Siting of panels for solar water heating

On 2006-12-29 01:47:04 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
- staffing levels to match the level of business. This inevitably means hiring people when business is good and letting them go when it's not. Or at least redeploying them. Only provided that the positions to which they are redeployed are viable and are beneficial to the business. The what ?
The business.
Which it isn't.

Of course it is. It should be run on exactly the principles of a business, but with the target of not making dividends for the shareholders. Any surplus goes back into investment.

If not, then they have to go. Well yes ultimately.
Sooner rather than later.
The Micawber principle seldom works.
I think there is an issue here. The notion of 'unconditional jobs for life' has rightly gone, but if you are going to employ people on short term contracts or otherwise with little security, they are going to want to be paid more. In extremis, this takes you back to employing consultants.

Nobody said anything about short term contracts. Pay is what the customers and the market will support.
The difference here is that the supplier delivers a service to the customer for a period of time. It would be reasonable for the customer to be expected to sign up for an agreement for a minimum period of time as they are with other utilities and services. In the same way, if they are willing to sign up for longer, then they get a better price. If the supplier doesn't perform, the customer has the choice to go elsewhere, not to pay and ultimately to take legal action against the supplier.
Contrast this with the current situation where the customer pays anyway, the service is what the supplier deems to give and there is no redress.

Though again, this assumes that LAs are a business. They should operate on business principles but don't. Probably because they don't know how to do so. Again, this assumes that they are businesses.
Operating on business principles ensures the best return on investment for the capital employed.
Operating on environmental principles ensures that there will continue to be a habitat in which business can be done.

So a chicken and egg situation. It's perfectly possible for both objectives to be met. However, this will be achieved, and more quickly, by incentivising the business community, not by environmentalists attempting to force the issue.

Since council tax payers are funding all of this, they are entitled to the best return.
They are entitled to a fair return.

As customers they are entitled to the best return

As are council staff for their effort.
I'm not sure that council staff should be exploited by rate payers any more than staff should exploit their position.

Nobody is talking about exploitation.

That means the minimum cost to achieve the objectives required.
That's fine as long as the objectives include things like reasonable terms and conditions of employment.

People are free to work for an employer or not. If the conditions are not reasonable, the employer will not be able to recruit staff.

Seems to me that the number of bins needing to be emptied will be the same in good times and bad, even if the volume of waste falls. True. However, if one company does not do a good job and loses customers, its market share will decline. If that isn't corrected, the consequences are obvious. Yes - we mover back to a single provider solution and will have wasted a huge amount of effort implementing your scheme.
Nope. N-1 does not equal 1 unless N was 2 beforehand.
Indeed, but it is possible to decrement more than once. Or did you plan some intervention when n=2 ?
If so, what of market forces ?

No intervention required. People will always produce rubbish, so the case doesn't arise.

Do you think we need less government during an economic down turn ? If so, why ? Absolutely. We always need less government. But not particularly in an economic downturn then.
That's especially when it is needed. Reduction of the tax burden is one of the best ways to stimulate an economy.
If as much work needs doing, it should take as many staff unless you plan to start exploiting people ?

Nobody raised the subject of exploitation apart from you. It is not the case that work amount X requires a head count of Y - for example if not all of X was actually required in the first place.

That means reducing public sector costs. The most effective way of doing that is to reduce head count.
That's fine as long as the population served is willing to accept lower levels of service.

No. Reduction of headcount does not imply reduction of service. Unnecessary work that does not affect outcome can be removed.

This is even more true during an economic downturn because effort should be directed towards making money for the economy rather than spending it. But the bins still need to be emptied.
Of course. However, this does not require public sector involvement.
Nor private I guess.
It remains to be decided, and there has to be good reason for change.

Provision of customer choice is a reason for change.

- quarterly profits are important as are half year and annual ones. The occasional shortfall is allowable, but continued failure should result in change of management. But while LAs should be efficient, they should not be about making a profit. It is possible for an organisation to run on business principles and for profit to be engineered to zero. I'm not suggesting that it be "engineered to zero", but that it "should not be about making a profit".
Therein lies the rub. If the mentality is that there will always be more funding to cover the incompetences and wastage, then there is never an incentive for improvement.
Well there is, because unspent funds can always be used for additional projects.

... and to cover incompetence.

Despite your jaundiced views, there are no brownie points for public sector overspend.

My views aren't jaundiced, just realistic.

Unless the tools of carrot and stick are available, that doesn't happen. Every organisation should be run on this basis - extras for over-performance, dismissal for persistent under-performance. It's perfectly simple to run an operation on a profit basis and reinvest the profits or to distribute as a staff incentive.
Yes - it is, but that doesn't mean that it's the only way "an operation" can be run.

It's the only way to run one properly. If there are no carrots and sticks, the donkey becomes lazy.

There is, however, nothing wrong with making a profit. Nothing wrong with delivering a service as your primary objective either.
Only provided that people want to buy what you have to sell and accept the price to be reasonable.
Yes, though I expect that when clean water, sewers, municipal waste disposal and other services were put in place, there were plenty of people who would have thought that the price was unreasonable.
I'm not especially sure that the public will always make good decisions on this sort of infrastructure, or that the private sector make great custodians. It seems to me that both public and private sector can make an utter balls of it.

Undoubtedly. At least when there is proper accountability, complete with sackings for incompetence, the issues can be addressed.

- cost should always be minimised while keeping the level of service that the customer is willing to buy. Broadly.
This does not mean minimal provision or minimal environmental standards. Well, unfettered capitalism would probably opt to provide the thing that providers can make most profit out of, and ignore the environment utterly. Nobody said anything about unfettered capitalism other than you. Nor have all your assertions about capitalism and markets specified any particular fetters.
They have all the way along. Several times I have said that the service products offered would have to achieve a minimum level but that providers may wish to offer more for a higher price.
Yes - you have said that, but you can't guarantee that multiple competing providers won't in aggregate have a greater environmental impact than the current single provider, and clearly it's not something that the market, or those that would have a market care much about.

You're taking too narrow a view. Assuming that recycling is worth doing in the first place (which in some aspects seems to be questionable), matching the services offered to the customers' needs will result in more of it happening. Those who want to DIY it can, those who wish to outsource it to the supplier can as well.

Even if a few providers offer better 'environmental' performance, it seems highly unlikely that this will amount to much more than removing dog muck and chewing gum - nothing that will undo the damage caused by running multiple vehicle fleets, never mind anything significant and new that in aggregate can better the current situation.

That depends on what you are measuring. Use of smaller vehicles is one possibility; another is whether the recycling exercise is worth the effort and impact.

I am not aware of any significant environmental progress that has not been driven by legislation. Are you ? This isn't particularly relevant to the subject. Nor does the whole discussion have much to do with "Siting of panels for solar water heating". But my point stands - unfettered capitalism takes pretty much no account of global commons and environmental performance.
Nobody proposed unfettered capitalism.
If the market is free to make the present situation worse, I suggest it is not fettered enough !

It depends on what you are measuring to define better and worse.

By only complying with minimum standards, you don't do anything to improve the environmental performance, and very probably make it much worse.

Nonsense. That is simply a matter of defining what the minimum standards are. It's perfectly possible to adjust them over time as well.

By leaving it to the market, you offer people a bunch of solutions, the selection of any of which are unlikely to achieve more than the reduction of new environmental harm.

Reduction of environmental harm is one of the objectives.

Minimum standards of safety, health and environmental legislation have been imposed, which on the whole, industry has not wanted, and there is little reason to expect much more than minimum levels of compliance from industry, if indeed that.
It's quite possible to set the standards required by legislation.
Indeed - and despite, your not liking it, the market and the bluntness of legislative instruments, this is having some benefit.

Questionable. Imposition is a poor substitute for incentive

If those aren't adequate, then the requirements can be altered to take account of that.
Yes - though I'm trying to suggest that, given how marginal the benefits of introducing more actors to this market, you alter your scheme to only go ahead if the life cycle impact will be lower then the present mechanism.

Sigh.... it's called freedom of choice. The whole point is to match the service to the customer in order to improve outcome rather than trying to bang square pegs into round holes.

Customers should be able to buy the service appropriate to them and for the best price. In many situations, yes. In almost all situations unless there is a very good reason why not. Waste collection isn't one of them. But protection of the environment is.
No it isn't.
Well - I don't agree with you, and fortunately, not do the EU directives.

Those can be changed, applied in different ways or ignored.

On 2006-12-28 16:05:19 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> wrote this:-
Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a line, but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to inclination, ability and legislation. surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one example. Precisely.... I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still think about these problems as they do the sorting. You are missing the points... Idleness and pride ?
Delegation.
But at what environmental cost ?

The difference between something happening or not. If services were available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the recyling won't happen. The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the first place. If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well, then there should be no issue.

On 2006-12-29 01:27:46 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU at work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time, effort and money that goes on there.
I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we face is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work with the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to getting something right.

It would be if they were. It's cloud cuckoo land to believe that is the case.

There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself. already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum offering to meet minimum requirements. Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'.
Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the minimum or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing are at liberty to do so.
Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.

Yes it does if it makes the difference to objectives being met or not. Your assumption is that everybody has to be forced into sorting their own rubbish for that to happen. I don't accept that principle, simple as that.

and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most dangerous situation of all. No wonder with you breathing down their necks ! Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing what they should be doing. Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you and your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA agree on what they should be doing. You may be breathing down their necks just because they doing what the law dictates.
I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in firms of management consultants to do the work that their own staff should be doing. One or the other should be dispensed with.
Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify, but I don't see this kind of thing going on around here.

Have you looked?

I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor should provide only a small data point and nothing more. I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about sustainable development either.
Have you looked?
Very extensively.
Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but what there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !

have you asked why or thought about it? Could matching services to customer requirements have anything to do with it, or incentivising businesses?

I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all solutions which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go. You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines what we have to accept. Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it. This is the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem then comes that the good and useful things are ignored along with the worthless. Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of silly town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other things too.
Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people is it?
I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them in different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the details, but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them, or occasionally taking the piss out them.

I don't see them as benevolently. They are a huge drain on financial resources with a poor ROI. Apart from a few professional services such as building control, which does have value, they behave arbitrarily and do not provide what their customers want. What is even worse is that they largely don't realise it.

Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of consumption; forget it. I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than by GDP, or Contraction and Convergence either ? Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way. Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you regard as good outcomes though. Freedom of choice for the individual. Only that ?
No, but I think it's the most important,
Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most important issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized human population can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom of choice can deliver that.

Ultimately, freedom of choice is what does happen. What happens in addition are financial and other implications. Unnatural restriction doesn't work because if people feel it's unreasonable, they will find a way around it.

are met in one way or another.
Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't being at the moment !
If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?

As I've said, it depends on what you measure.

Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that provided that the outcome is achieved, the method, in terms of who does the work is irrelevant. Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased. As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant. From your perspective perhaps. I'm the customer..... But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and not all stakeholders are customers. Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not suppliers. I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder.
??
Customers are not the only stake holders.

They are, however, the main ones. Without them, the others are not significant because there is nothing to discuss.

The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives are changed as a consequence of our actions.

Too nebulous.

You might want to consider mitigating your environmental impacts for their benefit.

I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue. I would prefer to pay for services that match my requirements better and produce a better outcome as well.

In message , Arnold Walker writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore <wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> wrote this:-
Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a line, but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to inclination, ability and legislation. surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one example. Precisely.... I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still think about these problems as they do the sorting. You are missing the points... Idleness and pride ?
Delegation.
But at what environmental cost ?
That has yet to be determined......

I think it's pretty clear that sorting your own domestic waste at source always has a lower environmental impact than sorting it after further mixing.
If you can think of any circumstance where this would be wrong, I'd certainly be interested. Please share.

let see Sierra group does legal action to save the wetlands on the Mississppi. Targets levees to save the planet with responsible action.....pockets half the money with little shown on wetlands recovery money. Levees are delayed and in some cases downgraded.......then Kitrina hits and nobody remembers the actions that screwed the levee system.
Sierra club and Greenpeace decide to save the forest preserves........sues over debrushing and much of anything that is forest management. Pockets half the money and has little to show on wilderness or any other forest restoration money. Under growth sparks some of the biggest fires in US forestry history .Estimates are, it will take 50yrs to thin underbrush and dead wood to safe levels. And nobody remembers why the forest were not managed.
Malaria outbreak in 40's kills millions in Africa Then DDT virtually killed off malaria in Africa by 1948.......Sierra and similar groups to the recue with pressure to ban DDT. 53million Africans die from malaria before someone notices that DDT did not have the effects it was thought to have. Sierra and similar groups has that covered as well and blames global warming for the outbreak. Before anybody notices they had it banned.
One writes books on the well intended screw ups, complete with hand wringing and death predictions. And to date,none of the predictions have come as fore told.But you aren't supposed to notice that ,because there is a new hand wringer out there to absorb your interest and cover past mistakes.

Seems to me though, that many of the environment movements views have been broadly correct, and as it is increasingly a science led, evidence based discipline, as opposed to an activist led, sentiment motivated protest movement, it is certainly evolving, and I think improving, all the time. There is an interesting tension between the science and activism camps though.
I know nothing of the Sierra club and regard Greenpeace with some suspicion, but it seems to me that the arguments against using DDT had some merit - the error was perhaps in simply giving up, rather than finding better ways to use it in conjunction with other compounds.
But either way, none of this has much to do with UK waste. Did you have any specific examples that illustrate that sorting your own domestic waste at source has a higher environmental impact than sorting it after further mixing, or bringing people in to do it ?

Indeed one should look at the environment cost.....and maybe ask some accountabilitys for ones action as well.

Well yes - that's what I had in mind !
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-12-28 16:05:19 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> said: In message , Andy Hall <andyh@hall.nospam writes On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> wrote this:-
Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a line, but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to inclination, ability and legislation. surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one example. Precisely.... I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still think about these problems as they do the sorting. You are missing the points... Idleness and pride ? Delegation. But at what environmental cost ?
The difference between something happening or not. If services were available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the recyling won't happen.

OK, but this is your personal position. A lot of other people see the value in recycling and are willing to make some minimum level of personal sacrifice to organise things so that it's quick and easy to do.

The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the first place.

Well - we've done that one to death, but in general it seems likely that it is. You won't get a much higher standard of evidence than that unless you want to dedicate your life to data collection so that you can do rigorous LCA.

If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well, then there should be no issue.

Assuming it is left to the consumer to choose, any more than it's left to drivers to pick speed limits.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2007-01-04 09:55:06 +0000, John Beardmore said:

But at what environmental cost ?
The difference between something happening or not. If services were available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the recyling won't happen.
OK, but this is your personal position. A lot of other people see the value in recycling and are willing to make some minimum level of personal sacrifice to organise things so that it's quick and easy to do.

That's fine then. They can have their personal choice provided that they are willing to allow me to have mine.

The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the first place.
Well - we've done that one to death, but in general it seems likely that it is.

I don't find the evidence at all compelling in a lot of cases. There are just too many examples of stupid things being done just in order to meet artificial targets or for political correctness. This is where the environmentalists to the whole thing a disservice. There is far more about positioning and marketing than there is about honest science.

You won't get a much higher standard of evidence than that unless you want to dedicate your life to data collection so that you can do rigorous LCA.

I'll let you do that since you claim to be qualified in that area.

If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well, then there should be no issue.
Assuming it is left to the consumer to choose, any more than it's left to drivers to pick speed limits.

Ultimately, the consumer will always choose.....

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-12-29 01:27:46 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU at work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time, effort and money that goes on there. I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we face is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work with the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to getting something right.
It would be if they were. It's cloud cuckoo land to believe that is the case.

I'll take notice of that opinion when you show any evidence of having done any environmental work with any institutions.
In the mean time we are back to allegation and assertion.

There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself. already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum offering to meet minimum requirements. Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'. Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the minimum or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing are at liberty to do so. Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.
Yes it does if it makes the difference to objectives being met or not.

Which objectives ?

Your assumption is that everybody has to be forced into sorting their own rubbish for that to happen.

There are many ways global commons can be protected, and our dependence on them is clear enough - there is a point to all this.
Sorting waste is only part of the issue. It might be possible to live sustainably without sorting waste at source, but if sorting it elsewhere has greater impacts, it's unlikely to be an efficient way to be sustainable.

I don't accept that principle, simple as that.

We guessed that I think. Does that make you right ?

and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most dangerous situation of all. No wonder with you breathing down their necks ! Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing what they should be doing. Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you and your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA agree on what they should be doing. You may be breathing down their necks just because they doing what the law dictates. I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in firms of management consultants to do the work that their own staff should be doing. One or the other should be dispensed with. Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify, but I don't see this kind of thing going on around here.
Have you looked?

I don't look for problems so much as ways forward.
Maybe you go looking for trouble and find it ?

I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor should provide only a small data point and nothing more. I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about sustainable development either. Have you looked? Very extensively. Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but what there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !
have you asked why or thought about it? Could matching services to customer requirements

Which requirements ?
To live sustainably ?
To shovel waste for the lowest price ?

have anything to do with it, or incentivising businesses?

You mean have massive government intervention to bend the financial structure of the universe away from capitalist excess towards something else ?

I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all solutions which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go. You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines what we have to accept. Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it. This is the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem then comes that the good and useful things are ignored along with
Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of silly town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other things too. Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people is it? I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them in different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the details, but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them, or occasionally taking the piss out them.
I don't see them as benevolently. They are a huge drain on financial resources with a poor ROI.

Well - much of that is open to debate I think.

Apart from a few professional services such as building control, which does have value, they behave arbitrarily

Perhaps in part because they are led by political whim.

and do not provide what their customers want.

They are not there to provide what customers want. If you think they should be, you have to address bigger issues !

What is even worse is that they largely don't realise it.

I'm sure they are very well aware of what their duties actually are, and that many people don't get they want.
But people can't always have what they want. Or do you think they can ? Discuss...

Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of consumption; forget it. I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than by GDP, or Contraction and Convergence either ? Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way. Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you regard as good outcomes though. Freedom of choice for the individual. Only that ? No, but I think it's the most important, Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most important issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized human population can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom of choice can deliver that.
Ultimately, freedom of choice is what does happen.

:) ! Whose choice ???

What happens in addition are financial and other implications. Unnatural restriction doesn't work because if people feel it's unreasonable, they will find a way around it.

Hmmm... I think on careful inspection, you'll find that most peoples are repressed in various respects.
Or maybe we should be debate which restrictions are 'natural' or maybe even which boundary conditions are 'imposed by nature'.

are met in one way or another. Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't being at the moment ! If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?
As I've said, it depends on what you measure.

Well - which environmental outcomes do you measure ?

Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that provided that the outcome is achieved, the method, in terms of who does the work is irrelevant. Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased. As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant. From your perspective perhaps. I'm the customer..... But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and not all stakeholders are customers. Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not suppliers. I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder. ?? Customers are not the only stake holders.
They are, however, the main ones.

Well - not always in any particularly direct way. This isn't Tescos - this is government we are talking about, and maybe you should think 'citizens with duties to each other' rather than 'customers with a right to purchase'.
Don't confuse your aspirations with reality !!

Without them, the others are not significant because there is nothing to discuss.

Who ? Citizens or customers ?
All the worlds a shop where all the men and women are merely economic units ?
I think there's more to it than that !

The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives are changed as a consequence of our actions.
Too nebulous.

Too bad...

You might want to consider mitigating your environmental impacts for their benefit.
I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue.

That may be quite sub optimal however, and in this specific case I thought you stated that you were refusing to separate your rubbish ?
If so, it's a bit disingenuous to say "I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue", as clearly it isn't a service that's intended to be provided out of the tax you pay.
If you want to change this, the usual democratic channels are open to you.

I would prefer to pay for services that match my requirements better and produce a better outcome as well.

Wanting to pay for an environmentally better service doesn't stop entropy precluding it.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2007-01-18 00:59:04 +0000, John Beardmore said:

I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we face is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work with the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to getting something right.
It would be if they were. It's cloud cuckoo land to believe that is the case.
I'll take notice of that opinion when you show any evidence of having done any environmental work with any institutions.

I don't really care whether you do or don't.
There is no need to have done detailed work with these organisations either to figure out that the value is limited. One only has to look at the inputs (substantial amounts of money), a few data points in the middle (e.g. large numbers of bureaucrats and hangers-on populating Brussels) and the outputs (little of value and very little in touch with commercial reality)

In the mean time we are back to allegation and assertion.

No we aren't.

There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself. already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum offering to meet minimum requirements. Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'. Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the minimum or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing are at liberty to do so. Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.
Yes it does if it makes the difference to objectives being met or not.
Which objectives ?

Already described several times.

Your assumption is that everybody has to be forced into sorting their own rubbish for that to happen.
There are many ways global commons can be protected, and our dependence on them is clear enough - there is a point to all this.

There *may* be a point to *some* of it.

Sorting waste is only part of the issue. It might be possible to live sustainably without sorting waste at source, but if sorting it elsewhere has greater impacts, it's unlikely to be an efficient way to be sustainable.

Assuming that it is worthwhile at all (a big assumption), if it makes the difference between it happening or not, then sorting it elsewhere is better than not having it done at source.

I don't accept that principle, simple as that.
We guessed that I think. Does that make you right ?

Yes.

and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most dangerous situation of all. No wonder with you breathing down their necks ! Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing what they should be doing. Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you and your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA agree on what they should be doing. You may be breathing down their necks just because they doing what the law dictates. I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in firms of management consultants to do the work that their own staff should be doing. One or the other should be dispensed with. Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify, but I don't see this kind of thing going on around here.
Have you looked?
I don't look for problems so much as ways forward.
Maybe you go looking for trouble and find it ?

One doesn't need to look. A light scratch of the surface reveals all.

I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor should provide only a small data point and nothing more. I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about sustainable development either. Have you looked? Very extensively. Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but what there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !
have you asked why or thought about it? Could matching services to customer requirements
Which requirements ?

Already described.

To live sustainably ?

Depends on your definition of sustainably.

To shovel waste for the lowest price ?

To shovel waste for the lowest price consistent with where and how it needs to be shovelled.

have anything to do with it, or incentivising businesses?
You mean have massive government intervention to bend the financial structure of the universe away from capitalist excess towards something else ?

No I don't. Not taking tax requires very little government intervention.

I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all solutions which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go. You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines what we have to accept. Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it. This is the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem then comes that the good and useful things are ignored along with Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of silly town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other things too. Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people is it? I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them in different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the details, but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them, or occasionally taking the piss out them.
I don't see them as benevolently. They are a huge drain on financial resources with a poor ROI.
Well - much of that is open to debate I think.

Not as far as I'm concerned. There is more than ample evidence.

Apart from a few professional services such as building control, which does have value, they behave arbitrarily
Perhaps in part because they are led by political whim.

... and job creation schemes.

and do not provide what their customers want.
They are not there to provide what customers want.

That is precisely why they are there. They are being paid to do a job for their customers and should do it.

If you think they should be, you have to address bigger issues !

Scaling down of the public sector is simple enough. Remove the regulation nd you remove the need to measure and regulate. This makes a pool of people available to do more gainful things. Whether they are able to do them is a separate discussion but not a reason to maintain worthless positions.

What is even worse is that they largely don't realise it.
I'm sure they are very well aware of what their duties actually are, and that many people don't get they want.
But people can't always have what they want. Or do you think they can ? Discuss...

Discuss what?
Of course people can't always get what they want. However, they can within the range of what is available and the customer's ability and willingness to pay, just like any other transaction.

Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of consumption; forget it. I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than by GDP, or Contraction and Convergence either ? Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way. Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you regard as good outcomes though. Freedom of choice for the individual. Only that ? No, but I think it's the most important, Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most important issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized human population can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom of choice can deliver that.
Ultimately, freedom of choice is what does happen.
:) ! Whose choice ???

The choice of those in a position to influence. Ultimately, that is those with the financial ability to do so.

What happens in addition are financial and other implications. Unnatural restriction doesn't work because if people feel it's unreasonable, they will find a way around it.
Hmmm... I think on careful inspection, you'll find that most peoples are repressed in various respects.

Of course. The question then becomes their ability to work around it.

Or maybe we should be debate which restrictions are 'natural' or maybe even which boundary conditions are 'imposed by nature'.

Some are and some are not. Some can be influenced and some not,.

are met in one way or another. Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't being at the moment ! If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?
As I've said, it depends on what you measure.
Well - which environmental outcomes do you measure ?

Therein lies the great debate. Which are influenced by man's presence, which are not, which might be. Nobody has accurate answers to those questions.

Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that provided that the outcome is achieved, the method, in terms of who does the work is irrelevant. Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased. As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant. From your perspective perhaps. I'm the customer..... But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and not all stakeholders are customers. Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not suppliers. I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder. ?? Customers are not the only stake holders.
They are, however, the main ones.
Well - not always in any particularly direct way. This isn't Tescos - this is government we are talking about, and maybe you should think 'citizens with duties to each other' rather than 'customers with a right to purchase'.

No I shouldn't. The concept of "citizens duties to each other" is a nebulous one at best and smacks of collectivism at worst. Governments are ultimately a service organisation. They don't actually produce anything but are net users of resources. That use should be minimised and individuals given the choices on where, when and how they wish to spend their hard earned income.

Don't confuse your aspirations with reality !!

Realities are economic realities within the scope of human development.

Without them, the others are not significant because there is nothing to discuss.
Who ? Citizens or customers ?
All the worlds a shop where all the men and women are merely economic units ?
I think there's more to it than that !

There is, but until or unless those fundamentals are right, the rest doesn't happen.

The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives are changed as a consequence of our actions.
Too nebulous.
Too bad...

Yes it is.

You might want to consider mitigating your environmental impacts for their benefit.
I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue.
That may be quite sub optimal however, and in this specific case I thought you stated that you were refusing to separate your rubbish ?

It isn't sub-optimal for me.

If so, it's a bit disingenuous to say "I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue", as clearly it isn't a service that's intended to be provided out of the tax you pay.

Why? I didn't ask to have my rubbish separated, and neither did I volunteer to do so.

If you want to change this, the usual democratic channels are open to you.
I would prefer to pay for services that match my requirements better and produce a better outcome as well.
Wanting to pay for an environmentally better service doesn't stop entropy precluding it.

I would rather not pay at all because I am not at all convinced about the value. Nonetheless, I have already indicated that I am willing to pay for such a service to be carried out, in the same way as I pay for somebody to sweep the streets and cut the grass in the park.