BOFH: Saving the planet, one falsified metric at a time

The quickest route to carbon neutrality is creative accounting

Episode 20 I'm stuck in a maze of twisty Company prerequisites.

"I just need those figures for my report," the Boss asks.

"Which figures were they?" I ask.

"The ones about our environmental impact."

"Ah yes, I remember now. For that certification you wanted to get."

"WE want to get. Yes," the Boss nods.

"And we need that certification for...?"

"For our clients and our shareholders," the Boss answers. "We talked about this."

"Mmm. From memory, you talked about it. To paraphrase, you said it was to assure our clients and shareholders that we're not throwing our old computers in the Thames and/or running a room full of bar heaters to toast our daily bread."

"Or burning tires on the roof," the PFY adds.

"It's to show that the Company has an independently audited policy for how we use energy responsibly – and that we're not contributing to ongoing planetary harm," the Boss counters.

"Yeah, that's what I said. AND I already sent you those figures – yesterday."

"They can't be our figures," the Boss says, shaking his head. "They were astronomical!"

"Yeah, well, they would be. I had to buy a room full of bar heaters – and they're difficult to source these days. Stephen had to purchase a bunch of old CRT screens from a vintage computer company just to be able to throw them into the bin."

"Although on the plus side, I got a trailer load of tires for free!!" the PFY says.

"Why... would you do that?!" the Boss gasps.

"To get that certification," I explain.

"We won't get certification for that!" the Boss gasps.

"No, but we will establish a baseline. Then, when we supply our next round of figures – which we could do next week if we wanted – we'll have made a truly vast improvement in our green footprint. We might even win some sort of award for implementing such a staggering change so quickly – and for our commitment to the aspirations of the project."

"I don't think that's what we're supposed to be doing," the Boss says doubtfully. "We're supposed to be making a difference."

"We will be!" I say.

"No we won't, we're deliberately falsifying data – and polluting!!!"

"Yes, but for a good cause! You just need to look at the bigger picture and see the example we'll be setting. It'll inspire others to do better. In the scheme of things, we'll be encouraging the whole world to be better. You want the world to be better, don't you?"

"I... uh."

"And if we set the bar high, some other company is bound to want to cross that bar – and someone else will want to beat them, etc. The change that we've seeded here today could be felt throughout the world. If the Nobel Foundation ever decided to give out an award out for environmental improvement, you might get that medal!"

"Well, I..." the Boss blushes, contemplating his future fame and glory.

"If they knew you existed," the PFY counters.

"What?" the Boss asks, as future glory fades away.

"Well, the figures are a secret, aren't they?" the PFY comments. "No one's going to know we made these improvements apart from a couple of people in the agency that does the independent auditing."

"True," I nod.

"Can't we... tell people about our changes?" the Boss asks.

"You could include the current figures in the shareholders report – though that's in six months' time," I suggest.

"Though by that time the numbers will be back to normal, and our shareholders will think you made our current numbers up – just to make us look good. No, to be truly effective, they need to know about how 'bad' we are now so that they can see how much we've improved in the future," the PFY observes.

"Yes..." the Boss sighs. "You're probably right."

"There is the 'Special Shareholder Report' mailing list that the Marketing department uses," the PFY hints.

"Oh, how do you use that?"

"You just send an email to an unlisted address and it publishes it to the shareholders. But it's locked down to members of the Marketing group."

"And how do you get on the Marketing group?" the Boss asks.

...

The next day dawns and there's been a fair amount of overnight activity in the building.

Apparently, the image of a band of hemp-wearing vegan activists erecting a yurt outside the building to protest the Company's appalling climate record was not something the Board wanted to see in the media, so a hastily crafted second email to the Marketing group was issued to explain away the "AI hallucination" that spawned the first – and to announce the Boss's decision to pursue employment opportunities in the energy sector in a more deregulated environment.

This was news to the Boss. However, the threat of a truckload of CRTs appearing in his back garden before an anonymous phone call to the council was enough to convince him to take his career's downwards progression gracefully.

• BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register
• The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99