Reinventing Fire – new book from Amory Lovins

This video introduces Amory Lovins new book. The leader of the Rocky Mountain Institute outlines how the U.S. can replace oil by 2050.

Here is a link to the Reinventing Fire website.

Take action for a sustainable tuna fishery

Greenpeace are spotlighting the destructive fishing practices in the Pacific tuna fishery. You can take action by adding your support here. Here is the video from that site.

Peter Bruce

LanzaTech to supply Virgin with low-carbon fuel

The New Zealand company LanzaTech have made a deal with Virgin Airlines to supply low-carbon jet fuel. The Lanzatech process recycles waste gasses from sources such as steel mill flues – gases that would have otherwise been a pollutant. There is potential for 60 billion litres of jet fuel to be produced from steel mills.  The potential reduction in Virgin’s carbon footprint is estimated at 50%. Here is a video of LanzaTech’s work in the steel industry.

Image credit: http://rhodylady.wordpress.com/tag/virgin-atlantic/

Excellent sustainability videos – the White Dog Cafe

Judy Wicks transformed her Philadelphia restaurant into a Community Food Enterprise. She has created multiple environmental and social good. Restaurant profits are sourced from local farms  – farmers are featured on some of the menus. From a simple start of looking for free range pork, her enterprise has snowballed into a huge range of sustainability projects.

Here is a link to another video with more info. Do you have a similar enterprise in your city?

Excellent sustainability videos: Willie Smit's rainforest

Willie Smits tells the inspiring story about how his organisation transformed an area of cleared land back to rainforest, sustaining both local communities and wild life, including orangutan. Willie Smits typifies a leader who is deeply moved by the tragedy caused by human activity, and how this motivation generates great vision and energy to do better. You can also watch this video at TED.

This video is especially inspiring as Willie Smits demonstrates how the climate is transformed when people take steps to re-establish forest cover.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeankern/257830958/lightbox/

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.

Sustainable dance club

This dance floor generates electricity from the energy of the dancers. Note the big red “charge indicator”. While it only generates a modest amount of power, it is another way of  demonstrating the greenfields of sustainability innovation, that is only limited by our imagination.

Sustainability pays!

Evidence is growing that sustainability initiatives are paying off. They are delivering dividends for society and the environment and improving the balance sheets of the companies driving these initiatives. Here are some examples:

Real Estate: Green Buildings

The green building market  in the U.S. grew 50% from 2008 to 2010, despite the recession according to McGraw-Hill Construction’s Green Outlook 2011. In 2010 they represented 25% of all new construction and are projected to reach $135 billion by 2015.

The three business benefits cited by building owners are:

• Reduction in operating costs of 13.6% on average for new buildings and 8.5% for retrofits;
• Increases in building values of 10.9% for new buildings and 6.8% for retrofits; and
• Increase in return on investment (ROI) of 9.9% for new buildings and 19.2% for retrofits.

According to a 2006 McGraw-Hill survey green buildings generate higher occupancy rates and rentals.

Meridian Energy’s new building in Wellington embodies many great ideas in resource efficiency and design.

Cars: fuel economy

The American automakers have finally woken up! In April 2011, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler released positive earning reports. Ford has had its best year in decades. The new Ford Fiesta is an example of a new generation of fuel-efficient cars hitting the market at the same time as a resurgence in petrol prices.

Cars: EVs

A range of electric vehicles have hit the market. Nissan’s Leaf (World Car of the Year, 2011) and GM’s Chevy Volt  went on sale in 2010. The number of plug-ins sold in the US topped 1,000 for March.

Green jobs

The solar foundation reports that an estimated 24,000 new jobs will be created in the solar energy sector in the United States in 2011.

The sustainability spending boom

The research firm Verdantix is predicting corporates will dramatically increase investment globally in sustainability initiatives in 2013.

The global sustainable business market will reach a tipping point in 2013, triggering rapid market expansion. Clean-tech innovators and entrepreneurs, and sustainability executives responsible for enterprise-wide strategies, need to understand the risks and opportunities generated by this expansion.

With the first EVs in production and more to come, proven investment value in green buildings, dramatic increases in investment in renewable energy projects, and anticipated dramatically increased sustainability investments – this decade may come to seen as the “green teens”.

Please comment and point us to other instances of the sustainability win-win.

 

Dichotomy busting

Engagement hasn’t been the default mode of communication. So it stands to reason that we need to re-evaluate how we communicate for engagement, and learn to use some new tools. Earlier posts looked at the communication spectrum and the shared meaning model. You can add dichotomy busting as a tool to surface the underlying thinking that will support or hamper engagement.

Dichotomies

Humans have this natural drive to create neural patterns. (See below for a cool YouTube video providing a great metaphor for creating neural patterns). Our primitive nature, for survival purposes, prompts us to categorise things – good/evil, friendly/hostile, in the box/outside the box, potential meal/might eat me. Sharp distinctions aid quick decisions and these dichotomies are useful for our survival. But for higher thinking, dichotomies are a mixed blessing.

In I Am Right You Are Wrong, Edward deBono illustrates how ideas can become polarised with an elegant metaphor. Imagine a drop of rain falling on the peak of a mountain range (such as the Andes). If the wind is blowing from the east, the raindrop will end up in the Pacific Ocean; if the wind blows from the west, it will traverse other lands and end up in the Atlantic. Dichotomies tend to polarise. Edward deBono claims that dualistic, right/wrong thinking, came from the ancient Greeks and today,plagues our institutions, public and private. It is embodied in our language and works well for argument and physical sciences, but no so good for engagement. The author then highlights the need for more flexibility in our thinking.

Our existing perceptions, concepts, models, and paradigms are a summary of our history. We can look at the world only through such a framework. If something new comes along we are unable to see it. Or, if we do see it, we see it as a mismatch with our older perception so we feel compelled to attack it. In any case we can judge it only through the old frame of reference (page 283).

Dichotomy busting

Our dichotomy buster is a quadrant, aided by questions of enquiry. Its is similar to polarity mapping, but I believe, simpler.

When a strong dichotomy exists, the positions can be seen as polarised on a continuum. Here the costs associated with engagement create the polarity. Engagement is seen as resource hungry and tight budget constraints position engagement as being an expense.

If we change the continuum to a quadrant, we open possibilities for increasing positions from two to at least four. Here is the same example below.

Notice that in the top right hand corner questions direct attention to finding synergy between what might have been conceived as polar opposites. And notice how this relates to the deBono quote above – we are impelled to look to new ideas for solutions.

But people are challenged by this. Recall the raindrop, travelling down one side of the Andes. As it travels it gravitates to deeper and deeper channels until it reaches the see. So it is with deeply patterned thinking. It is very easy to reach polarised conclusions.

…the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. –F Scott Fitzgerald

Using the dichotomy buster

If you use the dichotomy buster please let me know how it goes.

U.S. preparation for EVs gaining momentum

Ford recently released a list of the 25 cities in the U.S. most prepared for electric vehicles (EVs) as they come on to the market over the next 12 months. (Click here for the full article). Ford are also working with Best Buys to market home charging stations. There is some learning here for those interested in sustainability.

• Automotive giants like Ford and GM, previously on the verge of extinction through their love affair with gas guzzlers, have rediscovered their innovation instinct. The profit motive remains a powerful motivator that can support the drive to sustainability.
• The US has generally preferred for its corporates to lead the way towards sustainability, rather than legislate. That strategy may be paying off. Ultimately the path to sustainability is supported by both innovation and legislation.

As electric vehicles become more visible on city streets, we can imaging the interest in them will grow, and hopefully, happy owners will be promoting them. Nissan’s advertising is highlighting independence from foreign oil producers as a major advantage for EVs – so owning a EV becomes a patriotic act.

Living in New Zealand, I wonder how long it is going to take smaller nations to benefit from this technology?