Christmas update on AI’s progress with Straitgate – in words and pictures

Christmas is almost upon us, and yet another year has passed in the Straitgate saga.

For new readers, this story has been going on some time: Aggregate Industries' current planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm first went live in June 2015. It was withdrawn in March 2016, only to be resubmitted in January 2017. Preparatory work, however, started years before that, and the very first application to quarry Straitgate was submitted back in 1967.

How much further have AI's plans advanced in 2018?

There's an assortment of information that DCC still requires from AI. The last time any information from AI and its consultants was posted on DCC's planning website was in September 2017. One year later, in September 2018, the Leader of DCC advised MP Hugo Swire:

We are still awaiting this information from the applicant which is why there has been no apparent movement on these matters.

What an earth can be so complicated to cause such delays? you might wonder. If it's any clue, the information AI still has to supply ranges from how agricultural movements will be managed across Exeter Road and the farm itself, to revised plans of the working area taking account of the elevated groundwater levels recorded earlier in the year.

Whilst outwardly there has been no progress this year, in some respects AI’s application has actually gone backwards. The company’s groundwater model was shown to have failed - by up to 2.8m - and there is consequently now even less material to win. When we joked last Christmas about two cows, how AI’s recoverable resource had effectively fallen from 33 cows in 1965 to just two cows, little did we know then that the company would then go on to lose part of one of those cows too!

Our updates since September 2017 have followed a common theme: AI requests deferral, AI’s application for Straitgate Farm lurches from one delay to another, More delays to come, AI delays yet again, Three years on and yet more delays, Determination date for AI’s Straitgate Farm planning application extended yet again, AI’s application to quarry Straitgate Farm delayed again, AI’s application to quarry Straitgate Farm – determination date delayed for 5th time, AI’s application will now stagger into its 5th year – 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019…, AI’s application to quarry Straitgate Farm – determination date delayed for 6th time.

In pictorial terms, these delays might be represented by:

Just AMoment Loading GIF from Justamoment GIFs

Some local residents feel that all this has been going on long enough:

Grandma 84years GIF from Grandma GIFs

Even the wildlife are getting tired of it all:

Slothalida Sleep GIF from Slothalida GIFs

Rumours abound that equipment set aside for the Straitgate job, lies abandoned in various locations around the East Devon countryside:

Of course, in meetings with DCC, AI will be saying one thing:

Owen Wilson Progress GIF from Owenwilson GIFs

But behind the scenes, management must realise that things have not gone smoothly:

Robert Downey Jr Facepalm GIF from Robertdowneyjr GIFs

Here’s an image that perhaps best describes AI’s recent progress in real terms:

Austin Powers Mike Myers GIF from Austinpowers GIFs

The company has been bogged down by the cattle crossing issue, and the cars that would therefore have to queue on the busy Exeter Road. AI does however have a plan:

Cars Semi GIF from Cars GIFs

In the face of having to haul material from Straitgate a total of 2.5 million miles to be processed, AI has now come up with some new pollution controls:

Truck Smoke GIF from Truck GIFs

Readers will know that, over the years, the company has supplied a variety of fiction to support its application for Straitgate. AI's defence?

Everybody Lies House GIF from Everybodylies GIFs

We've even had Meghan Markle's old law firm look over parts of the application. Their conclusion?

Thisisbullshit Mrw GIF from Thisisbullshit GIFs

As a result, this blog will in future deploy a new tool:

Bullshit Detector Lies GIF from Bullshitdetector GIFs

Finally, this pictorial update would not be complete without an image of a cat – "that essential building block of the Internet" according to The New York Times. So, to sum up what many must be feeling about this whole thing by now:

Bored Cats GIF from Bored GIFs

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all readers!

The CO2 emissions that AI ‘forgot’ in 2016

The world has finally hammered out a climate agreement at the COP24 climate conference in Katowice. Greta Thunberg emerged as the unlikely star of the summit. She told negotiators:

You are not mature enough to tell it like it is

She's 15 years old. Watch her speech:

Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, was another speaker:

We are not prepared to die. We are not going to become the first victims of the climate crisis. Instead, we are going to do everything in our power to keep our heads above water.

But almost 10 years since I was last at these climate negotiations, I must say, nothing much seems to have changed. We are still using the same old, dinosaur language.

Carbon emissions are rising, rising and rising and all we seem to be doing is talking, talking and talking.

Cement industry leaders were also at the summit. As the BBC reported today in Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about:

Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House... It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%)

Chatham House argues that... If the sector has any hope of meeting its commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, it will need to look at overhauling the cement-making process itself, not only reducing the use of fossil fuels.

In other news, Aggregate Industries has recently published its 2017 Sustainability Report.

It turns out – as we posted in If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed – that AI under-reported its CO2 figures in its 2016 Sustainability Report. The company 'forgot' to report half of its CO2 emissions from cement production, which it has now belatedly included in the 2017 report:

For the first time we have reported the limestone calcination emissions produced in the manufacture of cement for both 2016 and 2017. These figures represent the emissions from the chemical transformation from limestone to clinker.

How many tonnes of CO2 did AI under-report in 2016? 

About one tonne of CO2 is emitted for every tonne of cement produced: around half a tonne from the energy required and half a tonne from the chemical process itself.

More precisely, the Mineral Products Association fact sheet on embodied CO2e of UK cement puts the average cement emissions at 849 kg CO2e/tonne for MPA Cement Member Companies (which includes Lafarge Cement UK – now part of AI), of which 50% to 60% is from the chemical process.

How much cement does AI produce? According to AI's own website, the company manufactures in excess of 1.4 million tonnes of cement annually:

Putting the more conservative numbers together (1.4 million tonnes x 849 kg CO2e/tonne x 50%) means AI neglected to report around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2016. Indeed, AI has now revised its emissions figure for 2016 from 17.88 to 31.68 Kg CO2e/tonne which, across 44 million tonnes of production, also equates to around 600,000 tonnes. It's a sizeable number to overlook, given that it's more than twice the amount AI used to emit each year. Here's what 600,000 tonnes of CO2 is equivalent to:

Is AI still under reporting its emissions? 

AI’s latest sustainability report claims the company produced a total of around 44 million tonnes of material in 2017. Total emissions are stated as 28.76 kg CO2e/tonne, which equates to around 1.27 million tonnes of CO2 emitted last year. Of this, cement emissions would make up around 1.19 million tonnes of CO2 (1.4 million tonnes x 849 kg CO2e/tonne). Plainly the rest of the business (in excess of 42 million tonnes of production) is responsible for more than the 80k tonnes of CO2 difference (1.27 million - 1.19 million) – so either AI is suddenly producing considerably less than 1.4 million tonnes of cement, or something is awry.

What progress has AI achieved in 2017? In 2016, the company said "Energy and carbon reduction continues to be a challenge and are key areas of focus for us". Despite this key area of focus, AI’s "energy use remained very similar in 2017".

The company claims that "overall our carbon footprint has fallen by 9%", but recognises that this is:

... in part due to a reduction in the UK government’s conversion factor for grid supplied electricity and in part due to our increasing use of waste-derived fuels in our cement operations and switching to less CO2 intensive fuels in other operations.

In other words, AI can thank the investment by others in renewable low carbon energy sources that resulted in UK wind and solar power hitting record highs in 2017.

Whatever AI's narrative, it’s now clear that the company is a far larger emitter of CO2 than it once was. In 2007, the company reported:

In our first report in 2000, our reported emissions for 1999 were 228,267 tonnes of CO2. In 2007 this has increased to 450,390 tonnes ...

AI's now emitting nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, more than 5x the amount in 1999.

Does AI's latest sustainability report point to a company that recognises the climate emergency that humanity faces? Readers can decide for themselves. If it's any guide – the word "carbon" was referred to 52x in AI's 2008 Sustainability Report – and just 12x in 2017. But if the company's energy use is not falling – the graphics are certainly louder:

Of course, AI says "changed significantly" because it can't bring itself to tell it as it is, to say "gone up significantly". This is worrying, given that:

The first step in solving a problem is to recognise that it does exist.

What is also worrying is that after the terrible extreme weather events that have hit various parts of the world this year, and after the urgent warnings from the IPCC that "we all have to fundamentally change the way we live our lives", you might have hoped that this major emitter of CO2 would have done more than re-establish a baseline.

Because we've heard about establishing baselines before – in 2012, 2008, 2003 – and the company has consistently failed to achieve any progress against them. Let's look, for example, at how AI fared against its 2012 baseline:

2013: Absolute process carbon emissions have increased against the 2012 baseline

2014: Absolute carbon process emissions continue to rise and are now 13% higher than the baseline year

2015: Absolute process carbon emissions continue to rise and are 20% above the 2012 baseline

2016: No mention of baselines

AI has talked about reducing its CO2 emissions for more than 15 years, and has achieved exactly the reverse. It is plainly in denial: denial about having to do anything to change the way it operates, denial about having to do anything to reduce its contribution to an impending climate catastrophe.

Let's finish by moving from baselines and hollow promises from a corporate polluter, to instead picking out some of the wise words from Greta Thunberg:

You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.

Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.

You say you love your children above all else and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.

We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.

AI’s generosity knows no bounds

We’ve posted about Aggregate Industries' troubles at Westleigh Quarry - the problems with dust, the problems with HGVs, the impact on the village of Burlescombe.

Only last month, DCC’s DMC committee spent less than half an hour nodding through an extension giving AI another 600k tonnes at Westleigh – in the face of numerous concerns from local residents.

What do we get this month? A press release from AI crowing:

As part of its commitment to positively contributing to the communities around its sites, Aggregate Industries has gifted three information boards to the residents of Burlescombe...

Residents will be thrilled; a few hundred pounds on marketing boards in return for their all suffering.

But then it’s no more than we should expect from this subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, the Swiss-French cement multinational. Last year, AI – a company with sales in the region of £1,200,000,000 – donated just £37k to the communities it impacts, together with £12k of materials; in other words £0.00004 for every £1 of material sold.

To put that £37k in context, here's what the executives of LafargeHolcim paid themselves in 2017:

Eric Olsen was charged with funding terrorism in Syria.

AI loses another CEO

After posting just last week that Aggregate Industries’ newly filed accounts show pre-tax profits falling 56% for the year to 31 December 2017, it has now been announced that the company’s CEO François Petry is moving back to France:

Je suis très heureux de rejoindre les équipes de LafargeHolcim France et Belgique, qui sont connues pour leur grand professionnalisme. Google translate

Mr Petry’s replacement has yet to be announced, but as AI approaches the icebergs of Brexit, the company will need to rearrange the deck chairs again.

Again? During the time that AI has been trying to get its act together in East Devon – to gain permission to butcher a successful farm and risk water supplies for more than 100 people for the sake of a relatively small amount of sand and gravel that could only be processed off-site 23 miles away – the company has gone through three CEOs, and will now be looking for its fourth.

Is this simply an indication of how long the Straitgate Farm fiasco has been staggering on, or an indication of deeper problems?

EDIT 12.12.18 Guy Edwards appointed CEO of Aggregate Industries UK.

AI’s digital presence on climate change

Many consider it important to have a digital presence, and to appear in Google searches. Some pay good money to appear at the top of a Google search. The government, for example, is paying good money to promote Theresa May's Brexit deal on Google when people search "what is the Brexit deal?", but:

... the ad keeps being knocked off the top spot by a campaign group called "Britain's Future", which says May's deal betrays Brexit.

However, whilst Brexit is undoubtedly a cataclysmic mess, the real crisis of the 21st century is climate change and the existential threat it poses to humanity.

As far back as 2006, Aggregate Industries – a major emitter of greenhouse gases – was announcing in its sustainability report that "climate change... it’s happening and we have to take action now."

Since that time, you might have thought this company – with sales in excess of £1bn – would have left an extensive trail of digital footprints all over the internet, explaining its efforts to tackle climate change; you might have thought AI’s actions would, in one way or another, fill the first page of a Google search.

We asked Google: "what is "aggregate industries" doing about climate change?"

But what should we find? That this blog occupied half of the top entries on the first page of that search, with If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed appropriately uppermost.

Construction headwinds

To be fair, it’s not just Aggregate Industries suffering. An indication of the headwinds now facing the construction industry can be found in comments accompanying a £264m emergency rights issue from Kier Group on Friday. The boss of Kier Group commented:

There has been a recent change in sentiment from the credit markets towards the UK construction sector, with various lenders indicating that they will be reducing their exposure to the sector. This has led to lower confidence among other stakeholders and an increased focus on balance sheet strength.

Kier Group has sales £4.2bn, employs more than 20,000, and saw its shares fall 22% on the news.