Leasedrive Velo Blog

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Deepwater Horizon are two words BP, its employees, shareholders and more importantly still, the people living along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, wished they had never heard of. Deepwater is the polite term for what BP currently finds itself in. For the poor people, and the trouble is that most of them are poor, around the Gulf the deep oily mess they find themselves in is worse still. Fishermen find themselves fishing for oil, not fish. Tourism in the region has been devastated. The final environmental impact of the disaster has yet to be properly calculated. Now in its tenth week, the cost to BP so far amounts to $2bn and climbing. And on Barak Obama’s insistence, it has set aside $20bn to meet compensation claims.

Worst still is that ten weeks on oil is still spilling in the Gulf at a rate approaching 40,000 barrels worth a day. The company estimated it collected 23,900 barrels-worth last Sunday but the US administration estimates 60,000 is pumping into the waters each day. A relief well to finally stem the flow will not start operations until early August so the environmental disaster continues. The Exxon disaster pales into insignificance by comparison.

Even worse still for BP are other leaks. Those revolve around the company having allegedly bribed officials and cut safety corners. Like aircraft, oil rigs are designed with back-up systems. If one shear ram fails, as happened on Deepwater Horizon, another should kick in. However, in the BP case, the second one didn’t due to leaking hydraulic fluid, something that had been observed weeks before in one of the control pods and reported to the company. Normally, the rig would have been shut down to repair the fault but BP allegedly just shutdown the faulty unit and in so doing didn’t have a back-up system.

Nor should it be forgotten that 11 workers died on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, when an explosion triggered the current environmental disaster. Something that beleaguered chief executive, Tony Hayward significantly failed to do, writing on Facebook that he wanted his life back! Ouch, PR disaster number one!

Then came his appearance at the US Congressional Committee last week where his performance was shambolic to say the least. Caught in the lion’s den, under the full glare of the media and facing naturally hostile questioning, Hayward was accused of stonewalling the Committee. In seven hours of questioning he admitted not knowing the answer over 60 times and showed little genuine remorse. PR disaster number two.

However, Hayward still had one more PR disaster trump card. The power of the social media came to the fore when somebody Twittered that Tony Hayward was enjoying life on the high seas in a corporate sailing event off the Isle of Wight. America was apoplectic with rage. PR disaster number three.

As a result of his performance, Hayward was relieved of his responsibilities as leader of the response team in the Gulf. The chairman of BP said that Hayward had damaged the reputation of the company. He declared that this has now turned into a reputation matter, financial and political.

So if any organisation has doubts about the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR), or indeed the power of PR, they need look no further than the fine mess that BP is in. Five letters never to ignore – CSR and PR. Shy away from them at your peril.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Eyjafjallajokull is a word that became quite familiar a few weeks back even though probably people got a little tongue-tied pronouncing it. However, with planes flying freely once again, Eyjafjallajokull has fallen off the radar! It doesn’t even figure at the top of the Met Office severe weather warnings any more.

So besides the obvious impact the erupting volcano had on fliers, shoppers and certain business sectors, as discussed in my blog of April 23, what other impact has it had or could have going forward?

I tripped across an article the other day that claimed that in just four days Eyjafjallajokull had negated all the carbon emission savings worldwide over the past five years! Apparently, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it erupted more greenhouse gases than had been created in the previous 40 million years.

Indeed, out of control bush fires that happen annually in various parts of the world from California to Australia via Greece can negate carbon emission reductions by two to three years.

All that smoke and ash is bound to have its effect whether the above is entirely accurate or not. Eyjafjallajokull has not yet necessarily gone back to sleep and its sister volcano – Katla – is predicted to erupt in the coming months.

Every time Eyjafjallajokull has erupted, Katla has never remained dormant. It’s ten times bigger than Eyjafjallajokull and has always erupted within six months of its unpronounceable neighbour. It also has a much bigger ice cap, and the combination of melting cold water and lava results in ash shooting up to high altitude. Katla last erupted in 1918 so don’t bet on it not following its two-thousand-year track record. Unfortunately Katla is much easier to pronounce too. Let’s just hope it’s not on everyone’s lips!

Meanwhile, we cannot afford to relax our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, volcanoes or no volcanoes. Natural disasters and carbon emissions we can do nothing about but man-made disasters, such as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and man-made carbon emissions we can certainly limit. At a time when our oil reserves are diminishing at an unprecedented rate, it makes the BP fiasco a double-whammy. Short-cuts and bribery will end up by costing the oil giant dear and the loss of 30 million barrels of liquid gold per day are not a drop in the ocean. Quite literally! Just ask the poor folks of the four most affected states, and the majority of those are poor.

Protecting our environment and our natural resources must be a top priority. BP is easier to say than Katla and far easier to recall and utter than Eyjafjallajokull. In all cases however, they are having a dramatic effect on mankind.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

According to Surrey County Council, 536 gulley and drain covers have been stolen so far this year, creating even bigger hazards than the much-publicised potholes for drivers, motorcyclists and cyclists.

The replacement costs for the Council have so far amounted to over £160,000 with each cover costing between £200 and £400 to replace. The covers have been mainly stolen from rural areas, where presumably the thieves feel they are less likely to be spotted. It really beggar’s belief to what lengths some people will go to earn extra money. We all know about lead being stolen from church roofs and statues from gardens, but this is criminally dangerous.

The money Surrey County Council has so far spent could have filled 3000 potholes!

Make no mistake, such stories are only the tip of the iceberg as we totter on the edge of a double dip recession and face years of bleak financial austerity.

I’ve been complaining bitterly about the perilous state of our roads in these blogs for some time now, even suggesting that if things don’t improve we’ll all be driving around in four-wheel drive vehicles to cope with ever increasing uneven road surfaces. Well, I fear that as the size of the country’s deficit becomes ever crystal clear that our roads will be one of the first to suffer.

Much has been made in the past week of the coalition government’s intention to enter into consultation with the public on what needs to be cut by way of public expenditure.

It is drawing inspiration from Canada, whose government tackled its huge nine per cent national deficit by slashing federal budgets by 20 per cent over four years.

The Canadian Liberal government eliminated the deficit in just three years and, by 1999, the Canadian national debt had been cut dramatically from almost 70 per cent of national income to below 30 per cent! However, the government was helped by achieving this at a time of world prosperity, in stark contrast to current times.

The Canadians did it by undertaking proper planning, and consulted the public and public sector workers in decisions. It was described as a societal project.

The Canadian government scrutinised closely what it should look after and what could be taken care of by others. The biggest cuts came in agriculture, defence, transport and welfare. Many in the public sector were encouraged to take early retirement, a fifth of the total workforce in the end. An iconic image of the depth of the cuts was the demolition of a public sector hospital!

I mentioned where the axe fell hardest on public expenditure. At least three of the sectors should have sounded familiar, given this week’s reports. One is close to all of our hearts, namely transport. Expect draconian measures with major projects slashed. Work on the London cross-rail link may have started but my betting is on the high-speed rail link being one major casualty along with many planned road projects. Road surfaces will definitely be getting poorer not better. And VAT will go up, probably in the June 22 Budget.

Times are about to get a lot harder for all of us, and fleet will be no exception.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Drink driving and drug driving deaths and injuries remain unacceptably high. In 2008, 11,000 in the UK alone were killed or injured as a result of driver impairment through drink or drugs. Drunk drivers cause over one in ten road deaths on our roads with 269 recorded deaths caused by drivers over the drink drive limit. And the worst culprits are ‘at work’ drivers.

Research by the road safety charity Brake reveals that 14 per cent of ‘at work’ drivers admitted to consuming three or more units of alcohol before getting behind the wheel. This compares with just six per cent of other drivers. That’s over double the number of ‘at work’ drivers acting irresponsibly!

Even after a heavy night, ‘at work’ drivers act more irresponsibly than other drivers do with a third admitting driving first thing in the morning compared to 21 per cent of other drivers.

The above facts alone should get fleet managers thinking about their duty of care responsibilities and organisations considering their corporate social responsibilities the next time they organise an off-site sales or marketing conference. We’ve all attended such events, where the day’s proceedings are followed up by a celebratory dinner and heavy drinking at the bar till the wee small hours. It happens at awards ceremonies too.

All of us have a moral, as well as a corporate social responsibility, to take stock of our actions and reconsider how we handle certain social situations. The obvious one for an off-site corporate event involving an overnight stay is to limit alcohol intake and wrap up official proceedings at mid-day the following day rather than the night before. As to awards dinners, well there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s natural everyone attending is after a good time and will inevitably let their hair down. How much people consume is down to the individual but inevitably most will still be over the legal limit the morning after. Corporate policy for those attending awards events should be to insist that they leave the car keys behind and attend said events by public transport.

Brake is doing its bit by launching a new campaign called ‘Face Facts’. Posters and e-guides are available to assist fleet managers in alerting company drivers and grey fleet drivers as to the risks of drink and drug driving. The aim of the campaign is to assist fleet managers in identifying drink and drug driving abuse through screening and testing procedures.

Employee drink driving and drug driving rules should be covered by fleet policy and be a key element in any company vehicle driver’s manual. The punishment for transgressing the rules should be instant dismissal. When it comes to such potential dangerous activities, there can be no other corporate option than a zero tolerance policy. Corporate reputation is at stake, not to mention the all-important life of the driver and potential innocent victims of those driver’s actions.