Umbrella's gathering of the clans

Umbrella. A strange name for a conference, until you realise that the last two letters are the intials of the Library Association, which used to run the event before it merged with the Institute of Information Professionals, to form CILIP.

The conference and exhibition is to be held at the University of Hatfield - a reasonably quick train ride from London - from 28th to 30th June. If you can go for only one day, Friday probably offers the best value in terms of the number of activities and the likelihood of meeting up with like-minded professionals.

The conference programme is split into nine streams: Workforce Development; Leadership/Management; Customers/clients; e-Content; Law/ethics; Communication; Research and evidence based practice; Information literacy; and Technology. Detailed proceedings are available as a pdf file.

Prices for the event itself start at £94 for the short days. Overnight accommodation is on campus and represents good value for money at £39 for bed and breakfast. Social events, both formal and informal have been arranged around the main exhibition and conference.

CILIP, naturally, is very excited about the event. It reckons it will be the biggest Umbrella yet although records show that, in terms of visitors, the 2001 event was about 30 percent bigger than this year's expected 1,000 delegates. Perhaps 'biggest' refers to the exhibit area.

John Woolley, the managing director of CILIP Enterprises has bravely started a blog in order to kick start some conversations. If you want to put in your two penn'orth, it seems you'll have to register  before your contributions will be published.

See you there on the Friday.

Alistair Darling is FoI risk and needs peer review

Freedom of Information campaigner, author and journalist Heather Brooke is, understandably getting hot under the collar regarding the recently tabled changes to the Freedom of Information Act and its latest development, the Trade Secretary claiming the Act is placing "good government at risk".

Alistair Darling, the Labour Trade Secretary has, according to reports in Scottish newspapers written to the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs detailing his concerns. Brooke describes the story in the Scotsman as something she would expect to see in a Kenyan or Nigerian newspaper, but not here in the UK. "Politicians are fighting off demands for the introduction of a Freedom of Information Act," she says of Kenya and Nigeria, although the same can now be said of our own Mother of Parliaments.

The Scotsman quotes Darling's letter as stating, "“If we are to live under constant threat of publication, this will prevent MPs from expressing their views frankly when writing to a minister. We need urgent advice on what the position is.” Brooke responds, "Politicians as delicate creatures frightened to speak in public? As if!"

Juxtaposing the intensive scrutiny that scientific information receives compared to politics, Brooke very cleverly shows what risks society would be placed under if scientific research information was treated in the same way as policy forming is. "Some one could determine (in secret) that his snake oil was the best solution to a problem (treating polio, for example) based on findings that only he and his minions could access. No data would be published so no one could challenge legitimacy."

Brooke states that this is exactly how Parliament works and argues, "It is only by debating the relative facts and merits of an issue that a superior solution can be found."

It looks like we're being evil, but we're not

I've just stumbled across this little gem from John Batelle's blog. The EU is, quite rightly, worried about Google's data retention policies, and advisers to the regulators have been murmuring that Google 'might' be doing something a bit naughty. The company has received a letter asking for an explanation of its policies. Aside from the fact that plenty of other companies are doing - or thinking of doing - a similar thing, it's an interesting development. Not one to have Google reaching for the parachutes just yet, you understand.

However, Batelle points to an opinion piece in the FT as a partial response from Google. Now, if this is the main thrust of Google's line, it may be time to get out the marshmallows on sticks, and work out where you put the sparklers after last year's fireworks night.

Essentially, Google's argument boils down to this: We need the data to give a good service, people can use the service pretty anonymously, and it's early days yet, so, like, bear with us, alright? We're busy doing some really cool stuff here at the Googleplex.

Just like the argument that says that installing more surveillance cameras improves our quality of life, this op-ed neatly sidesteps the central question: Is what Google is doing right?

Damage to 300-year-old diary mean some serious questions need to be asked at the British Library

The British Library hasn’t had the best of months, what with The Times revealing that a 300 year old diary entrusted into the libraries care had suffered severe damage.

The diary of a prominent Jacobite rebel, Thomas Tyldesley, was given to the British Library for safekeeping in 1994. But since then, someone had spilt oil across the pages and cut off its original leather front cover. It emerged later the diary had taken additional damage from damp, mould and mildew.

When initially questioned by the newspaper, the British Library told them “the diary had “suffered accidental damage” insisting it was an “isolated incident”. Helen Shenton, the library’s head of collection care, also told The Times, “The book had been kept in safe storage in a protective box and it was not until the book was opened that the stains were discovered.” Furthermore they said the diary’s cover had been removed as part of a rebinding service offered by the library, up until 2000.

However, anomalies into the libraries account began to emerge. To start with, only British Library staff had access to the book, the oil itself was found on the inside pages only, suggesting that the diary must have been opened at the time of the spillage. Even more damning is that it was later revealed the damage happened after 2002, so the diary cover couldn’t have been removed for rebinding, as the service had not been available for two years. If the book had been kept in a protective box, where did the mould and damp come from?

Distraught owner and descendent of the diarist, Peter J. Tyldesley told the newspaper “there are sections which are completely destroyed, sections where the entire text block has disappeared into a smeary mess’ ‘I thought the British Library was the safest place for it. How wrong I was.”

The diary itself contained almost daily entries for three years, beginning in 1712. Thomas Tyldesley wrote about the Jacobite cause his family were engaged in and the run up to a rebellion in 1715.

Since the original article and press release, the library have reissued their official statement recognising that not quite all of the facts were in place and have since met with Peter J. Tyldesley to reaffirm expenses will be met, and an attempt to restore the damage to the diary will be taken on by the library.

As far as ascertaining what actually happened, investigations are ongoing but it will leave library staff with a nasty taste in the mouth, especially if it emerges that a deliberate act of vandalism occurred, the implication for the safety of items in other collections will prove worrying.   

Plastic Logic: eBooks you really can take anywhere?

How do you prefer to read stuff?

Most of us would prefer to hold a newspaper, a book or a magazine, rather than stare at a computer screen. Resolution, colour and refresh frequency may have improved, but they still glare at us and are hopeless in bright sunlight.

A number of ePaper products are already on the market and they overcome some of the computer screen problems by using electronic ink (e-Ink). Dark and light molecules are forced to the surface by an electrical charge. Once set, they remain in place until a fresh charge is applied. Just like printed paper, these displays require only ambient light to be readable.

Unfortunately, the present crop of readers are either small, heavy, rigid or all three. This is caused by the need to protect the conventional backplane electronics which sit on a glass-like silicon substrate. They may also have a glass screen protecting the surface of the 'paper'.

If computer industry eminence grise, Hermann Hauser, has his way, this is soon to change. He's backed Plastic Logic since 2000, when it was first spun out of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.

The company has found a way to print electronics onto plastic instead of silicon. Blending this technology with electronic ink, the company has come up with something which is lighter and more flexible than current displays although, at the moment, it's probably more like stiffish card than paper.

It still needs a compartment to hold the battery, controllers and some conventional electronics. In all the prototype shots, this runs along one edge. However, it is definitely lighter, larger, thinner and more flexible than anything we've seen to date. And a battery will last for up to 3,000 page 'turns'.

This week saw the foundation stone laid for Plastic Logic's factory near Dresden airport. It expects to be in production next year, producing a million displays of up to 10" diagonal with up to 150 pixels per inch and up to 16 levels of grey. The company has already experimented with larger sizes and higher resolutions, which bodes well for the future.

Don't be evil? Are you sure?

It looks like The Indy has fired another broadside at Google over privacy concerns. In an admission that won't shock too many people, Eric Schmidt told a conference yesterday that the company's intention was to enable users to "ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'" There's some lovely wording in the article, not least the wonderful second paragraph suggesting Google has 'revealed details of how it intends to organise and control the world's information.'

It would be a bit of a laughable stitch-up job - if there wasn't a big chunk of truth to it. It's been said so many times before that it's hackneyed, but Google is in danger of becoming evil by mistake.

It's not just Google, either. Microsoft is playing around with way of identifying us as we surf (downloading YouTube video of Top Gear? Checking the footie scores? You're probably an office worker in his mid 30s with a health problem.) Danny Hillis is also keen on the idea of jolly big databases of everything.

Google embark on project to digitise nearly a million Indian scholarly works

An estimated 800,000 books and manuscripts held at India’s esteemed University of Mysore are to be digitised by search engine colossus Google. One of the rarest treasures due for scanning is the “Arthasastra” a series of books on political thought and strategy which dates from around the fourth century BC.

University vice chancellor, J. Shashidhara Prasad explained that that the library was embarking on the digitisation partnership to “restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge.”

Google continues unabated in its attempts to digitise the world’s books and printed materials, despite trying to fend off multiple threats of legal action and criticism from angry copyright holders. Although Prasad confirmed the search engine organisation were keen to push the initiative, saying; “Google has offered to digitise these manuscripts as well as 700,000 other books free of cost. Google chief, Eric Schmidt, has already interacted with us and is ready to provide us expertise, software and even manpower.”

Naturally Google get something in return and can expect, “to link freely to the digitised materials once the necessary patenting of the information is completed” said Prasad.

The project is in a similar vein to Microsoft’s current partnership with the British Library in digitising scholarly works. A respected institute, the University of Mysore was the first of its kind in India’s Karnataka state, founded in 1916 by then Maharaja of Mysore, Sri Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, it is affiliated with 122 colleges and educates nearly 55,000 students who range from graduates to post-graduate and researchers.

Gordon Brown may ensure MP expenses remain visible under FoI

Gordon Brown ally Ed Balls has indicated that the Prime Minister in waiting will ensure that MPs expenses are fully available through the Freedom of Information Act. Chancellor Brown may seek to have the private members bill amended to prevent expenses returning to secrecy.

Ed Balls, minister for the City and a Labour MP closely aligned to Gordon Brown said on his constituency website that there is a "proper" need for "public scrutiny of expenses and allowances". This follows the revelation by the Mail newspaper that the Conservative MP tabling the private members bill David Maclean MP spent over £3,000 on a quad bike just for visiting a few agricultural shows in his constituency.

A full list of MPs who voted to remove themselves from Freedom of Information Act compliance is available here.

One rule for FoI's Maclean and another for us

David Maclean MP has demonstrated the contempt MP hold the public in with his shameful private members bill on Freedom of Information Act restrictions and personal expenses. The bill came closer to reality on Friday night. If the bill becomes an Act then the Hose of Commons and Lords will be exempt from an Act they have foisted on the public and information professionals across the land.

To make this seedy episode that little bit dirtier, the MP pushing the bill was discovered to have spent £3,300 on a quad bike to use at agricultural shows in his Penrith community.

I suggest information professionals let Mr Maclean know their thoughts:

David Maclean a Conservative MP, who tabled the bill suffers from multiple sclerosis and sought approval from the Commons to buy the vehicle on expenses, which they gave. It is just this example of expenditure that will be covered up by his bill.

Now I have a lot of experience of agricultural communities and shows, and I have some experience of MS; as a result I know how large and tiring these shows are and the need for suitable transport if you suffer from MS.

But under Maclean's new bill the public would never know that £3,300 of their money had been spent on Maclean and that when he steps down from Parliament how he'll have a nice asset in his garage thanks to us. Nor would we be able to engage in an educated debate with him on why he doesn't hire these vehicles for the small number of agricultural shows that take place each summer? Nor would we be able to question him about whether he could simply drive around the show in Land Rover, I'm sure show organisers would allow it. No, the public and information gatherers would be on the back foot, we wouldn't be able to challenge Mr Maclean because we would not have the facts to hand and there would be no way of getting to them.

There is no doubt that there are instances when an MP needs to be careful not to disclose details in an FoI response that may put constituent at harm. But the original Act provided methods to gauge when and what information should be released. A blanket restriction creates an environment open to corruption from MPs and prevents a case by case analysis.

Those who voted in favour of this restriction, and especially Maclean put agricultural communities, MS suffers, Parliament and

Great Britain

to shame. It has been a dark weekend for information.

Conservative bill to restrict FoI linked to government

Speaking on The Today programme this morning, Lib-Dem leader, Sir Menzies ("Ming") Campbell warned there would be “one law for MPs and one law for everyone else” should a proposed bill to curb Freedom of Information (FoI) requests of correspondence between MPs and their constituents gain approval in parliament. The proposed private members bill has been championed by Tory MP, David Maclean.

Considering the origin of the bill originates from an opposition MP, John Humphrys, the show presenter, asked quite rightly why it has been given so much support from MPs across the board. Campbell confirmed he had heard “rumours of Labour whips being engaged in this”.

In case you didn’t know, under the current FoI Act, correspondence between MPs and constituents must remain confidential, however if an MP were to pass that correspondence onto a third party in the public sector, such as  the NHS or a government department, that information could then inadvertently be accessed through application of the act.

Labour MP Ann Cryer, who backs the bill justified her position saying that “its too risky not to” citing that some of her correspondence deals with arranged marriages with women trying to prevent their supposed spouses from gaining access to the country, if this information was available to the woman’s parents, Cryer argued she could be in danger. On this principle, it’s argued an influential Labour party committee of back benchers are urging support.

Meanwhile, Labour MP, Andrew MacKinlay remains unconvinced, arguing that you don’t need to exempt Parliament from the FoI Act “what is required is a strengthening of the Data Protection Act’, he said, ‘what you need is very severe sanctions when an organisation, be it a government department or private company discloses personal data” he told Radio 4 listeners.

Campbell meanwhile explained how he had both written to “PM-in-waiting” Gordon Brown expressing his concerns, whilst in a recent Prime Ministers Questions session; outgoing premier Tony Blair chose “not to express an opinion”.
Requests made by Radio 4 offering Maclean the opportunity for an interview to add weight to his bill, have so far proved surprisingly fruitless.

A G.ho.st in your machine?

How do you fancy logging into any computer and finding all your web applications and files there waiting for you? A bit like the office network really, except we're talking here about macs, pcs and linux machines anywhere in the world.

Well, if Dr. Zvi Schreiber has his way, it's going to happen. Right now his  Global hosted operating system (G.ho.st) can deliver the goods. It's early days, the program (shown at Innovate!Europe) is still what you'd call alpha. The first public beta is expected in July.

But G.ho.st works, especially if you use a reasonably snappy computer and have, it almost goes without saying, a broadband connection. It does need to do a lot of rendering work using Flash to simulate the desktop.

Whether you'd agree that G.ho.st is "the world's only true web OS" is open to question. It might be the world's first web-based virtual computer. But whether you'd consider it an operating system is another matter. It probably depends how techie you are. You access G.ho.st from your browser and it hosts multiple web services and applications for you.

You can even upload files from your computer to a free 3GB of storage which you can organise into the usual folder structure. It's a great place to store those last minute items that you might just need when travelling.

G.ho.st feels fairly 'normal' in use. You can play around with colours and fonts and generally tweak the desktop to your liking.

If you want to play, visit http://G.ho.st but be prepared for the odd freeze or crash. It goes with the territory. By July, it should be more solid.

Search me...

Via John Batelle's blog, we find that the New York Times (sorry, it's password protected, but don't forget to take a look at Bugmenot) has reported on the strange case of a scientist turned back at the US Border on account of an internet search.

It's worth taking a read of the article, but the long and short of it is that the border guard put the name of the person in question - Vancouver psychotherapist - into a search engine, found an academic paper written by him which mentioned experimentation wth LSD, and barred him from the country on the grounds of drug use.

As it turns out, drug abuse is one of the things that will get a foreign national barred from the US, an irony not lost by one of the commenters on Batelle's blog posting. However, the interesting thing here is that all of this was turned up by an internet search. Plenty of people have owned up to or been reported as doing things that would get the barred from the US or other countries online, and it raises an interesting point. Andrew Feldmar will be able to apply for a waiver from the US in order to enter the States and see his family. But that will take time. What would have happened if a web search had thrown up untrue statements about a person? Of course, Feldman acknowledged that he was the author of the article, and that the contents of the article was true, but would a denial have made much of a difference?

Death of British Library architect leaves lasting legacy

Sad news this week to anyone that’s ever enjoyed the welcoming arms of the British Library that chief architect, Sir Colin St John (Sandy) Wilson, passed away on Monday.

Beginning his career in post-war London, he was involved at the beginning in the massive effort to help rebuild social housing in the city. It is said he told FT journalist Edwin Heathcote “we were staggering around the bomb sites with stars in our eyes”.

Considered “instrumental in the design of the most influential British housing era”, he went on thereafter to teach architecture at Cambridge and Yale. However it was the chance to build the British Library in 1962 that would eventually leave Wilson forever associated with it and form the core of his career. It took a staggering 35 years to complete with obstacles of changed briefs and funding issues to contend with.

Despite Sir Wilson’s regret that; “he had become known as a one-building architect” the British Library stands as a popular, well-used and much loved structure for many scholars and IWR readers alike. It stands a fitting monument.

Informa acquisitions continue as it swoops on Datamonitor

Acquisitive journal, books and business-to-business publisher Informa has acquired market analysts Datamonitor for £502m in cash today.

Under the terms of the agreement Informa will pay 650p per Datamonitor share. Informa, famed for publishing Lloyds List, has been on an acquisition spree of late, acquiring Triangle Journals, Institute of Physics book publishing arm and IIR Holdings in the last two years.

Datamonitor provides market intelligence and forecasts in six areas: automotive, consumer, energy, financial services, healthcare and telecoms and technology. Together the two companies expect to make savings of £3m. David Gilbertson Informa MD describes Datamonitor as a company that "slots" into Informa's existing offerings and will increase their range of products in those key six markets.

Datamonitor Michael Danson told the Daily Telegraph he founded the information company in 1990 on credit cards from a flat in West Hampstead.

Thomson and Reuters tie the knot to create financial info giant

With the ink barely dry on the sale of Thomson Learning, the Thomson Corporation has succeeded, barring regulatory problems, in taking over news provider Reuters. The deal worth £8.7 billion will create the world’s largest news and financial data provider. 

The BBC claims the deal is not popular amongst Reuters reporters and some users because Reuters legendary independence is  now in question.

By merging together Thomson-Reuters, as the new company will be know, has leap forged market dominator Bloomberg, the US provider owned by the mayor of New York. Michael Bloomberg.

Reuters and Thomson believe the tie up will create £250 million in savings, although no specific plans on these savings have  been released yet. A statement did highlight that together Thomson and Reuters will be in a better position to compete with Bloomberg. Niall Fitzgerald, Reuters chairman said in a statement,  “The shared expertise and complementary strengths of these two companies makes for a strategically compelling and financially attractive combination.” 

Reuters, Thomson and rival Bloomberg compete fiercely in the financial terminal information market used by stock exchange traders.

Great Britain

’s Reuters is also famed for its news agency that supplies news coverage to the world’s newspapers and broadcasters. Bloomberg has 33% of the terminal market, according to analysts figures out in April 2007, with Reuters holding 23% and Thomson 11%.

The new company will be listed  on both the

London

and

Toronto

stock exchanges and will have an annual revenue of around $12 billion.

According to the BBC, the merger could damage Reuters standing as an independent source of news information. “For more than 150 years, Reuters has been one of the great independent news organisations. No longer,” said Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor on the Radio 4 Today programme. “Reuters’ independence has been guaranteed by the structure of the business, which prohibits any individual from owning 15% or more of the company.”

He went on to say that Reuters journalists are unhappy with the deal because the “prohibition is being waved for the Thomson family” which will now own 53% of the new larger business.

One clear winner is Tom Glocer who has led Reuters back to health and presided over the sell off of its half of the Factiva business. Glocer will now take over the helm of Thomson-Reuters when Richard Harrington, Thomson president and chief executive retires.

Innovate!Europe 2007 - A voyage of discovery

Guidewire Group held its third Innovate!Europe event in Zaragoza this week. It's a forum where entrepreneurs and inventors from start-ups, early adopters, venture capitalists, angel investors and journalists can mix and mingle and hear what each other has to say during the conference and showcase. This year, it was held in the impressive Teatro Principal in the heart of the city.

Thirty start-ups strutted their stuff and goodness knows how many speakers and panellists shared their insights. Some was at the edge of IWR's radar, but a lot was of great interest. Innovate provides a glimpse into the future of our digital world. No-one can be sure which companies will succeed and which will fail, but trends are clearly visible.

One of the main themes this year was that of 'discovery'. Not in a conventional search sense but more in the emergence of interesting information as a result of what users get up to in the various social services to which they belong. The other major theme was mobile telephony, especially ways of getting the price down.

Sticking with the discovery theme: you know, from the blog and the forum worlds, that people willingly reveal all sorts of stuff about themselves that they would never give up to an 'expert system' or a clipboard wielder. They find the value of a social web service so high, they are willing to open up. They share clippings, videos, pictures, recordings and their own information and options. They gain by enhancing their reputation and from others' willingness to share their own discoveries and insights.

The service provider can automatically draw conclusions from its clients' activities and make recommendations of other material or people likely to be of interest. A bit like the Amazon system but applied to social encounters.

This page at webjam will give a flavour of what I'm talking about. It also introduces another Innovate theme, a new kind of employee: the community manager.

More domains, more search

The CTO of dotmobi, James Pearce, nipped in last week for a chat with a bunch of us journalists at IWR towers, and very illuminating it was too.

If you haven't heard of the .mobi top level domain, then you're not alone, by the way. Launched late last year, it's intended to kick start mobile content on the web.

By this point, I imagine anyone areound at the time of the dotcom bubble will be snorting into their soy lattés. The whole idea of the mobile internet was a central theme to the bursting of the bubble back at the turn of the century, with any number of companies pimping improbable WAP sites, applications and the rest. In the meantime, BT told us that Cellnet (now O2) was opening up the mobile internet, and phone.com was making a lot of hoopla about mobile apps, as well. The crowning height of hubris was a  kludging of Amazon's API into a WAP page so that, if you had about 20 minutes, flexible thumbs and infinite patience, you could buy a book with your mobile phone.

Murdoch wants Factiva and Dow Jones web abilities

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has his sights set on the Dow Jones conglomerate which includes news aggregator Factiva. When a newspaper tycoon like Murdock looks to add another company and newspaper brands to his stable, the conversation is understandably dominated by the newspapers involved. But the strength of the Dow Jones group online, in my opinion has a lot more to do with Murdoch's ambitions than owning another newspaper.

He's admitted it himself, Murdoch has yet to make the most of the internet and the new information medium has dented his newspapers and television stations. Dow Jones meanwhile has a strong web strategy. The Wall Street Journal is a subscription access newspaper and a successful one at that. Factiva, now fully owned by Dow Jones has a wealth of technology and knowledge on extracting value from the web.

If Murdoch's News Corporation could adopt the technology behind Factiva, and learn Dow Jones' tricks of the trade in charging access to news the results could be staggering.

No doubt the news today that Reuters and Thomson are considering a tie up will add weight to the case for acquisition, the only question is, will the Bancroft family, which owns the majority of the shares sell?

Cleantech resources

Since the editor has determined that May is a green month for IWR, it seems only fitting to report from the recent Cleantech conference put on by Library House. This is an organisation that tracks the development of European startups from their first faltering steps to merger/acquisition or initial public offering.

Here are just a few of the themes that emerged from the conference:

Businesses not governments are where to look for meaningful innovation and activity.

Having said that, governments can play a 'shaping' role in encouraging action through grants, although these can distort the working of the marketplace. Most speakers tended to regard governmental activity as a bit of a side show.

But governments could, for example, create feed-in laws to encourage the creation of electricity from renewable sources through payment of a favourable tariff to the providers. And, if they start high and say the rate will drop over time, this will encourage individuals and organisations to get involved early.

Of course, some companies distort markets too. Look at the issue of using arable land to grow fuel. This is why the price of tortillas are rising in Mexico. There's a real danger that poor people will starve so that rich people can drive big cars.

Abu Dhabi is going to see the creation of an astonishing city. It looks like a silicon chip, with a large area set aside for a photovoltaic energy farm. Check it out. It's called the Masdar zone.


Ten billion power adaptors hum away, generating heat at between 20 and 60 percent efficiency. 15 billion batteries a year are being thrown away. A DC circuit in the home would save a ton of energy. And it could be fed through the lighting circuit.

Beautiful windmills and elegant solar panels, all viable today and heading to your home within a few years are all going to help. Design is a vital element in user acceptability. So is price, of course. It's early days but prices will fall as production ramps.

There's more, of course, and as an information professional you'll be expected to know where to find it.

To get you started here are some links which have survived the last few months in my 'Cleantech' RSS feed group:

John Elkington's blog

The Library House blog

The Lazy Environmentalist blog

Then I have a couple of standard Google Blog Search feeds:

"carbon trust" -"low carbon trust"

cleantech

As you build your own reading lists, how about providing links as comments to this blog. It would be a great legacy for IWR's green month.

Dig deep for the right information, being green can be a dirty business

May’s issue of IWR will examine a number of green issues, one particular item that cropped up involved researching good sources of information for organisations looking to minimise their environmental impact.

Perhaps I should have expected it, but I was genuinely surprised on how much dedicated green-centric information is out there, Googling a generic environmental term like “green business” will get you close to a million dedicated results. Naturally, it’s the quality of that information that counts, if as a business you are looking to offset your carbon impact or have done so already.

With this in mind it’s a little dismaying to see a report from the FT last week detailing wide discrepancies in carbon offsetting prices and so-called environmental practices that skirt around the edge of ethical behaviour. Supposedly the booming industry that has emerged allows businesses the chance to offset their carbon usage by buying carbon credits, thus nullifying their environmental impact. Unfortunately it also seems the “snake-oil salesmen” have set-up shop, as the Guardian reported, when low-cost airline Easyjet attacked the carbon-offsetting market, questioning the prices those companies charged for their services.

The FT investigation also reported that “some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. Others meanwhile are making big profits from carbon trading for a very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that would have been made anyway.”

It went on to explain that the already large market in carbon credits “is expected to double in size to about $68bn (£34bn) by 2010”

The main findings of the investigation are shown here;

• Instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions
• Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of energy efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially
• Brokers providing services of questionable or no value
• A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the credits true value
• Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Obviously this is worrying because the environmental impact from an organisation continues unabated, despite the best intentions of a carbon-neutral company or various government affiliated agencies, the second is the potential loss of faith from both business and consumer; what happens if everyone decides the risk of being hoodwinked and ripped-off just isn’t worth it? After all, becoming a bonafide carbon neutral or environmentally friendly company will take time, money and effort from a number of key players in any company.

At some point in the loop an organisation which employs information professionals is probably going to ask for their research input on some of these contentious issues. That could be on whether to begin implementing a significant green initiative or the review of an existing one. Getting reliable and accurate information is vital to avoid making the whole exercise a pointless waste of time.  If at the end, all those involved who are committed to making such an effort find that this achieves little other than some spurious PR announcement, then it will genuinely be an opportunity lost, for both the environment and if nothing else efficiency’s sake.

Information commissioner demands information safeguards

Richard Thomas, information commissioner for the government, will offer evidence to a Commons home affairs committee today citing that his office should get greater inspection powers to balance out an encroaching amount of surveillance technology which the committee itself is examining. This includes schemes such as ID cards, personal, financial or medical data of individuals held by organisations as well as including some 3.6 million DNA samples in the UK.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) was created to safe-guard data protection laws from infringement as well as bolster public access to official information. The department is responsible for enforcing both the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts respectively. As head of the organisation, Thomas told the BBC that it was “wrong” the ICO was not allowed to check up on organisations unless they consented to it.  “People now understand that data protection is an essential barrier to excessive surveillance” he said “But it is wrong that my office cannot find out what is happening in practice without the consent of each organisation”

Thomas then went on to say “As well as risks such as identity mistakes and security breaches there can be unnecessary intrusion into people’s lives and loss of personal autonomy. There is also a concern that too much surveillance will create a climate of fear and suspicion.”

Calling for measures to be put into place by all government departments ensuring that privacy impact assessments are competed on every new and existing scheme, Thomas underlined his message when he said “While I do not believe that we are living in the type of society associated with totalitarian regimes, it is important that there is a vigorous debate around the issue of surveillance - about where lines should be drawn and the restrictions and safeguards which are needed.”

Compare this to recent attempts by government to curtail access to data through restricting freedom of information (FoI), and then the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) deciding to review the original consultation following the widespread criticism it received. It looks like the safeguards they propose and indeed the existence of the ICO were never more sorely needed.