Paul Jaffe, who sits on our Steering Committee for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, shares his personal views and family actions around climate change.

When our seven-year-old daughter, Izzy, came home from school having been complimented that her hair looked like Greta Thunberg’s, we decided that this was a good opportunity to talk with her about climate change.

We generally have a parenting policy that being honest and upfront about issues (religion, inequality and why West Ham always makes Daddy so miserable) is going to help our kids build resilience and deal with life’s challenges. Clearly for their young generation, climate change is going to be a big issue, to put it lightly, and we’d been looking for the right time to talk about it.

And what do you tell them?

But how do you tell your kids that the world you are passing to them is being destroyed? That every time you look up and see an aeroplane in the sky, a hamburger on a plate or piece of plastic on the ground, it’s a reminder of how hard this is going to be to solve? 

I’d recently bought a book of Greta’s latest speeches and thought this was a good place to start. I read Izzy the speech Greta gave at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, “Our House is on Fire”. Then we talked about how human beings are amazing and have done amazing things. So, today many of us have the benefit of being able to do incredible things, but we use resources to do them. And we’re only really starting to understand (or more likely acknowledge) the full implications of that. 

The speed we’ve done all this is so fast, there are problems that we’ve not been able to solve, or even realise were problems, until where we are now. What Greta is doing is helping make people aware of the problems so that more is done about it and better choices might be made.

I told Izzy that human beings at our best can solve this issue. We’ve got the technological potential. We know a lot of the things that we need to change. We can grow trees, reduce our meat consumption, not use too much water (we now only bath them annually!) and not own lots of things we only use once or twice. I couldn’t tell her that my big fear though is that this is such a unique and complex set of problems that we won’t do anything meaningful until bad stuff happens, and then it’ll be too late.

How do they react?

Izzy asked me two questions. The first was about what we should do as a family. The second was a request to play on the iPad and end this conversation. After tough negotiations, we agreed she could have 10 minutes.

Trying to make changes

As a family we are trying to do things differently, though we are far from perfect and still working out how we can do more. 

We’ve got to move away from the mentality that you have to be perfect before you’re allowed an opinion on climate change or to take action. We’re all imperfect and we need to be more comfortable with that. There’ll be a much bigger impact if everyone reduces their carbon footprint by 25%, rather than a handful of people living like monks and reducing it by 100%. At least start at 25%. 

I’d encourage everyone to calculate their rough carbon footprint. There are lots of calculators online, where you can enter data, such as how many flights you take in a year, how much you drive, what sort of food you buy, what size house you live in and your energy use. From that, you can see your main emissions and work out where to make changes. We used www.carbonindependent.org

Like many people, our biggest impact was how many flights we go on. So, we’ve decided to do one holiday in the UK rather than two abroad, driving rather than flying. And when we do fly, we’ll offset our carbon. We’ve also switched to Bulb as an energy supplier (take five minutes. Do it! They are also a customer at Broadgate). So, all our electricity is renewable and our gas renewable or offset.

We buy our kids second-hand stuff rather than new where we can. And if we do buy new, we try to buy robust/organic items that will last or that we can then give a new home to. We encourage grandparents not to buy unnecessary toys and clothes as well. This is far from easy.

I’m consciously eating much less meat too, though I’m not quite vegan or vegetarian. It doesn’t have to be binary, reducing meat consumption still cuts emissions. And when lots of people make small changes it all adds up and helps create momentum; that’s much better than not doing anything.

There can be opportunities to drive positive change at work too. We can help colleagues to do more and feel empowered to promote change both on a personal level and in our working capacity. 

My wife Charlotte is now looking at how to reduce carbon footprint within operating theatres in her role as a paediatric surgeon. 

I believe at British Land sustainability is high up our agenda. I’m convinced that when we really want to do something as a business, we are 100% capable of delivering change. I’m pleased to sit on our Steering Committee for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. I’m also proud to have implemented some work initiatives and continue to explore how we can make meaningful changes and accelerate sustainable business practices across our operations.

Looking to do more

I don’t think I do nearly enough. I wake up most days with a sickness in my stomach. Should I go and live in a field, park a boat in the middle of London or just give up trying. Why worry about this and not all the other horrendous things out there. Am I alone in this regard?

But I try to remember that, although as individuals we won’t be able to achieve things on our own, we shouldn’t underestimate the influence we can have and momentum we can create if we are sincere in our efforts. The same is true of the impact British Land or the UK could have. 

By talking to Izzy (and Theo in due course) about climate change, I’m making a contract with them to be environmentally responsible and to encourage others. But we have to be honest that, whilst we need to start somewhere, this has to be about more than recycling a few bottles.

Read about British Land's commitment to create a net zero carbon portfolio here.

Paul is studying a Masters course for built environment professionals at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.