Have a look, if you can bear it, at this BBC news story. It’s so full of low hanging fruit that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps the best way is for me, on your behalf, to just go through it and raise the very obvious things as they jump out of the screen.
But first a bit of background: the fifth floor of the former London County Hall (last home of the disbanded Greater London Council or GLC – I’m not sure if the eventual replacement Greater London Authority or GLA ever used it prior to moving, and frankly I can’t be bothered to look it up) has apparently been unused for years (the fifth floor that is, not thankfully the entire iconic building). Why didn’t Mayor Khan use it to house some of the new arrivals? ‘Ours is not to reason why…’, it now accommodates a collection of ‘green’ companies.
OK back to the BBC story:
Sustainable Ventures now run the fifth floor as a sort of commercial commune for ‘green’ companies. Well, I suppose they have to go somewhere – and it’s nice to be among the like-minded so that no one gets offended or has to suffer hearing ‘misinformation’.
CEO Andrew Wordsworth who is also co-founder of Sustainable Ventures isn’t it seems one to ‘wander lonely as a cloud’. He doesn’t mince his words, and states that ‘we have a rule: if you’re not solving climate change, you don’t get in the building’. There are, among other things, two hotels in County Hall, surely that must adversely affect them booking in any ‘climate emergency’ denying guests? Perhaps Mr. Wordsworth really means just his fifth-floor fiefdom? Is it not perhaps an open challenge to rush up to the fifth floor, by lift or stairs, and shout ‘I’m not solving climate change’, and wait for defenestration or to be roughly person-handled off the premises by security persons?
The firm was established in 2011, but only moved into its current prestigious premises last year. Don’t though ask why in over a decade it hasn’t yet solved climate change (one little bit).
The fifth floor is now home to 120 firms employing over 1,000 people, and proudly claims to be the largest cluster of climate tech start-ups in Europe. I suspect that most would prefer to be somewhere else in the EU rather than nasty Brexit Britain but don’t have the lingo skills, and London is of course now so multicultural and also full of nice vegan restaurants.
One tenant company, Alive Labs, is struggling with the problem of living green walls. The plants keep dying rather than as intended, removing pollution from the air and cooling the fifth-floor reception. Perhaps they could try potted plants like those that thrive in ordinary homes, but it wouldn’t sound as exciting now would it? Don’t worry though, they’re now experimenting with mosses (the green type, not Mossad the Israeli secret service).
Another tenant, U-Build focuses upon moveable office fit-outs using plywood which of course makes it cutting edge, and well placed to criticise the building industry for waste. To its credit however, U-Build does at least not tar (probably a very, very dirty word on the fifth floor) the entire building industry.
Just as you’d expect the fifth floor WCs are cutting edge, they save water by using 120 litres of air to flush away the waste. Don’t whatever you do though ask how the (presumably) compressed air is produced, or how much energy it uses to flush away the number ones and twos. They do admit though that these loos won’t be seen in domestic homes anytime soon because they are far too expensive, and so are focused on commercial clients (possibly though only those with money to burn and very quick reflexes). A Propelair spokesperson gives this soundbite ‘like everyone at Sustainable Ventures we believe in saving the planet and Propelair saves it one flush at a time’. I bet those WC-less people in India currently crapping everywhere will be relieved to hear this.
The fifth floor is now 99% full (well it would be wouldn’t it, as Mandy Rice-Davis nearly but didn’t quite say). They’re actually having to turn new tenants away (how sad, never mind, as Windsor Davies definitely did say).
Next follows the inevitable megalomaniac expansion plans and the final inevitable platitudes about moving to a Net Zero future.
Dear readers, I’m sure you get the drift and know in your heart of hearts that no one on the fifth floor is using a mobile phone or laptop, ever flying on holiday, wearing anything derived from petroleum and the all rest.
You couldn’t make it up (but some can, and the Beeb will then cover it without asking any questions).
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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As with all this stuff these virtuous wannabes can do whatever they want as long as they use their own money and time. If it’s successful then good luck to them, we all benefit. However I have a sneaky suspicion that I and the rest of the tax-paying “community” are on the hook for most, if not all, of these playthings and I doubt the BBC will inform us, or the wider audience, when the final bill is presented.
Can anyone imagine the BBC running a similar story (it’s hardly a report) about any other group – except one from the ‘latest thing’ check list – and not asking any questions, like how much does it cost to rent a unit? Who is the building freeholder? How much is the coordinator company making from this? – and just letting the interviewees make unchallenged statements, repeating these as though unquestionably true? Neither can I. Somehow I doubt many of these companies are viable without public subsidy or they’d be doing their thing in normal premises on industrial estates not in central London.