Page 50 - Carbon Frauds and Corruption

Corruption of Bribery

Chapter 6 : Corruption in the “Carbon World”

7.5 Decision Perversion
Another widespread impact of the “noble cause” is on commercial decision making. Compliance
with the environmental “silo” may be used to justify decisions that, in reality, have been
perverted by corruption.

Already such a trend can be seen where non‐governmental, quasi‐ governmental and private organisations have
taken it upon themselves to evaluate and rank companies, such as super‐markets on their carbon compliance. The
objective is to drive consumers towards the acquiescent retailer, irrespective of “value for money”. The problem is
that these advisory, charitable or altruistic organisations are not regulated in any way: are exposed to glaring
conflicts of interest and corruption and are unaccountable for their actions.

Even more schemes will appear offering a carbon rating or product labelling such as “Energy Stars”, supposedly
to direct consumers to the most eco‐friendly goods and services. The question arises over the validity of such
markings; how they are verified and who verifies them. The potential for dishonest suppliers to inflate claims – at
a cost to their apparently less green competitors – is serious. So is corruption within the rating organisations
themselves.

The bottom line is that the “noble cause” creates artificial needs, of questionable value, whose
outputs are virtually impossible to measure, that inevitably result in massive expenditure. The
cause empowers mid‐level civil servants, commercial inspection companies, rating agencies,
busybodies and scammers to take decisions and impose conditions that have enormous
commercial and social impacts: usually without any personal accountability.

49
The Energy Saving Trust claimed that if everyone buying a new desktop computer in 2010 chose one it had rated
as "energy efficient" they could save £28 million off their energy bills a year, and over 60,000 tonnes of carbon
dioxide emissions. The Trust helpfully pointed out that 60,000 tonnes of CO2 is enough to fill 340,000 double‐
decker buses each year! Isn’t that an interesting metric: at least it is not a percentage.

The only computers rated were made by “VeryPC” a brand that most people have never heard of except for the
appearance of its boss on the TV program “Dragon’s Den” He wanted £250,000 for a 5% stake in his company but
Peter Jones (one of the Dragons) attacked the company's power consumption calculations, accusing the boss of
overseeing "a pretty averagely crap business", while fellow Dragon Duncan Bannatyne claimed: "I've never heard
such rubbish in my life”. Yet, VeryPC is still the only approved "energy efficient" supplier.

PRINCIPLE
The "noble cause" can result in perversion of procurement decisions

7.6 Unintended Consequences
Many mitigation and abatement measures have serious unintended consequences that are
brushed aside in pursuit of the “noble cause”. They include:

49 You guessed it: funded by the British Government

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