Big businesses must keep green promises

In its swanky Cheapside auditorium last week, BT wowed journalists with an emotive film about a changing world, accompanied by the usual thumping rave anthem.

But, for once, the facts backed up the rhetoric. The communications giant says that a quarter of its UK electricity use will come from wind power by 2016, in a project that involves building three wind farms for up to £250m.

The announcement is being hailed by the government and environmental groups as a pioneering step ­ and one that should set a precedent for other businesses.

The scheme is by no means BT’s first green initiative.

Many staff already work remotely, the company is a heavy user of web conferencing and, most impressively, it has cut overall emissions by 60 per cent since 1996.

That’s right. While the rest of us were still writing off environmentalists as tree huggers, one of the country’s biggest corporates was already setting itself significant green targets.

And as the fifth largest consumer of electricity in the UK, that is no mean feat.

In 2004, BT made what was then the world’s biggest purchase of renewable electricity.

And for the past two years its offices and exchanges have been powered largely from sustainable resources, cutting about 325,000 tonnes from its annual carbon footprint.

The question is: what’s in it for BT?

Reducing power consumption can certainly be cost-effective. But wind power is much more expensive than power from the grid, and will continue to be so for some time. One BT manager describes it as “enlightened self-interest”.

According to insiders, at least one significant public sector deal was won because of the firm’s green credentials.

And such factors weigh even heavier with the private sector. Business is becoming increasingly focused on being seen as modern. Even BT cares about how it is viewed by youngsters because these are the people who will be making the spending decisions in 20 years’ time.

Large oil companies are at the other end of the spectrum ­ struggling with their image as an archaic part of a pre-internet world.

And if they have that problem now, how much worse will it be in another 20 years’ time?

Hence BP is going “Beyond Petroleum”. And Marks & Spencer ­ traditional domain of the frumpy middle aged ­ is going green.

There are certainly a lot of good shows being put on at the moment. It remains to be seen which will work in the long term.

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