One of my beloved British pals proudly sent me a link to this encouraging news about UK energy use.
UK using less energy despite growing economy, report findsI don't want to be the energy Grinch, but this sentence...People in the UK are using less energy even though the economy is growing, new figures confirm.
Increased wealth typically leads to increased energy use - but this link appears to have been broken by technology and government policy.
New analysis of government statistics for BBC News shows that the average person in the UK is using 10% less electricity than five years ago.
That is despite the boom in large TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets.
EU standards on household appliances have allowed people to do the same tasks with less energy.
"despite the boom in large TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets"
begs another question. Namely, how much energy is used to manufacture all those new and frequently replaced devices Brits (and the rest of us in wealthy consumer nations) are enjoying?
This is one of the key issues in (global) energy and greenhouse gas accounting, and one that once again almost tripped up the recent UN climate change negotiation process. Developed countries like the US, UK, EU, or Australia point to exactly the kind of energy savings mentioned in the article as a reason why they are doing their part, while developing nations insist they should be graded on a larger scale that also includes manufacturing & shipping footprints, as well as rich nations' historic burning of fossil fuels that made them wealthy enough in the first place to now invest in renewable energy grids.
In other words: when we buy an iPhone, how much of its overall footprint are we liable for? Only the energy it takes to recharge it, or the energy it took to extract the raw materials all over the world (yes, even California), ship them to the factories, manufacture them (often with energy from coal), package them (including energy cost of packaging, often full of petroleum products), ship them to the consumer nation, then distribute them on trucks to retailers? And that's just before we ever send our first text message, not accounting for the huge footprint of disposing of the device, which incidentally often ends up polluting a developing nation again.
I am using the iPhone as just one example, but the same question applies to any other consumer product, from TVs and computers to household appliances and cars (The environmental impact of our cars begins long before the first drops of gasoline are combusted, or the battery is first recharged). Shouldn't every improvement of their energy efficiency also include an assessment of the energy and materials it took to source, manufacture, ship, and dispose of such products?
If the answer is that the consumer country has at least a partial responsibility for the total energy used in a life cycle of a product, then we have to find more honest ways to account for and communicate our energy use. I recommend the Global Footprint Network as a great source for more holistic accounting tools that reflect the true impact of our consumption. We can all start by calculating our personal ecological footprint, which I think is really helpful in understanding our impact on the planet beyond the obvious things in our immediate environment.
That said, it's a step in the right direction to see energy efficiency in the UK and EU improved! But if we really want to reduce energy use on a global scale, we need to get much more serious about addressing things like planned obsolescence and consumerism.