Examination of Witnesses (Questions 176-179)
Wednesday 11 June 2003
DR ANDREW
SENTANCE
Q176 Chairman: I am sorry to keep
you waiting while we did our public duty. Thank you very much
indeed for your memorandum. Is there anything you would like to
add to that before we take evidence from you?
Dr Sentance: I am grateful to
you, Chairman. I will just introduce myself. I am Andrew Sentance,
both Chief Economist and Head of Environmental Affairs at BA.
Q177 Chairman: We noticed this combination.
Dr Sentance: I approach this subject
from two different angles. The main points I think are in the
memorandum. As we make clear there, we see the main issue as being
to have a framework for sustainability, which means balancing
environmental , economic and social impacts. There are a lot of
economic benefits from aviation. We see the objective as getting
environmental improvement at a reasonable economic cost. We have
set out in that memorandum our clear support for emissions trading
as the way forward for dealing with global warming, particularly
the carbon dioxide element of those emissions. We are actually
members of the UK Emissions Trading Scheme. We have backed that
up by participation in that scheme. We would like to see emissions
trading carried further in aviation. Those are my main points
by way of introduction.
Chairman: You will have heard, since
you were seated at the back, some of the problems with the approach
to emissions trading, which we dealt with in the last session;
i.e. that it is rather long term.
Q178 Mr Chaytor: Would it not really
be better if BA had a separate Chief Economist and a separate
Chief Environmental Manager?
Dr Sentance: We debated this when
I took over the environmental role.
Q179 Mr Chaytor: I am not saying
you are not capable of doing two jobs; it is just that one role
might undermine or conflict with the other.
Dr Sentance: Within our company,
we have to bring together the environmental issues and the economic
issues and come up with a coherent position that reflects a sustainable
position. We define sustainability as getting an appropriate balance
between social, environmental and economic issues. Over the last
three years, and we have produced one again this year, our environmental
report has become a social and environmental report. I suppose
really you can call it an economic, social, environmental report
because it sets out our performance under the three headings that
people call the triple bottom line. I think it is quite appropriate
within a company for these things to be brought together and discussed
in an integrated way.
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