a collection of notes, ideas and suggestions related to the transparency experiment

As another example to have a look at, how about a look at the way transparency around worker rights and environmental impacts has influenced the clothing industry? Both cheap and high end. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2012/jul/06/activism-nike

interesting when considering transparency as a potential lever of change by engaging the public. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/02/coalition-review-of-consumer-laws-may-ban-environmental-boycotts

Fish Online http://fishonline.org website is all about transparency. it is looking at rating fish based on environmental impact. There are over 150 species on there which translates into over 500 listings. so there's a lot of content! So much that, although it has had a huge impact at the retail level, individual consumers may find it difficult to engage and remain abreast of which are the best choices….though we do our level best to make it as easy as possible.

Traceability - is what you are being sold in the supermarket ACTUALLY what it says it is? Where did it really come from? What checks are actually made? What accountability is there? Would it be possible to actually do some detailed traceability studies - ocean to plate. Is that dolphin friendly tuna really dolphin friendly?

Welfare - there are significant welfare at work issues related to fisheries (I believe Seafish and EJF work on this) and aquaculture (latter strong UK market link in the shape of one of the UK's top 5 favourite 'fish' - the juicy king prawn.)

Social impacts - e.g. impacts of governments selling off licences to international tuna fleet on local fisheries.

And then there's water quality again, the MCS Good Beach Guide http://www.goodbeachguide.co.uk/ has, for the last few decades been promoting transparency about water quality. standards have improved enormously, but there are still issues particularly around what happens to excess water during wet weather. A problem that is likely to intensify with increased extreme weather events.

MCS has been giving some attention to this issue for a number of years. e.g. this from 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8236000/8236957.stm

This from SAS (Surfers Against Sewage), who also focus on CSO's

“There are approximately 31,000 Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) around the UK. Their sole purpose is to discharge untreated human sewage and waste-water when the sewerage system is overloaded. CSOs act as emergency discharge valves in our sewerage system, discharging untreated sewage and wastewater when the system comes close to bursting, supposedly during periods of intense rainfall. Without CSOs, sewage could start backing up in our houses and gardens, so they are a vital part of our sewerage infrastructure. However, SAS is increasingly concerned that they are being used to regularly dispose of untreated sewage, even during times of low rainfall or none at all. In theory, CSOs should only discharge a maximum of 3 times per bathing season (May - September) but worryingly many CSOs discharge far more frequently than this.”

What are water companies actually doing? What environmental and health and wellbeing impacts does that have?