine the root cause of the fire and an update statement will be released in due course” Williams added.

Caterham, who have an adjacent garage to Williams, said four of their staff had been taken to the medical centre for examination – one with a minor hand injury and three with respiratory issues.  Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley said one of his staff had suffered smoke inhalation.

The fire, with thick, acrid black smoke billowing out of the garage and across the paddock, started about 90 minutes after the end of the race.  Maldonado was photographed carrying his 12-year-old cousin piggyback through the smoke, with the youngster clutching the winner’s trophy.  Photographs also showed Brazilian Bruno Senna’s car in the middle of a gutted and charred garage. Maldonado’s race car had been parked elsewhere under the post-race parc ferme rules.

Team officials and guests were ushered to safety and the area cordoned off. A medical helicopter was seen to take off after a while.

The fire was the second in the Formula One paddock in five races this season, with one breaking out in the Lotus hospitality area at the Malaysian circuit in March.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/13052012/58/seven-hospitalised-fire-guts-williams-garage.html

Liverpool Crown Court heard the crane fell onto a partially constructed apartment block, across a road and came to rest on the Chandlers Wharf apartments. Eight counterweights on the crane, weighing a total of 56 tonnes, broke free and crashed through the roof and six floors of the building.  Crane driver Iain Gillham, 55, from Woolton, fell from his cab onto the roof of the apartments and through the hole created by the counterweights.  He suffered multiple injuries including a brain haemorrhage, fractured skull, broken right shoulder, broken ribs, crush injuries to his left side, and major spinal injuries which resulted in his legs being paralysed.

No one inside the building was injured but residents had to be evacuated from the 64 apartments, and some were rescued from their balconies. The damage to the building was extensive and residents were unable to return to their homes for nearly two years while major reconstruction work took place.

The HSE investigation into the incident found that the crane’s foundation could not cope with the forces generated by the crane.  During the construction of the foundation, both Bowmer and Kirkland Ltd and Bingham Davis Ltd agreed to cut away essential steel reinforcement bars from the four concrete foundation piles, so that the crane’s feet could sit on top on them. These were replaced with up to 5 steel rods in each pile. This action reduced the forces the foundation could withstand.

Summing up in court, Judge Gilmour said he was satisfied that it was the removal of the reinforcing steel and the inadequate replacement of the steel rods that led to the foundation being overloaded and the crane collapsing.  Both companies were found guilty of breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court by failing to ensure the safety of workers or residents.  Bowmer and Kirkland Ltd, of Church Street in Heage, Derbyshire, was fined £280,000. A decision on prosecution costs will be made separately.  Bingham Davis Ltd, formerly of Temple Street in Liverpool, has ceased trading since the crane collapse after going into voluntary liquidation. The company was fined a nominal £1,000.

Speaking after the hearing, the investigating inspector at HSE, Warren Pennington, said: “Serious failings on the parts of both Bowmer and Kirkland Ltd and Bingham Davis Ltd were uncovered by the Health and Safety Executive during an extensive and complex investigation into the crane collapse.  Whilst it is bad enough that Iain Gillham will be unable to walk for the rest of his life as a result of the failings of both parties, it is no exaggeration to say it was only by pure chance that this catastrophic event did not result in multiple fatalities and significantly more damage to property.  The circumstances leading to the collapse were a mess. Bingham Davis employees had no previous experience of designing the type of crane foundation used at Kings Dock Mill. Likewise, Bowmer & Kirkland’s employees at Kings Dock Mill had no experience of building one. Both parties made disastrous errors that were entirely preventable.  The original error was made by Bingham Davis Ltd, which failed to spot a basic mistake in its calculations for the loadings imposed by the crane. This created a material risk which had the potential to have led to a crane foundation being constructed that was not strong enough to hold the crane up.  During construction of the foundation, Bingham Davis advised Bowmer and Kirkland to cut away essential steel reinforcing bars in the foundation piles and replace such with steel rods. The removal of such reinforcing steel, resulted in the foundation being too weak to support the crane. The foundation was further weakened when Bowmer and Kirkland failed to ensure the adequate insertion of the replacing steel rods.  Neither Company did enough to check what the result would be of cutting away this essential steel reinforcement and replacing such with steel rods.”

Warren added:  “HSE hopes this case sends a clear message to the construction industry in relation to tower cranes foundations. Designers of such should be familiar with industry accepted guidance and follow it, unless they have extremely well thought-out reasons for not doing so. The role of the Principal Contractor is also crucial in managing the design process. Both Principal Contractors and Designers should ensure that robust systems for design checking are actioned at all times.  We will continue to engage with the industry to ensure that lessons are learned.”

Over the past decade, nine people have been killed and there have been 25 serious injuries as a result of incidents involving tower cranes. Information on crane safety is available at www.hse.gov.uk/construction

CRS’s Head of Environment, Richard Ball commented ‘Rights of way are a vital way for individual to enjoy the environment. Much has been made recently of children not connecting with nature, whether walking, running or cycling we all have fond memories of getting of the roads and accessing the countryside through these vital resources’

All unrecorded footpaths and bridleways created before 1949 cannot be recorded after 1 January 2026. This ‘cut off’ date by which to claim these historical rights of way was set in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. As well as making it easier for walkers, horse riders and cyclists to protect unrecorded rights of way, the proposed system is expected to save almost £20 million a year by cutting needless bureaucracy.

No changes are being made to the protections for rights of way; rather proposals have been made to make the process of recording or changing them more efficient.

Landowners’ applications to move a right of way will continue to be approved only if they do not affect the public’s enjoyment of it, in which case it will be more straightforward for landowners to see them through.  Under logical new plans, paths and trails that are used by the public will be easier to protect, whilst redundant routes and unsubstantiated rights of way claims will be prevented from getting in the way of farming and business interests.

Environment Minister, Richard Benyon said:

“Footpaths, bridleways and trails are the life-blood for many rural communities, providing access to our world-renowned landscapes. Our changes will help protect access  for the thousands of people who walk, ride and cycle in the countryside every week.

“Protecting and improving access to the countryside is the latest in a programme of Government measures to grow the rural economy.

“These routes have huge benefits to the health and wellbeing of those that use them and can help stimulate the local economy, bringing in more visitors to enjoy rural areas.”

A £2 million grant fund has opened for applications from local communities today to improve access to rural areas in ways that will grow the regional economy.

The Paths for Communities initiative is part of the Government’s £165 million Rural Economy Growth Review announced in November 2011.  Local volunteer groups are invited to bid for funding to create new rights of way or increase the accessibility of existing ones.   This may include making rights of way accessible for horses and bikes, improving way marking, creating maps and making better links with local transport services and tourist destinations.

The proposals in the rights of way consultation are based on recommendations from a Stakeholder Working Group, which issued the following statement today:

“We welcome this consultation package, which builds on the Stakeholder Working Group recommendations, and are keen to continue to work constructively with the Government throughout the consultation and implementation process”.

Nike is not a shy company. When it does something, it likes to make a splash. Which is why its Flyknit technology is so refreshing. Take a Nike trainer off the shelf and examine the upper. Spot any difference? Probably not.

Yet behind that upper is a natty design triumph. After months beavering away in the labs, Nike has devised a way of stitching that humble shoe upper out of what is essentially a single thread. That means more comfort, lower production costs and, from an environmental point of view, a lot less waste. For more information on Corporate Risk Systems’ IOSH approved ‘ Do The Right Thing’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Course or for consultancy support from the authors of IOSH’s ‘ Practical Jargon free guide on CSR contact rs@crsrisk.com.

“Looking through the creative lens of innovation, we aim to create breakthroughs that improve our world and are also better for our athletes and our investors”, says Nike CEO Mark Parker in the company’s latest annual sustainability report, released this week.

“This is a fundamental rewriting of the old belief system in which sustainability was so often cast as a cost to business, or a drag on performance.”

It’s a rewriting, for sure. A decade ago, Nike was the poster child of all that was bad about globalisation. Its business model was based on outsourcing en masse, paying its workers peanuts and pricing its goods high.

Unsurprisingly, its brand became dogged by charges of sweatshop conditions and environmental shortcuts. So Nike sent in the troops. Well, not quite. Rather, it dispatched an army of auditors. And, with moderate success, they marshalled suppliers into line.

Earlier versions of Nike’s sustainability reports read like audit statements. That’s because they were: data charts about underage workers employed, safety rules violated, and so forth. All peppered with some pretty pictures of smiling children, of course. So what’s changed?

First, Nike feels it’s done more or less all it can to ensure supply chain compliance. Its record will never be perfect. Ethical issues will continue to crop up, especially among sub-suppliers.

But most of the retailer’s major suppliers are on board, if only because of Nike’s big-stick approach. (It still employs 70 full-time compliance officers, plus a host of third-party auditors.)

Which brings us to the second point: when it comes to saving the planet, compliance doesn’t cut it. “We can’t just be less bad”, says Hannah Jones, vice president of sustainable business and innovation at Nike.

The big thing that’s changed at Nike is therefore the focus of its ambition. It is “upping its game”, to use the company’s own sporting parlance. In cricket terminology, its new “game plan” for sustainability is the difference between a forward defence and a full-on hoick out of the ground.

“There’s never been such an urgency for scale as we see today … CR [corporate responsibility] programmes that incrementally chip away at things aren’t going to be enough”, explains Jones.

Not even enough to keep Nike ticking over, it’s alleged. Last year, the US apparel brand grossed more than $20.9bn. Rising energy costs, increasingly scarce natural resources and demands for “equal access to economic opportunity” could cause that figure to shrink, and shrink fast.

“It is clear to us that our long-term potential, and the long-term potential of virtually every other major company in the world, will be severely pressured by [these] external factors”, Parker contends.

According to the Nike chief executive, sustainability stands to become the “nexus of transformations”, not just for the company over which he presides but over the world’s markets as a whole.

Hence, the call to innovate, through a mix of broad strategic principles and specific management measures. Collaboration tops the list. In another uncustomary note of humility, the US mega brand admits that its own ability to create “meaningful change at a systemic level” is limited. The message remains “Just do it … only, do it with everyone else too”.

The corollary is that Nike must be more transparent about its sustainability performance and more willing to share its ideas. That will take some doing. In the fiercely competitive apparel sector, industry rivalries are fierce and mutual suspicion intense. But Nike insists it is trying. As evidence, it points to its recent decision to publish the formula for its environmentally preferred rubber. Industry bodies now have access to its water-assessment tool as well.

Its lofty principles are built on what it hopes will be a solid set of foundations, including:

• Creating a portfolio of sustainable materials: materials account for around 60% of the environmental impacts of the average Nike shoe, so using less or recycling more could make a big difference. Last year, Nike used 7m kg of organic cotton, for example, and included recycled polyester in 31.5m products.

• Prototyping and scaling sustainable sourcing and manufacturing models: Nike’s stated aim is to make its global supply chain “lean, green, equitable and empowered”. Again, it’s no small undertaking. Nike sources from 900 contract factories, which employ over one million workers, who make more than 500,000 different products. It’ll take one very long clipboard to bring that all into line.

• Igniting and driving market transformation: essentially, this means getting everyone outside its factory gates to buy in; starting with competitors and governments and ending with us, the consumer.

• Creating digital services revenue: in a sustainable world, service providers are the good guys, and manufacturers the bad. So Nike is branching out into sporting services. Expect its famous tick to start appearing over gyms and sports centres near you.

Nike’s new, multi-functional Sustainable Business and Innovation unit marks a managerial attempt to ensure environmental concerns are not an “addendum” to core decision-making. In a similar vein, the company has established a Sourcing and Manufacturing Sustainability Index. By weighting contract factories by key social and environmental indicators, the Index encourages procurement staff to start thinking “lean and green”.

The move echoes Nike’s Considered Design index, which rates the eco-footprint of raw materials used in Nike products and pushes its designers towards the least harmful.

Nike’s corporate story is, in some ways, a reflection of capitalism’s own. Few companies have ridden the globalisation wave higher or faster. Don’t be mistaken. Nike isn’t about to get off that wave any time soon. For that reason, it’s important to hold it to the “boring” compliance bits of the responsibility agenda.

Yet the emblematic mega-brand has seen a shift in the tide, and it’s anxious to ensure it stays ahead of the swirling waters. “The age of abundance is over”, Parker states. “Innovation is being redefined. Expectations are being redefined.” For corporate speak, it’s surprisingly poetic. Could it be prophetic too?

Source: Guardian Sustainable Business