EcoVelocity 2012

May 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

Road transport accounts for 22% of total UK emissions of CO2 and of the 33 million vehicles on our roads, 27 million are cars. At Carbon Voyage we make a great effort to work with transport providers who use environmentally friendly vehicles – for our recently launched Earls Court and Olympia service, we are working with GUTSi which operates the UK’s first 100% electric executive bus. With the car market being so large and people thinking more about their carbon footprint, it’s no surprise then that car manufacturers are investing in new technology and promoting low carbon vehicles. In order to keep up with the latest vehicle technology, I visited EcoVelocity last week at London’s ExCel which was advertised as a low carbon motor event, showcasing the ‘latest cutting-edge technology from the world’s leading car manufacturers’.

My first impression as I entered the exhibition hall was how quiet it was and how few exhibitors there were; in fact, if the Grand Designs Live show had not been on next door offering reciprocal entry to each show, it would have been very quiet. However, if you were in the market for a low carbon or electric vehicle, there was a reasonable selection of vehicles to choose from and test drive in the adjacent hall: ranging from supercars, such as the Fisker Carma and Tesla Roadster with their visual appeal, to the boxy little mia electric van from France, and more mainstream offerings from manufacturers, such as Vauxhall, Peugeot and Nissan. With regards to Japanese manufacturers, it was surprising that Toyota Prius was not present at the show, as they probably have the most brand recognition in the UK market for hybrid vehicles. In addition to the manufacturers, there were many companies offering charging points all over London, along with the utility EDF Energy promoting its recharging solutions. From a collaborative consumption standpoint, there was only one company exhibiting, namely Zipcar whose rather ordinary stand was awash with green balloons to reinforce its ‘eco-friendly’ credentials; furthermore, although not present at the show, I noticed that BlablaCar was offering its services in the travel section of the website. Clearly I’m biased, but I think our offering of shared transport is far more suited to visiting exhibition centres in London than what BlablaCar is proposing, as who wants the hassle of driving their own car to ExCel. Incidentally, we hope to include ExCel and other well-known venues in London as part of our service very soon – watch this space!

Overall, I thought the show was a bit disappointing and didn’t generate much buzz and excitement which was a missed opportunity, considering the number of people from Grand Designs Live next door who could have been attracted to the show. My personal highlight was the mia electric van which is incredibly well-designed; sadly, it’s not large enough to carry passengers for our use. Interestingly, the government has introduced an electric van scheme which gives grants to drivers of up to £8,000, which is an extension of the plug-in grant for electric cars which is up to £5,000 for drivers. Let’s hope these incentives and the improved products from manufacturers, along with the charging infrastructure, encourage more people to take the plunge and buy an eco-friendly car for the benefit of us all.

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London Air Pollution

May 9, 2012 by Leave a comment

By Chris O’Brien

So I just moved to London from a rural village in Holland to work for Carbon Voyage, and one of the things I have a hard time getting past is the air pollution. From dust in my apartment to soot on my clothes, it seems impossible to get away from it. I really notice it after a hard workout outside, or when I am in and out of Earls Court Olympia (one of Carbon Voyages’ partner sites). Funny enough, one of my friends even has a theory that it’s healthier to not exercise in central London (and thus not breathe to heavy) than to exercise.

Guess what? At times, that may be sound advice. Last march, pollutant levels reached levels not seen since measurements began in 2008. The Guardian reported that  “Health advice from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says that adults and children with lung problems, adults with heart problems and all older people should not take any “strenuous physical activity” while pollution is at the recorded levels. The general population is advised to reduce exercise too.”

Clean Air for London, says that levels of NO2 (which comes mainly from combustible engines) are the worst in Europe and are comparable, if not exceeding, those of Beijing. Worse, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, say that pollutants in central London could be cutting the life spans of vulnerable population members by up to nine years and causing the premature deaths of up to 50,000 individuals.

Check out this interactive pollution map from London Air, which can give you a real time idea of just how bad the air is. The red and green dots represent places where common air quality objectives (like levels of NO2 and CO2 being released) are being met. You might want to use it to plan that next run route!

Now that I know just how bad the air here is, I cringe every time I see an empty van or exhaust-belching truck on the road. Certainly reducing CO2 emissions to help prevent global warming is important, but reducing air pollution is one of the main reasons I began working for Carbon Voyage. One of the best ways we can make cities like London healthier is to help reduce the pollution related to inefficient transportation. Applying the ideas of collaborative consumption to the transportation industry is one of many ways to do this.

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Sustainability in the Legal Sector

May 4, 2012 by Leave a comment

On Tuesday , I attended a lunch at Forman’s Fish Island organised by the Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) which is very much a collaborative initiative of the legal profession in the United Kingdom to look at addressing the various sustainability challenges that they have. It was a really well attended event with the LSA covering details of a report on sustainability in their sector and speeches from Alex Gourlay (Chair of BITC and CEO of one of the divisions of Alliance Boots), Lord Redesdale (All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change) and David Stubbs from LOCOG.

It was great to see an increase in the number of firms publishing their carbon footprint from 40% in 2009 to 64% in 2012 as well as a decrease in absolute emissions from 206,000 to 178,000 tonnes over this period. It was also good to hear about an Australian chapter of the organisation being setup as well as the potential for something similar in the United States.

One of the interesting take aways for me was the issues will be created through rising energy prices over the next few years – as Lord Redesdale pointed out, the electricity production capacity is rapidly diminishing (which follows the same theme written about by the Renewable Energy Foundation a few years back).

And the food (especially the salmon) was really great also :)

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Battle Lessons for Startups – Part 1

April 18, 2012 by Leave a comment

This initially appeared in Shift Business and a version was also in the Tech City blog.

The topic of leadership is very important in the army, as it is for any start-up enterprise. Actually, start-ups are a bit like military operations – high pressure environments, uncertainty, resource constraints, adversaries and so on – just without nearly as much shooting.

The experiences of being in a war zone can provide invaluable lessons for start-ups, some of which I’d like to share below as someone who has now left the army and is running a business.

Discussing how tactical a blue backpack is while waiting for a helicopter in southern Iraq

No plan survives first contact with the enemy (pivoting)

Flexibility is a key principle of war. The enemy will not always do what you expect, or what you wish they would, and you will rarely have the resources you need. Having a plan is great to draw out possible issues but focusing on development at the expense of execution can be just as bad.

A point also exists where you just need to go on and complete the mission even if the situation isn’t perfect.

Similarly, start-ups have to be flexible and able to deal with the realities of a live product or service because until you reach that stage, everything is purely hypothetical.

Being a leader and making decisions

Leadership can be tough, as can be trying to even define what leadership is all about. What is really tough though is that ultimately you need to have moral courage to make hard decisions. In the army, this means sending people in to harm’s way and sometimes doing things that you don’t want to do but know you have to. Running a start-up is precisely the same, and if you can’t be a leader, then you really shouldn’t be in charge.

Mentors

Young officers are assigned a mentor when they command a platoon of thirty soldiers – it’s called a sergeant. The sergeant is very important in helping the less experienced but highly enthusiastic platoon commander learn the ropes and stay out of trouble.

I became a platoon commander when I was 18 and without mentors in the army I would have made some pretty horrendous mistakes (or, rather, more than I actually made). When I had my first business in Australia, I didn’t have a mentor and that was quite an oversight. Find someone with experience that you trust and listen to them – it can make all the difference.

Perspective

Running a start-up and being innovative is a really great and rewarding experience and there is no way that I would want to do a normal job. However, it is also true that start-ups can be challenging, and risk becoming a “million dollar MBA” if it all goes wrong.

But even when things go wrong though, it never comes close to when things go wrong in battle. The impact of something going wrong on the front-line in Afghanistan often means that someone will die or be badly injured; no challenge in a start-up comes close. Remembering this helps, even if you haven’t been there.

The other great thing about having this perspective is that it also highlights that you should do something that you love doing. Life is too short to do otherwise!

 

Filed under Entrepreneurship, Innovation Tagged with , , , , ,

Helping out with student enterprise is an awesome experience

March 30, 2012 by Leave a comment

On Wednesday, I had the great privilege to be able to help out at FLUX 2012 run by NACUE and Working Knowledge which was held at Ravensbourne College which is a really amazing venue is South East London. FLUX 2012 was all about giving groups of students from 21 higher eduction institutions, both universities and colleges, a business challenge and then in 36 hours, come up with a cunning plan and pitch that in front of their peers as well as a panel of experts.

 

It was all about building student led entreprise and it was truly awesome to see this group of young entrepreneurs come up with some really imaginative and innovative ideas – and it’s sort of a shame that the idea couldn’t be pitched to the Greater London Authority (which was the role that the experts were playing). The challenge itself was about developing some disused land next to the O2, and I was particularly pleased that a lot of the concepts incorporated a tremendous amount of sustainability elements. The final winner was Plymouth University, although the winner of my stream was the University of East Anglia.

 

Filed under Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Student Enterprise Tagged with , , , , , ,

Smart mobility? It’s all about ‘collaborative consumption’

March 26, 2012 by Leave a comment

This article was initially published in Greenbang on Monday, 26th March 2012 (and written by us).

A lot of discussion about low-carbon transport centers on vehicle technology, but that is only part of the solution. Zero-emission cars certainly have a part to play in terms of reducing reliance on fossil fuels and reducing environmental impacts but they don’t begin to address the issue of congestion.

Here at Carbon Voyage, we have just launched a collaborative transport service with Earls Court and Olympia, two of the United Kingdom’s biggest event venues that play host to millions of visitors and tens of thousands of exhibitors each year with big events such as the Ideal Home Show and London Book Fair. Not surprisingly, the transport associated with this creates significant congestion problems and is a major element in event-related carbon emissions. At any major transport hub or big event, it is common to see big queues of people trying to get a cab (many in the same direction), big queues of cabs waiting to pick up one person at a time, and lots of trucks showing up half empty and leaving empty.

What this situation highlights is that a lot of the congestion and carbon impacts don’t need to happen because many journeys are taken individually without any reference to who may be taking similar journeys. This is partly why 1/3 of all truck journeys are completely empty and 60% of all car trips have only the driver — and unsurprisingly this means that people are paying for this inefficiency.

Collaborative consumption is a movement that tries to address these inefficiencies that exist in everyday life, as we see with companies such as Airbnb and Zipcar: Can I hire out my spare room? Do I really need a car that sits in the driveway? or even, Can I hire out my empty driveway to someone looking for a parking spot? As the world increasingly becomes a resource-constrained place due to population growth and urbanization, finding efficiencies through shared use could move from being a nice-to-have to a must-have.

In the context of transport, this becomes a crucial issue because of space constraints. Collaboration also helps with mode shift — finding better ways of moving groups of people. In the case of Earls Court, by matching demand for people wanting to go to the same airport, a bus can not only be a third to half the cost of a taxi, but also is quicker because there are fewer vehicles queuing up to transport people.

Congestion is a multi-billion-pound problem in London alone. Collaborating with others is one of the very few ways of addressing this — unless, of course, we all stop moving around.

Filed under collaborative consumption, Events, Innovation, Logistics, Sustainability, Sustainable Cities, transport, Travel Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Earls Court and Olympia Affiliate Scheme

March 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

This week, Earls Court and Olympia announced the launch of our partnership with them which we see as a fairly innovative approach to addressing some of the congestion and carbon challenges that exist in the events industry. We’ve designed the system so that a range of groups can benefit from this – visitors and exhibitors can save money, transport companies can fill empty return journeys and the local community has less congestion.

To help with building this ecosystem, we saw that it was important to incentivise everyone involved in the Earls Court ecosystem – exhibitors, events companies, events news sites and even transport operators. With this in mind, we’ve established an affiliate scheme where; aside from helping with this great scheme, will also provide a new revenue stream.

If you have a website and are interested in joining this scheme, you can apply here and we will provide you with suitable banners and affiliate links.

Earls Court and Olympia

Filed under Events, Freight, Innovation, Sustainability, Sustainable Cities, Technology, Tourism, Travel Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Collaborative Transport at Earls Court and Olympia

March 8, 2012 by Leave a comment

Congestion is an increasing problem in major cities and around major transport hubs and event venues; this is partly due to trucks driving around empty 30% of the time and cars have a single occupant over 60% of the time. The cost to Londoners each year is estimated at over £2 billion (as per Transport for London’s London Freight Plan).  Along with the significant environmental and air pollution impacts of transport, this creates an issue for everyone. However, one major event venue is leading the way in addressing this.

Earls Court and Olympia are two of the UK’s best known event venues hosting millions of visitors and tens of thousands of exhibitors each year. In 2012, Earls Court is also set to host the Olympic volleyball competition. We are launching a new online platform with them to help visitors and exhibitors travel to and from events more sustainably, whilst cutting cost and congestion at the same time. By taking a collaborative approach to this, significant savings can be created.

For exhibitors, this means that they will be able to find opportunities to share their freight needs which can cut down on unnecessary truck journeys to and from venues. For freight companies participating in the scheme, they can have fuller loads and also find ways to fill empty return journeys. For the venue, it helps cut down unnecessary congestion and also carbon linked to events; by understanding what vehicles are coming in for deliveries, it will also help improve traffic management. And importantly for visitors, by encouraging the use of shuttle services and shared taxis, it can reduce waiting time in taxi queues and will reduce the cost of journeys to major transport hubs such as airports, along with reducing an individual’s carbon footprint. Through collaboration, a shared journey to Heathrow will cost around £15 which is less half the price of a minicab journey by yourself.

With all eyes on London in this Olympic year, this innovative partnership should create major benefits for all parties involved; furthermore, the launch also comes shortly after the Global Reporting Initiative launched new guidance for the events industry on sustainability reporting.

Filed under Events, Freight, Logistics, Sustainability, Sustainable Cities, Technology, Tourism, transport Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

A view from NASA on climate change

March 7, 2012 by Leave a comment

Anyone that knows me will know that I am a massive fan of TED. I am also a massive fan of NASA and often use some research from them to demonstrate some of the impacts of climate change. When I saw that James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) posted something on TED, I felt that I should share it here.

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Why maths is cool (and very relevant in creating sustainable cities)

March 2, 2012 by Leave a comment

One of the team sent me a video from TED in which Kevin Slavin talks about the importance of algorithms in everyday life. Here it is!

An interesting aspect of our business is around the reality is that it is very inefficient industry – there is fragmented and disparate demand and supply, vehicles are empty, there are relatively low asset utilisation rates and pricing can be quite all over the place.We did quite a lot of work around urban freight which helped us to highlightsome of these disconnects – the graph below is part of a study that we did into understanding the baseline impact of freight deliveries to multi-tenancy commercial properties in London (you will need to click on the picture to see the detail). Ultimately what it shows is that each day there are hundreds of journeys to deliver a single item or set of items to one company – all via a single, very congested road in London. A more collaborative approach would allow different businesses to get delivery journeys shared quite easily, thus reduce cost, congestion and carbon. While many people may not care too much about carbon, these heavily congested situations will be very problematic during the Olympics in a few short months.

To address this, we use maths to find ways to create some logic in this whole situation, and in doing so, start to find a way of ordering a range of very random ‘events’. In many respects, this start with coming up with certain hypothesis that allow us to consider the situation in which a user might be in and then try and construct a mathematical way of capturing that and solving the pain point. While I am not going to really discuss the core of what we do, I thought this graph below might be interesting which was done for me by an awesome intern doing Mathematics at Berkeley. In this example, we were trying to look at a standardised per mile pricing structure so we used a polynomial equation to come up with a potential answer.

X-axis is distance in miles; Y-axis is pricing

Filed under Sustainable Cities, Technology, transport Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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