If I look out of my window I can see a brick wall and a window to an office. I can see everything in the office as all lights are on full, the time is 5.12 am on a Saturday morning
And if I walk down to St Paul’s Cathedral – about 100 yards, I see this view.
Day and night these offices are lit up. But if you walk or run round the City at night you won’t see banks of City Workers slaving over their computers, instead -you will see people cleaning up or you will see no-one at all, You won’t see many people at all Monday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday but these offices will still be lit up – day and night. Only on Tuesday , Wednesday and Thursday (the TWaT) will you see activity in the day – and a lot of that is social.
I have had to complain to the office managers at my local money factory (BNY Mellon) about the light pollution that it threw out throughout the 2020 lockdown when its lights remained on while nobody was at home, it turned out that the office couldn’t even control its external lights, they were hardwired on through some great light switch in the sky.
In short the City of London, that prides itself on leading the global drive for sustainability, shines forth its Climate-Related Financial Disclosures from every window of its offices.
The 3,000 odd residents of the City have been complaining to the Corporation of London about this through their ward councils for some time and I’m glad to see that action is at last being taken. The FT tells us.
The City of London will ask its cluster of skyscrapers to dim their lights at night as part of a new strategy to reduce visual pollution and save energy.
Property owners across the Square Mile will be asked to switch off unnecessary building lights as part of a proposal by the City of London Corporation to create “brightness zones” governed by curfews.
City officials are concerned about energy wastage and light pollution caused by the unnecessary use of lights in office buildings that have few or no workers after a certain time of night.
The City proposes the creation of three types of “brightness zone” with curfews set at 10pm for residential and heritage areas, 11pm for cultural and tourist areas, and midnight for commercial, retail and transport hubs.
So when I look out of my window at 10 pm , I expect the light in the office opposite me, which is burning brightly at 5 am this February Saturday morning, to be turned off. Unless the room’s occupied!
I’m sure that whoever is about to prepare the company’s financial disclosures on its sustainability goals , would expect no less.
And when we’ve dealt with that, we can move on to the chauffeured limousines that leave their engines on while waiting for the senior management teams of companies reporting their ESG credentials to move to a lower emitting means of getting to their meetings.
Thank you.
