Back yard angels

Di Celliers was concerned about the increasing demand on food banks to feed the poor. She was also aware that a lot of fruit goes to waste in back yards. She drew on her social and church networks and workmates at the ASB bank to inspire and mobilise people to pick fruit in backyards.

In a little over a month, Di’s initiative has spread across Auckland and the idea has been picked up in other regions in New Zealand. Auckland City Mission now collect the fruit weekly and distributes the fruit to 70 foodbanks.

Community Fruit Harvesting now has a Facebook presence and a website is hopefully on its way.  The Facebook page is a great example of community engagement and social networking’s capability to connect people in a cause. You can hear Di talking about the initiative on National Radio. Here’s Di picking citrus.

Another Auckland initiative is ooooby.org, (Out of our own back yards). It has been set up as a social business that harvests produce grown in backyards, micro growers and from local farms. Customers sign up for a $27.90 weekly box of fruit and veges.

These initiatives are inspiring steps to a more sustainable means of food production and supply. The benefits include providing free or inexpensive nutritious food, building community bonds through engagement and volunteering and providing micro-enterprise opportunities.

Here is Muhammad Yunus explaining the social business concept.

Images used by permission of Di Celliers

 

 

 

Sustainability depth – are you green from top to bottom?

Companies trumpet sustainability initiatives, but what is the significance of their sustainability initiatives? Another lens we can use to evaluate their efforts is a measure of sustainability depth. There are three levels of performance to consider:

• the company’s in-house sustainability performance
• the impact of the company’s products and services on society and the planet
• the company’s leadership role in sustainability in its industry or sector.

Lets look at examples of some industries to understand the significance of this approach.

Banking

You probably will have noticed banks that use advertising to announce their use of green cars. Or perhaps they have chosen to occupy green office space. While these initiatives are helpful, they are dwarfed by the impact the banks’ products and services have on the planet and society. The capital that they provide can support sustainable initiatives or more traditionally extractive initiatives. The flow of capital has tended to be more determined by risk analysis rather than an analysis of sustainability.

The practices and example of the Grameen Bank exemplify creative thinking and dedication to sustainable aspirations (in this case, the eradication of poverty). The achievements of the Grameen Bank leave most Western Banks looking homogenous and deficient in leadership. One notable exception (you may know of others) is Vancouver’s VanCity Bank. This statement from their Accountability report indicates their willingness to show leadership at all three levels.

Another evidence of their commitment to sustainability is their relative longevity – Citizens Bank, a subsidiary, was talking about sustainability before the turn of the century. Closer to home (New Zealand) the banks here were at least more conservative and responsible sheltering us from the worst of the financial crises.

In the banking industry, the impact of their in-house sustainability initiatives are miniscule, compared to the greater impact of their products and services and the banking industry’s huge influence on economies. The banks to support are, yes, those who run fleets of green cars, but more importantly are engaged in leadership discourse in their industries. The worst examples of banking were the junk-bond traders that were essentially corrupt and dishonest. Who are the banking leaders who will follow the example of Muhammad Yunus and position the industry to both serve and prosper?

Retail

As with banking, you can imagine retailers who focus on in-house sustainability, but are locked into the need to grow their business. They may be tempted to sell whatever they can to make a buck with little focus on the environment or wider society.

It appears that Walmart has become a very positive exemplar of deep sustainability. They have a long way to go – but are taking initiatives from in-house sustainability, through to industry leadership. Here are examples:

In-house sustainability – For Walmart, electricity is their number two operating expense. They are moving on two fronts. LED lights have been installed in freezer panels, providing a 70% reduction in energy consumption. LED lights will eventually be rolled out throughout stores and carparks. Walmart also have installations of solar panels underway. Over 30 stores are already installed with another 20 to 30 in the pipeline.

Another massive opportunity to improve in-house sustainability is with Walmart’s transport fleet. This video refers to a goal to increase transport efficiency by 100% from a 2005 baseline, by 2015. By the end of July 2011, they have achieved 65%.

Impact of products and services – Walmart aspire to improve the quality of food that their customers eat. Here is an extract from a recent article:

With more than 140 million customer visits each week, we have an opportunity to make a real difference in the nutritional quality of the food we sell, so we have a long-term goal to make food healthier and make healthier food more affordable.

First, we are reformulating thousands of our private brand packaged food items and working with branded products to do the same. By 2015, we will:

• reduce sodium by 25%
• reduce added sugars by 10%
• remove all remaining industrially produced trans fats in our packaged food.

And here is a video about organic lettuce production at Walmart.

Leadership role in sustainability – Because of its size, Walmart can be particularly effective as a leader in the retail industry. When they get interested in initiatives such as LED lighting, solar panels and transport efficiency, they indirectly accelerate the mass adoption of better technology by consequence of their size in the market place. Recently Walmart has turned its focus on food-waste, reacting to the news that approximately one-third of food produced globally is wasted and are working with the USDA on projects to reduce waste. They also are working to access produce closer to the point of sale.

The examples here are a sample of the great work that Walmart is doing and provide a great illustration of a company engaging with sustainability across the three dimensions identified here.

Drive and imagination is the key

In the positive examples here, including Professor Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank and Walmart, we see clear evidence of a desire to create a better world. This drive in turn generates the cognitive resources of imagination and breadth of vision that create new possibilities and transform industries from the top to the bottom.

I would love to hear of more examples.

Engagement stories – the New Zealand Army

The New Zealand Army provides an inspiring example of a journey of engagement, and how the engagement ethos supports their effectiveness in the field.

New Zealand is a young nation with a compressed history. 150 years ago, British and Colonial forces were engaged in a series of wars with indigenous Mäori tribes, leaving the inevitable sense of disengagement and division between the combatants. In the following century, the young nation responded to the call of “mother England” and sent young men to fight and die in the killing fields of the world wars.

New Zealanders see our tragic cathartic involvement in the Gallipoli campaign of World War One as a crucible for forging our national identity and accelerating the process of cutting the umbilical chord to the mother country. In the Second World War, many young Mäori volunteered and fought with distinction as the Mäori Battalion.

Ngati Tumatauenga

A few years later, in 1949, the NZ Army badge was adapted from the British Army design. The British Army asked for the letters “NZ” to be added to provide differentiation from their badge. Fifty years later, in 1999 the New Zealand Army adopted a new badge incorporating the words Ngati Tumatauenga (God of War)  and replacing one crossed sword with a taiaha.

 

These outwardly subtle artifactual changes reveal a story of the integration of the army’s twin heritages of the British soldier and the Mäori warrior. The taiaha is a traditional Mäori weapon. Ngati Tumatauenga is a tribal name – the New Zealand Army reconceptualised with a tribal identity.

Ngati Tumatauenga acknowledges what the Army is one family of people bound together by the ethic of service to our country, military professionalism, common values, and mutual respect, mutual trust and camaraderie. As one people we are one tribe. Ngati Tumatauenga reflects our oneness and our unity; it has seen us develop our own New Zealand military cultural practices and ceremonial guided by Tikanga Maori on the one hand and British and European custom on the other. (from the New Zealand Army website)

We can assume that these badges represent a five-decade journey from an ethos of assimilation of Mäori culture in the army, to a more engaging ethos of integration with the consequent forging of a new identity.

It is significant that Mäori serve across the ranks of the Army, and New Zealand’s Governor General designate, Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae, has been head of New Zealand’s Defence Force from 2006 after a distinguished career in the army.

Engagement

The New Zealand military is small by international standards, but over the last 100 years has punched well above its weight. The army has served in several war zones as peacekeepers. As Ngati Tumatauenga, it has achieved stunning success. Here is an inspiring story of the New Zealand led coalition bringing peace to Bougainville with “guitars, not guns”.

I believe the Army’s success in engaging local populations and rebuilding trust can be attributed to the evolution of the shared identity of Ngati Tumatauenga. Over time underlying assumptions of the supremacy of European modes of operation were eroded and the voice of a minority culture emerged. This process could only be achieved through effective internal engagement, creating a culture that is a platform for external engagement.

Note from the video, that the inclusion of women in peacekeeping was a major asset.

Mäori have achieved much in the army, but in wider New Zealand society, they are over-represented in statistics about poverty, ill-health, unemployment and crime. It appears that wider society could learn much from the army. I would like to hear about private or public sector businesses, in New Zealand and elsewhere that have achieve impressive results through effective internal engagement.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Bob Whiu for his help with this article.

The heart of sustainability

Ultimately, sustainability can only be built on the transformation of human character. The brilliant John Elkington did a great job by presenting three dimensions of sustainability – economic, environmental and social (people, planet and profit). Its becoming ever more clear, that the myopic pursuit of economic sustainability alone, is ironically, unsustainable. Or to put it another way, its getting hard and harder to make a buck for most people. Our economic systems are getting more and more complex and encumbered by their own dysfunction. And consequent erosions of social and environmental systems compound the dysfunction.

The iceberg model

Sue Knight’s iceberg principle indicates that the behaviours we get (what people say and do) is determined by what is below the surface (purpose, identity, beliefs, values and capabilities). You can’t change behaviour sustainably without changing the sub-surface drivers. I have road-tested this model over the years with observation of human behaviour (including my own) and I find it it be very useful. The remainder of this blog is predicated on the iceberg as an excellent model of human behaviour. It is applied here not just for explaining individual behaviour, but also for the behaviour of collectives, such as corporates. If your not convinced, you can exit here or maybe comment on the validity of the model.

The fractured iceberg

Where sustainability behaviours artificially overlay a conventional culture of myopic profit pursuit, the iceberg is fractured. The old “beneath the surface factors” aren’t compatible with true sustainability and the resulting behaviours include green washing and reputation-mending. I suspect that even overlaying the more enlightened strategy of sustainability as a competitive advantage will not be truly sustainable until the sub-surface drivers change. Internal forces will continue to generate company behaviours compatible with the old drivers.

The sustainability iceberg and transformation of character

True sustainability will naturally emanate from below the surface sustainability drivers such as those in the diagram below. Motives of extraction and exploitation will be supplanted by those of contribution and service. (The examples of purpose, identity, values, beliefs and capabilities used here are arbitrary and could be replaced by others.)

The drivers that underpin sustainability will translate, over time, to the transformation of character. But can we change? We definitely can! For eons, humanity has been driven mostly by survival drives (see my blog on The End of Empires). When the survival drive is our default mode, more elevated and altruistic expressions of character, innate in humans, are suppressed.

As more of us begin to see that our ancient embedded drives are actually counter-productive, and compromising our survival, I believe we will refine our character and generate sustainability drivers for the benefit of our businesses and communities. An exciting prospect is the reinforcing nature of this virtuous cycle. As we improve character, a more sustainable environment is a more compatible ecosystem to work and live in. Over time, we learn that sustainability is in our self-interest. As we reach a tipping-point where these drivers become more common, there will be multiple unintended beneficial outcomes.

The evidence.

So does this sound too optimistic? I believe there is strong evidence to support this position. In the interests of brevity, here are two examples.

Jeremy Riftkin’s RSA Animate video anticipates “the empathic civilisation”. He argues that we are wired more for empathy than competition.

There is a rich vein of evidence that a more human focussed approach to running business generates better outcomes than older command and control models. A recent paper from the Maritz Institute posits that “Outdated beliefs about human action and interaction hold us in a transactional model of engagement.” Their paper links “the new normal” to a enlightened understanding of human drivers and interaction. These support better stakeholder engagement and (I would add) sustainability.

“A new framework for stakeholder engagement is needed … a framework anchored in the latest research relative to human drives and behavior. The goal of this framework is to create better business results that, at the same time, enrich stakeholders in ways that are most meaningful to them. It is about building a win-win proposition … Better Business. Better Lives”. (from The Game Has Changed, Maritz Institute)

Let me know if you think we are on the road to achieving this – or not.