Informal fruits - Forum for the Future

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greenfutures
No.91 January 2014
Informal
fruits
Valuing the
unofficial life
of cities
Includes
EnergyCulture
– our latest
Special Edition
Why family businesses have a head start in sustainability
India’s train odyssey to set entrepreneurs on the right track
Energy’s big shift towards a local, low-carbon system
greenfutures
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Editor
ANNA SIMPSON
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KATIE SHAW
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Assistant Editor
DUNCAN JEFFERIES
“The really important thing is not to reject anything”, the American
cultural theorist Susan Sontag wrote in an early diary. She was 16, partway
through a term at the University of California, and had just been offered a scholarship to
Chicago. “When I think”, she exclaims, “that I actually considered not accepting this new
experience! How disastrous (though I would never have known!) that would have been –”
We’ve all been there, in the gratification of the moment when we realise the value of
something we almost didn’t accept. So many things might have prevented us. There’s
the inevitable comfort of the familiar, the fear of the unknown – sometimes disguised
rather disdainfully as the assumption that whatever it is wouldn’t be worth the effort.
The thrill of knowing – after the event – that we were indeed right to push the boat
out is tinged by the fear that we so nearly didn’t: for a moment, we peer into the gulf
of what is and what might have been, and it churns the stomach like vertigo. Terrified,
Sontag determines to “begin by going out and grabbing at experience”.
It’s impossible to consume all the experiences on offer. The most positive choice is
always a rejection of some alternative. However much we value novelty, and aspire to
do things in new ways – to innovate – it takes a good deal of effort to keep spotting the
opportunities and make space for them in our lives. It means undoing habits that we
have perhaps carefully honed – for maximum efficiency as well as ease. Doing things
differently is a risk: it might take longer, cost more, and disrupt our plans and projections.
The cost of not doing so, though, could be disastrous – says Sontag, even if it’s a
quiet disaster that she envisions, one she may not even have noticed at the time.
It’s the anticipation of such a disaster that prompts the CEO of TA Corporation
Group, Neo Tiam Boon, to declare he will stay in post for no more than a decade. He’s
not worried about missing out himself: he is worried that the company – which he
currently stewards on behalf of his family – could miss out without a fresh perspective at
the helm [see ‘Family valued’, p16].
Similarly, it’s to build resilience in the face of disaster that the Informal City Dialogues
– a collaboration of Forum for the Future, Next City and The Rockefeller Foundation –
urges city officials to look outside the safe sphere of regulation, recognising the great
social, environmental and economic value of informal networks and services, whether
that’s fruit sellers in Bangkok, community-run food gardens in Manila, or garbage pickers
in Nairobi [see ‘The unofficial story’, p14].
And it’s to ward against a stagnant system that Greg Barker, the UK energy minister,
and Jonathon Porritt champion a new decentralised ‘energy culture’, led by the big
60,000 [see ‘An irrepressible sense of potential’, p20 and ‘Energy plus’, p21].
But fear is not the only impetus for innovation. Many of us also experience the desire
to learn and to grow through new adventures. Embracing this desire is both gratifying for
individuals, and can prompt the innovation we need to put our fundamental systems on
a more sustainable footing. Unleashing this momentum is a main theme in my new book,
‘The Brand Strategist’s Guide to Desire’, available to order from www.palgrave.com.
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1
Contents
Number 91, January 2014
26
6
12
16
19
8
14
37
42
Features
Energy Culture Special Edition
14 T
he unofficial story
In cities across the world, informal
networks are delivering essential services.
Ben Goldfarb uncovers their value.
20 A
n irrepressible sense of potential
Jonathon Porritt reports on the
growing momentum of community
energy in the UK.
16 F
amily valued
With their eye on the next generation,
family businesses could have a
head start in sustainability, finds
Anna Simpson.
21 E
nergy plus
Fiona Harvey examines the benefits of
renewable energy for communities.
30 T
raining for success
An 8,000km Indian train odyssey is
equipping young entrepreneurs with
the skills to succeed in social business,
says Charukesi Ramadurai.
2
22 R
ise of the energy citizens
New business models are transforming
the prospects for community energy
and revitalising support for renewables.
Martin Wright reports.
24 Energy’s big shift
The path towards a localised,
low-carbon energy system.
26 Tech talk
ICT is set to be a big player in distributed
energy, says Will Simpson.
28 Farm power
Farms and rural communities are
providing fertile land for growing
renewables, as Tess Riley discovers.
Briefings
Regulars
Partner viewpoints
The latest in green innovation, including:
35 Sally Uren
Three reasons to see brands are a
sustainability solution
37 Light freight?
Shipping on course for energy
efficiency savings
Sustainable Shipping Initiative
4 Wind-powered water
A desalination plant with a difference
6 Solar-rich state
Dubai moves forward on renewables
36 Tomorrow’s leaders
Ros Leeming, Parliament Manager,
International Fund for Animal Welfare
38 Catching them young
Children learn about sustainable fishing
Marine Stewardship Council
42 T
he Green Futures interview
Marlys Appleton, President and founder
of Avtaar America, Founder-Director of
Avtaar Management Solutions
39 Going local
Investigating distributed business models
Ecover
10 Riding Le Tube
Cycling goes underground in Lyon
47 Feedback
Readers respond online, in print and
in tweets
40 Asia’s edge
Looking east to stay ahead
WWF-UK
12 Hacking the future
Top five solutions from ‘hackathons’
around the world
48 Jonathon Porritt
Escaping the ideological standoff
between ‘precaution’ and ‘innovation’
41 A good read
Making a sustainable book
Arjowiggins Graphic, Pureprint Group
7 Water fight
The rise of superhydrophobic materials
8 Natural filters
Carbon-scrubber mimics birds and fish
3
Briefings
China sunrise
China’s installed solar capacity predicted to more than double in 2014
Over the course of 2014, China expects
to install a record 12GW of solar power,
according to a report by the Chinese
Bureau of Energy. That’s more than twice
the amount (5GW) solar market research
and analysis firm NPD Solarbuzz expects
to see installed by the US over the same
period. Nevertheless, if the projections are
correct both countries will still end up more
than doubling their installed capacity to
date: by the end of 2013, China’s installed
capacity was approaching 9GW, compared
to 4.2GW in the US.
According to data from the World
Resources Institute, approximately 95% of
China’s current solar revenue comes from
exports. However, increasing domestic
demand is beginning to shift the focus
of China’s solar industry away from
international distribution.
As Nathaniel Bullard, Director of
Content at Bloomberg New Energy
Finance, puts it, “We are seeing a rotation
towards domestic Chinese and Japanese
demand as drivers of the industry.”
Low manufacturing costs, government
Wind-powered water
A desalination plant with a difference in Dafeng
China’s first wind-powered desalination
plant will go into service before the end
of the year, providing 10,000 tons of fresh
water a day to the coastal city of Dafeng,
300km north of Shanghai.
The plant is expected to supply bottled
water as well as feed nearby industrial
complexes at the port, and will be powered
the country’s waterways showed that, of the
more than 50,000 rivers with catchments of
100 square kilometres counted in the 1950s,
little more than 27,000 still exist. Most of
these waterways, the research concluded,
had been subject to over-exploitation by
farms or factories.
While northern China has struggled
with water scarcity and desertification
for centuries, in recent years attention
has shifted to coastal cities where rapid
urbanisation has taken a heavy toll on
water demand.
According to the UN, coastal urban
conurbations – which now hold 40% of the
population and contribute some 60% of the
GDP – have a per capita water resource of
less than 500m3 per year; the level defined
as ‘extremely scarce’ by the world body.
China is not alone in looking to
renewable energy for long-term water
security. Saudi Arabia is the largest
producer of desalinated water in the world,
accounting for at least 17% of total world
output, but, according to the World Bank, it
burns the equivalent of 1.5 million barrels of
crude oil a day to produce this fresh water.
Saudi Arabia plans to invest $11 billion to
2020 as part of the King Abdullah Initiative
for Solar Desalination, which aims to
gradually convert all desalination plants
to solar power, using reverse osmosis.
– Peter Shadbolt
The opening of Dubai’s 13MW solar (PV)
plant in October 2013, the biggest to
date in the region, marks the first step
of the second largest state in the oil and
gas-rich United Arab Emirates in plans to
generate 5% of the country’s electricity from
renewable sources by 2030.
The plant is the first move under the
Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030
plan to diversify away from oil and gas
towards more renewables, clean coal and
nuclear. The plan includes the creation
4
of a giant 40 square kilometre solar park
containing both PV and thermal that will
eventually have a capacity of 1GW –
although even then gas will still account for
71% of the nation’s energy.
The first $35 million, 13MW solar PV
plant is designed to generate 24 million
kilowatt-hours of electricity and will
displace some 15,000 tonnes of carbon
dioxide emissions a year, according to
developer First Solar.
It is the first time that OPEC member
Photo: Ablestock.com/Thinkstock
Reflecting on energy security?
Source: ‘Taking off the stabilisers’, The Economist, 12 October 2013
sector’s prospects. “The cost of solar
modules is decreasing and will continue
to decrease,” she says. “In a few years,
solar will reach grid-parity, thereby realising
large-scale deployment.”
Changhua Wu, Greater China
Director for the Climate Group in Beijing,
agrees that “with the technology and the
government initiatives, now is the time for
solar”. – Josh Bateman
Dubai moves forward on renewable energy targets
350,000
The number of bicycles in sharing schemes in
China alone. Asia has the largest number of shared
bicycles in the world.
Domestic demand
looks skyward
Solar-rich state
Photos: gjp311/iStockphoto/Thinkstock; First Solar
Blowing the salt out of the water
by a large-scale 2.5MW wind turbine
producing the 40,000kWh of electricity
required each day to power it. This is part
of an ambitious programme under the 12th
Five Year Plan announced in February 2013
to quadruple the production of desalted
water by 2020.
While detailed polices for China’s
desalination industry have yet to be
confirmed, it’s expected that desalinated
water producers will benefit from a special
Government fund earmarked for the
renewable energy industry.
China currently produces 180 million
gallons of fresh water through desalination
every day, with almost 60 conventional
plants, but the Government aims to boost
this to 800 million gallons a day with
the construction of nearly a dozen new
200,000-ton-a-day plants.
Despite its commitment to desalination,
analysts believe that plants like the one in
Dafeng are merely a drop in the bucket in
the context of China’s water problems. Of
its 668 cities, 400 suffer water stress.
“I don’t think it’s very scalable”, said
Simon Powell, Head of Sustainable Research
at the Chinese investment group CLSA in
Hong Kong. “On my numbers, an industrial
desalination plant needs 500MW to 1GW of
power – that’s a lot of wind turbines.”
Meanwhile, China’s accelerated rate of
aridity is causing alarm. A recent survey of
initiatives and technological advancements
are enabling industry growth in China.
Beijing-based Sherry Zhang, a research
analyst at The China Greentech Initiative,
observes that China is acquiring
technological expertise in solar: “Most
of China’s manufacturers strategically go
out and purchase leading technologies in
the world, or through partnerships in joint
ventures.” She also expects to see more
industry consolidation. “Right now, there
are more than 500 companies in the solar
space. In the future, you will see fewer solar
players, but with stronger capabilities.”
However, there are challenges ahead.
If supply continues to exceed demand, as
has been the case recently, companies
will face solvency issues; this will temper
the long-term development of the industry
domestically. An oversupply will also
create problems for the industry globally,
particularly in countries with higher labour
and production costs that lack the flexibility
to lower their pricing strategies accordingly.
Even taking into account these
challenges, Zhang is bullish about the
Dubai, sitting on 6%, or some 4 billion
barrels, of the world’s oil reserves has set
out to harness the power of the Middle
Eastern sun.
But solar panel prices are plummeting,
due in large part to China’s massive
expansion of its solar PV manufacturing
industry, making the plant much cheaper
than it would have been even a few years
ago. Moreover, it is part of Dubai’s strategy
to reduce demand for gas for domestic
power generation, with electricity demand
set to rise by 5% a year.
International friction with Dubai’s
neighbour Iran has eased somewhat after
the recent elections and talks in Geneva
over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions that had
foreign ministers from the US and Europe
suddenly rushing to Switzerland in the hope
of a breakthrough.
But tensions remain high in the region,
with Egypt back under military rule, no end
in sight to the Syrian civil war and renewed
violence in Iraq. That so-called geopolitical
risk has made the price of oil see-saw,
making diversification attractive for oil-rich
Dubai. – Jeremy Lovell
5
Testing the water
Water fight
Singapore launches tidal turbines and a micro grid test-bed
Superhydrophobic materials could boost efficiency
about enough to power 70 fluorescent light
bulbs.
Currently, Singapore gets about 80%
of its electricity from imported gas. It has
steadily been switching to gas from fuel oil
under the Singapore Green Plan, first drawn
up in 1992, which aims to promote greater
environmental sustainability with targets for
air quality, energy efficiency, water, waste,
health and nature.
The Government claims that many
of the initial targets set – such as raising
carbon intensity by 25% from 1990 levels
by 2012 – have already been met. It has
now issued more ambitious goals for 2030,
including reducing the amount of energy
used per dollar of gross domestic product
Guauging the potential for PV and biofuels
MIT scientists have dramatically
reduced the time it takes for water droplets
to rebound from superhydrophobic
materials (water-shedding surfaces).
Specially designed macroscopic ridges
cause water droplets to split and recoil
from the surface, reducing contact times
by up to 40% compared with other
hydrophobic materials. The research team
believes this could help to prevent the
build-up of ice on aeroplane wings and
water on turbine blades.
“If you can make the blades stay dry
longer, you get a bump up in efficiency”,
says Kripa Varanasi, the Doherty Associate
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at
MIT, who co-authored a paper on the
findings for Nature.
The self-cleaning, non-corrosive
and non-rusting characteristics of
superhydrophobic materials could also
keep structures in pristine conditions for
greater lengths of time, without the need
for environmentally detrimental materials
such as detergents or tin and copperbased anti-fouling paint.
by 20% by 2020 and 35% by 2030, from
2005 levels.
But it also admits that its scope for
renewable power is limited. It has no hydro
or geothermal power sources, low wind
speeds and limited scope for solar, so every
little bit helps.
“Singapore has undertaken continual
and a diverse range of efforts to explore all
energy options and to enhance our energy
security”, said S Iswaran, a Minister for
Home Affairs, Trade and Industry, speaking
at the inauguration ceremony for the Pulau
Ubin test bed. “As part of that effort, this
micro-grid test-bed will help us assess the
reliability of renewable energy sources …
[and] to better understand how intermittent
energy sources can be integrated into our
energy system and electricity market without
compromising overall grid stability.”
The micro-grid incorporates biodiesel
from recycled cooking fuel, supplied by Alpha
Biofuels, and solar photovoltaics (PV). In the
past the island’s tiny population, numbering
less than 100 people, have mainly got their
power from diesel generators.
Solar energy is one of the more promising
renewable energy sources for Singapore,
and the costs of the technology are coming
down. However, notes Iswaran, challenges
include limited land area for solar farms and
cloud cover. The Housing and Development
Board is testing PV in housing estates, and
recently launched its largest solar-leasing
tender to date for a company to own and
operate solar panels, producing up to
5MWp, on some 125 blocks in Ang Mo Kio,
Sengkang, Serangoon North and Buangkok.
– Jeremy Lovell
6
Photos: Anna Simpson
Source: www.vision2020.info
Smooth sailing: new materials
could reduce drag on hulls
infectious diseases: the self-cleaning nature
of hydrophobic materials means that water
does not remain on them long enough to
stagnate. Such superhydrophobic materials
could potentially benefit millions of lives,
including those of the most marginalised.
Varanasi’s team are confident that
contact times can be further reduced for
their superhydrophobic material by refining
the surface textures. “I hope we can
manage to get a 70 - 80% reduction”,
he says. – John Duffy
Recycling robot reduces waste concrete and water
£17 billion
The amount the UK economy could save per year
by 2020 through the reduction of food wasted by
households, businesses and the public sector.
Professor Ivan Parkin, Materials and
Inorganic Chemistry Professor at UCL,
believes they have the potential to be
used in a wide range of applications.
“They could be used in a new generation
of self-cleaning paints, in water transport
by reducing friction in pipes and, in the
longer term, in superhydrophobic hulls for
ships, which would reduce drag and the
energy required for transportation.”
Presently, the largest obstacle facing
the technology is maintaining the strength
of the material. The nano-sized rough
surfaces needed to repel the water are
easily destroyed by even small amounts
of abrasion. Despite this shortcoming, the
technology has already begun to appear on
the consumer market, with companies such
as NeverWet producing superhydrophobic
sprays.
Once perfected, the technology could
theoretically be applied to countless
objects and processes. It might also lead
to improvements in desalination and
hygiene by providing cheap, clean drinking
water and reducing the transmission of
Concrete progress
Photos: aragami123345/iStockphoto/Thinkstock; ERO
Singapore, Asia’s leading oil trading and
refining hub whose main energy source
is imported natural gas, is testing a range
of renewables with a view to enhancing
its energy security. In October 2013 it
launched a renewable energy test bed
on the tiny island of Pulau Ubin. Then, in
early November, it installed two small tidal
turbines to sound out the potential for tidal
energy in the low currents around its shores.
The two prototype low-flow turbines,
stationed between Singapore’s main island
and the offshore Sentosa resort, will indicate
the value of developing larger ones. Their
current capacity is so small that, even if
everything goes according to plan, they will
only generate 1kW per hour of electricity –
Ever wondered where waste concrete
ends up? A student at Sweden’s Umeå
Institute of Design, Omer Haciomeroglu,
has: his ERO Concrete Recycling Robot
design [pictured] aims to recycle concrete
without producing the waste associated
with current crushing machines and
hydrodemolition systems.
In Europe, the US and Japan alone,
over 900 million tonnes of concrete is
wasted every year. The ERO concept
uses water jets to crack the concrete
surface of buildings and ‘peel’ it off, which
avoids damaging the rebar (steel used to
reinforce concrete structures). Concrete
that would otherwise end up in landfills
is then sucked up and separated from
dust and rebar, before being repackaged
on site for use in new pre-fabricated
buildings. The robot can even scan its
surroundings and determine the best route
for carrying out the operation.
Although other hydrodemolition
systems already exist, none claim to be
able to recycle the huge amount of water
necessary for the process. However, the
majority of the water used by the ERO
robot would be separated from solids via a
centrifugal decanter and used to clean the
rebar of dust and rust, ensuring that very
little of it is wasted.
As Haciomeroglu puts it, “This is
meant to be a provocative alternative
that would turn the heads of investors
and contractors towards truly sustainable
concepts.” This new approach to concrete
recycling could also pave the way for
more efficient business. “I could buy the
aggregate and rebar from your concrete
building before you even deconstruct it,
which creates a whole new range of future
business opportunities.”
Haciomeroglu has taken steps to
ensure the design is feasible, carrying out
extensive research into the background
of concrete recycling. Interviews with
experts in the field in several international
locations, as well as consultations with
mechanical engineers, have helped to
ensure the project is realistic in its aims.
Concrete production already accounts
for 5% of annual anthropogenic global
CO2 emissions (those produced by
human activities), and, by 2050, concrete
production is set to be four times the
1990 level. As Jonathon Porritt, FounderDirector of Forum for the Future, has
pointed out, “sustainability doesn’t
get much tougher than in concrete”.
Therefore, innovative designs and
concepts like the ERO robot could have a
drastic impact on the way we use, and reuse, concrete in the future. – Alex Fenton
7
Natural filters
Energetic workout
Filtering efficiency could
soar for carbon capture
CO2-scrubbing solution mimics bird and fish biology
The lungs of birds and the swim bladders
of fish are the inspiration behind a new
microvascular filtering system for removing
carbon dioxide from the exhaust fumes of
electric power stations.
Existing carbon dioxide scrubbing
solutions rely on considerable amounts of
expensive packing, often running down
towers of up to 30m in height to ensure
a large-surface area for carbon dioxide
exchange. The new solution – a gas
exchange system made up of small tubes
that work in a similar way to blood vessels –
draws upon the biological attributes of avian
lungs, which have an extremely efficient gas
exchange system to support the oxygen
requirements of energy-intensive flights. Fish,
on the other hand, require precise control
over the pressure in their swim bladders to
adjust their buoyancy and move up or down
in the water column, a technique which the
solution also employs.
“Biological systems [have] spent an
incredible amount of time and effort moving
towards optimisation”, says lead researcher
Aaron Esser-Kahn, from the University of
California Irvine. “We’re trying to learn
from nature.”
The research team’s model involves
the use of alternating, micro-sized tubes
made of porous materials for efficient gas
exchange. One tube would carry waste
fumes, the other a carbon dioxide absorbing
liquid. The greenhouse gas would pass
between the tubes and be transported
away for appropriate disposal. For optimum
effectiveness, the tubes must have the
largest amount of surface area possible for
exchanging gas.
Using computer simulations, the team
was able to calculate the effectiveness of
the nine possible packing solutions for the
gas exchange tubes. Both the hexagonal
pattern used by birds and the square pattern
from fish swim bladders were very efficient.
However, the most effective pattern – two
small tubes alternating with each large tube –
is not found in nature. Pilot tests show that it
is 50% more efficient than the bird lung and
swim bladder alternatives.
Roger Aines, a researcher from the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
UK gym converts workout energy into building power
A health club in Bristol has installed new
equipment that harnesses the energy
produced during workouts, feeding 100W
per hour back into the building’s power
supply. The 42 cross-trainers, bikes and
treadmills at Cadbury House Club, in
Congresbury, are all self-powered: the
user’s energy is converted into electricity,
with any surplus channelled into the gym’s
power supply.
It’s one of the first gyms in the world to
install the ARTIS Technogym machines, at
a cost of £600,000. Technogym claims its
ARTIS line is the most energy efficient on
the market, with its treadmills consuming
30% less energy than comparable models.
Users can also connect their smartphones
to the machines to access their individual
training programs.
Jason Eaton, general manager of the
health club, says spiralling energy prices
were one of the main reasons for installing
the new machines. “In order to avoid
having to pass on these increased costs
to our members, and keep their fees at a
reasonable level, we decided to invest in
the Technogym equipment. It’s a win-win
situation really.”
At the moment, the surplus energy
produced by the machines flows is
unmetered, making it difficult to tell exactly
how much energy is being fed back into the
building, and any resulting cost savings.
However, Technogym plans to install
software that will provide a breakdown of
input and output energy for each of the
machines in the near future. “This kind of
technology is new to the industry, so we’re
still experimenting with it at the moment”,
says Eaton.
However, Dr Tzern Toh, a research
associate in electrical engineering at
Imperial College, London, is concerned
that the cost of retrofitting a gym or
installing such equipment can also
calls the work by the Esser-Kahn group “an
exciting development” for carbon dioxide
capture systems. “Creating surface area is
the biggest problem in capturing carbon
dioxide”, he says. “There is an enormous
amount of gas to be transferred, and it is
just too slow if you can’t use a lot of transfer
surface – just like a bird’s lung.”
The researchers are now looking for
ways to improve the efficiency of their carbon
capture units by modifying the sizes and wall
thickness of the membrane tubes. It may also
be possible to modify the filter design to work
with other applications, such as car exhaust
pipes. – Ian Randall
Counting the cost
Companies are failing to understand the
impact operations and supply chains are
having on their environmental costs. This is
the verdict of the Cambridge Natural Capital
Leaders Platform (CNCLP), which has
devised an online toolkit to make it easier for
companies to measure and report their use
of natural capital.
Whereas environmental profit and loss
balance sheets, first used by Puma in 2011,
help to identify environmental challenges
– such as soil health, or the availability of
fresh water – they fall down on informing
companies about the scale of their impact
and any associated risks. The E.Valu.A.Te
toolkit aims to fill this gap.
8
The CNCLP say that the solutions
E.Valu.A.Te can prompt are beneficial to
both the environment, the future of the
business, and current stakeholders. “It
[information on natural capital costs] can
improve decision-making, stabilise supply
chains, save costs, capture new revenue
streams and inform strategy”, says Eve
Zabey, Natural Capital Manager at the
World Business Council for Sustainable
Development. “But knowing what to
measure, manage and report is far from
straight-forward.”
By helping companies to review and
rethink strategies, E.Valu.A.Te could at
least bring a standardised methodology to
natural capital accounting, and encourage
companies to manage the ecosystems
and raw materials they are trading on more
responsibly. The alternative, as Liz Murray,
Head of Scottish Campaigns and Policy
at the World Development Movement,
puts it, “brings the complex processes
of ecosystems into the market place and
leaves them subjected to financial markets”.
– Rich McEachran
Photo: Thinkstock
Getting the measure of natural capital
Launched in November 2013 by the
University of Cambridge Programme for
Sustainability Leadership, in partnership
with companies like Mars, Nestlé and
SABMiller, the toolkit takes the form of an
interactive practical guide. Companies are
given scenarios and – using details about
their current operations – can find out how
costs related to greenhouse gas emissions,
for instance, or water consumption can be
reduced.
The scenarios work by comparing a
‘business case’ with a ‘counterfactual’ use
of natural resources. This allows businesses
to assess different management options and
the net impact of their activities, relative to
an alternative strategy – the impact of the
introduction of a new crop or seed variety,
for example, or moving from handpicking
to mechanical harvesting. Counterfactual
scenarios can also include a forest or other
natural habitat prior to its conversation into
agricultural land, allowing the company to
see what kind of eco-system the site would
have supported had the conversion not
taken place.
Photos: Purestock/Thinkstock; Erika Mitchell/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
New toolkit reveals companies’ natural capital impacts
outweigh the benefits. “The price of
electricity is many times less than the cost
of the equipment and it may take months
or years of electricity savings to recoup
the investment.”
But Ben Ross, a senior advisor in
sustainable energy at Forum for the Future
and a Director of Bristol Green Doors CIC,
counters: “Successful businesses plan
for the long term, and with energy costs
predicted to rise for the next 17 years
there’s a real business case to invest
sooner rather than later.”
Moreover, says Ross, this is an
exciting opportunity to reconnect people
with energy, and create further financial
incentives to improve their health: “Once
you’ve got your smart phone plugged in
and the meters wired to record the energy
you generate, you could receive discounts
from your membership bill for the electricity
you plug back into the system!”
Nevertheless, for gyms that do not use
substantial amounts of energy for other
purposes, such as air-conditioning, it may
soon be possible for such equipment to
power the gym when it is in use.
Since 2008, The Great Outdoor Gym
Company (TGO) has been pursuing a
similar idea, installing electricity-generating
outdoor gyms at nearly 400 sites. Although
each piece of its equipment can generate
up to 700W, at a normal workout the
average user produces between 50W
and 100W. TGO claims a typical set of
equipment should generate 1kWh of
energy per day, depending on use.
Installations of TGO’s Green Heart
outdoor gym, which generates electricity
that is used in LED lighting, or is fed back
into local buildings and the National Grid,
are being rolled out across the UK following
a pilot in Hull last year. The company has
also fitted Sir George Monoux Sixth Form
College in Walthamstow with equipment
that charges students’ phones while it is
being used, and sends surplus energy back
into the school. – Koray Yilmaz
Power walking:
gym members’ energy
“The smallest actions can lead to the
biggest changes, and the smallest people
can make the biggest changes”
Maya Penn, the 13-year-old CEO of Maya’s Ideas, an eco-friendly clothing and accessories company.
9
Riding Le Tube
Off-the-shelf PV
Cycling goes underground in style in Lyon
IKEA rolls-out affordable solar panel package to UK stores
Cycle-friendly innovation is back in style
in Lyon. France’s second city’s Vélo’v
bikeshare scheme blazed the trail for Vélib
in Paris, London’s ‘Boris bikes’ and a host
A different sort of hill view
of other public cycle hire initiatives. Now
Le Tube, a new tunnel, gives cyclists,
pedestrians and buses their own 2km carfree route beneath the hilly Croix-Rousse.
This is no dark, drab or dingy
underpass: far from it. Le Tube is a
kind of continuous art experience, with
sound effects and projected images
combining to create a fantasy realm
of light. It accommodates three lanes
of traffic – a two-way cycle track and
sidewalk for pedestrians, as well as a
bus lane separated from foot and bike
traffic. However, its green sheen is slightly
tarnished by exhaust from diesel buses,
with potential hybrid replacements still
only at the trial stage.
The ancillary tunnel that has been
developed into Le Tube had to be built
due to regulations introduced after the
1999 Mont Blanc tunnel fire; the Croix
Rousse road tunnel, which runs parallel,
was opened in 1952 and didn’t meet
with the new safety requirements. The
Greater Lyon area had the option to build
a tube which would serve solely as an
escape route from the existing tunnel,
but decided to see it as an opportunity to
create an innovative new piece of urban
infrastructure. It claims it is the longest
tunnel in the world dedicated to ‘soft’
modes of transport.
Le Tube cost a total of €282.8 million
to build, and was opened to the public on
5 December 2013. “This is a world first,
and just like with the Festival of Lights
[a long-standing annual event, also held
in December], we will soon be imitated”,
Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb told the
assembled French media.
It’s not quite the first tunnel of its kind,
however: the Tyne Cyclist and Pedestrian
Tunnel, which runs for 270m under the
River Tyne, opened in 1951. Now Grade
II-listed, it’s closed for refurbishment
until August 2014, so cyclists seeking an
underground ride better head to Lyon for
the time being. – Roger East
IKEA is now offering off-the-shelf solar
power packages to UK consumers, in
a move that could help to mainstream
domestic solar power systems. It is the
first major retailer to offer a comprehensive
home photovoltaic (PV) installation service,
having teamed up with Hanergy, a thin-film
PV supplier, to produce the package.
According to Giles Bristow, Head of
Energy at Forum for the Future, “Schemes
such as this have the promise to significantly
reduce the upfront costs to UK homeowners
and make these technologies so much more
accessible. Purely by virtue of IKEA offering
this bundle in their stores, consumers will
see that this technology is ready for the
mainstream and available to almost everyone
with a well-sited roof (and the ability to follow
the flat-pack instructions).”
Will Ikea make roof panels mainstream?
Underground heating
10
emissions by 2025, and Islington Council
expects the scheme to reduce emissions by
500 tonnes a year. According to Huggins,
research by the Trust “has shown that for [a
majority] of industrial processes recovering
waste heat can reduce sector-level carbon
emissions by between 3-7%”. He says that
“each year between 10-40TWh is lost from
industrial processes alone [and] to put that
into context 40TWh is roughly what the entire
food, drink and tobacco manufacturing
industries in this country uses annually”.
He believes emissions could be reduced
by 750,000 tonnes a year, a process that further
schemes to capture excess heat would help to
speed along. – Rich McEachran
Feeling the heat in more ways than one
that is generated, for a payback period of
roughly seven years.
Research conducted by IKEA suggests
the barriers in the solar power mass
market have included high initial costs,
misconceptions about payback periods,
confusion of technical terms and options,
and concerns over aesthetics – all of which
IKEA claim to address. Hanergy have
introduced “the next generation all-black”
solar panels to give consumers more
choice over their roof’s new look.
Joanna Yarrow, Head of Sustainability,
IKEA UK and Ireland, sees the scheme as
part of IKEA’s ambition to make a more
sustainable way of life attractive and easy
for as many people as possible: “We’re
excited to be able to help customers take
positive actions at home for both the
environment and their wallets. We know that
our customers want to live more sustainably
and we hope working with Hanergy to make
solar panels affordable and easily available
helps them do just that.”
The company ran a successful trial in
their Lakeside store in July 2013, which now
sells on average one PV package a day.
Consequently, the scheme was rolled out in
their Southampton store on 3 October, with
plans for it to become available in all 17 of
their UK stores by August.
A similar scheme by Better Planet
Solar PV Installations provides domestic
installations that range from 2kWp to
4kWp, priced from £5,999. Other highstreet retailers such as B&Q and Tesco
currently only offer solar heating panels,
which are more limited in scope and do
not provide access to Feed-in tariffs.
– Sejal Patel
138
The number of countries to have defined
renewable energy targets, up from 118 in 2012.
Supporting policies are in place in 127 countries, of which
two-thirds are developing and emerging economies.
Photos: Ikea
improve the efficiency of boilers, heat
pumps and [other] equipment”, explains
Paul Huggins, Associate Director of The
Carbon Trust.
Similar projects have been launched on
a smaller scale in Stockholm and Paris. The
latter saw heat transferred via a staircase;
Paris Habitat, the social housing organisation
behind it, said that the project wouldn’t have
been possible if it weren’t for this feature,
as it would have been too costly to build
passages to convey the heat from the metro
to the 17 flats. The London scheme provides
a further indication that the technology can
be replicated successfully.
The city hopes to see a 60% drop in CO2
Photos: Clement Saunier/Flickr; ultraforma/iStockphoto
Warming homes with excess heat from London’s Tube
A journey on the London Underground is
hot and sticky at the best of times. Now, a
waste heat recovery scheme hopes to make
it worth the sweat by finding good homes for
all excess warmth.
The unnamed scheme – which has
received £2.7 million funding from Islington
Council and a further £1 million from the
European Union – will capture excess heat
from a vent at a Northern line station. From
there it will be piped into the council’s
Bunhill Heat and Power Centre, which
already captures secondary heat generated
by a local power station, using it to warm
700 homes in the borough. The added heat
from the Underground will provide warmth
for a further 500 properties.
The project is part of CELSIUS, an EUwide initiative dedicated to implementing
practical solutions to smart city heating
and cooling. By putting a low-cost and
readily available source of heat to good
use, the scheme offers a smart response to
rising energy price rises and brings a fresh
perspective to the growing debate around
how best to tackle fuel poverty as winter sets
in. “Recovering waste heat and using it to
warm incoming air or water can significantly
For a typical semi-detached house,
a standard 3.36kW PV system will cost
members of IKEA’s free-to-join loyalty
scheme, Family Members, £5,700 –
considerably less than the £7,000 average
price-tag for solar PV systems, according to
Which? estimates.
The price includes an in-store
consultation and design service, as well
as installation, maintenance and ongoing
energy monitoring to measure the individual
home’s energy generation and consumption.
The panels will be fitted by Microgeneration
Certification Scheme installers – a prerequisite for customers to be able to
benefit from Feed-in Tariffs. The average
semi-detached householder could earn
up to £768 a year from the combination of
reduced bills and being paid for the energy
Source: ‘Renewables 2013 Global Status Report’, www.ren21.net
11
Butt-free streets
awareness”. Though it didn’t win any
prize money at the Boston Cleanweb
Hackathon in May, CrowdComfort was
awarded the judges’ ‘Most polished pick’
award. EnerNOC, who hosted the event,
also invited CrowdComfort to share its
offices, and are now using its data to
reduce the energy usage of buildings.
In addition, CrowdComfort joined the
cleantech incubator company North Shore
InnoVentures (NSIV) last October, meaning
it will benefit from the $60,000 grant NSIV
recently received from the Massachusetts
Clean Energy Centre.
Vancouver recycling scheme reduces toxic cigarette waste
Cigarette butts are ripe for criticism: they
are non-biodegradable, toxic and they
litter streets – not to mention the severe
health impacts of smoking in the first place.
The City of Vancouver and international
recycling company Terracycle have taken
up the challenge of minimising the problem
with an innovative pilot programme.
As part of Vancouver’s ambitious
green goals, the Cigarette Waste Brigade
has installed 110 recycling receptacles on
several blocks across downtown areas of
the city, with the aim of reducing the level
of butt litter – with environmental benefits.
Not only is it keeping butts off the
streets, but also out of landfill. Once
collected from the receptacles, the toxic
waste is recycled. Cellulose acetate
extracted from filters is melted down
for use in the production of industrial
plastics – a process that reduces leakage
of toxic chemicals into water streams,
and offers a low-carbon alternative to
fossil fuel-based polymers. Terracycle,
which is funding the project, also sells
recycled plastics to supermarkets. Any
tobacco remnants are composted.
The programme wants to make
cigarette waste easy to collect and recycle
and have a wider environmental impact by
closing the recycling loop. Its success will
depend on encouraging smokers to use
the receptacles and educating them about
the effect discarded butts have on the
environment.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from
the public that they want more efforts to
reduce litter…especially cigarette butts”,
says Sadhu Johnston, Vancouver’s Deputy
City Manager. “Social media [reaction] and
media coverage has been very positive.”
Is this the most effective approach to
tackling butt litter? Of course, the best way
to reduce the number of butts dropped in
public would be to prevent people from
starting to smoke in the first place, and
help others to quit. Yet it’s impossible to
stop everyone from smoking overnight,
prompts a spokesperson for the David
Suzuki Foundation, a science-based
environmental organisation which maintains
that efforts are needed to address the litter
problem in sustainable ways.
John Merzetti, organiser of the West
End Clean-up project, a Vancouver-based
group whose ‘butt buyback’ scheme
inspired the pilot programme, says that it
is a positive step forward. In addition, he
urges that ‘no smoking’ and littering bylaws continue to be enforced.
If the programme is a success,
Terracycle will look into replicating it
globally. – Rich McEachran
2 Recycling Monster is a recycling bin
with a twist. A hidden microphone allows it
to listen to the sounds items make as they
are dropped into the receptacle, and alerts
2
Top five solutions from sustainability ‘hackathons’
Hackathons – in which software enthusiasts
gather in one place to delve into data and
develop social, environmental and public
health solutions – are now more popular
than ever. Around 1,000 sustainability
professionals attended the recent BSR
Sustainability Hackathon in San Francisco,
for example, to hear the ideas pitched by
competing teams. These events benefit from
the increasing amount of data now available.
For instance, the European Commission
recently announced that it will provide open
access to environmental data collected by
Copernicus, Europe’s Earth Observation
System. Such data can provide the impetus
12
not only for sustainable solutions but also
for enterprise. As one judge at a Chicago
Hackathon stated, “Hackathons are a good
reminder that mining public data can lead to
great businesses.”
Here are five of the top solutions to come
out of recent hackathons:
data collected can be used to identify where
energy is being wasted. Co-founder Galen
Nelson describes the app as “a gateway
drug to hook people on energy consumption
1
1 CrowdComfort, the world’s first
crowdsourced thermostat to be developed
into an app is now freely available on
iTunes. It allows building residents, workers
or visitors to report real-time, site-specific
comfort levels (temperature wise), and the
Photos: Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock; Abbie Images/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Hacking the future
Photos: omada/iStockphoto/Thinkstock; Stockbyte/Comstock Images/Thinkstock; Stockbyte/Thinkstock; TongRo Images/Thinkstock
Vancouver highlights the
environmental impact of
discarded butts
people when they have deposited something
which is not recyclable. The Recyclebots
team said during a presentation on the device
that their the aim is to “slightly embarrass
the user, but all in good fun, to educate
them on the right habits”. The idea was
awarded £1,000 for coming in first place at
the Singapore Clean & Green Hackathon last
November, and a further £5,000 for winning
the Starhub challenge, which grants the team
a Samsung mentorship and development
package. At present the project is still in its
infancy, but thanks to the funding it has now
received it should become a marketable
product within the next year. Recyclebots are
also working on an accompanying website
which will offer further recycling tips.
3 EV Ping is an app for electric vehicle
(EV) drivers, which allows them to easily
communicate with other EV owners using
Quick Response (QR) codes on their
dashboards, which can be scanned by
smart phones. This should make the lives
of electric motorists less stressful by letting
them determine whether they should wait
in the queue or find another station. It also
removes the need to constantly check station
availability, asking owners charging their
cars to ‘Text me when done’ or tell other EV
drivers how long they’re going to be. This
allows the app to create a queuing system
and suggest other nearby charging points
if users don’t want to wait. The hack won
the $1,000 first prize at the Hacker League
Sustainability Hackathon, which took place
3
in California last April, and the resulting
app has now gone live. The business is
also expanding thanks to its ‘launch, grow,
mature’ business model, although at present
the app is only available in the US.
4 BikeMe, created during the Great Beijing
Cleanweb Hackathon held in July 2013, uses
data recently released by Datatang (a Beijing
online data sharing platform) to identify
well-used long distance commuting routes,
and suggest new bus routes. Equally, it can
also identify short distance routes that could
be improved for walkers and cyclists with
additional infrastructure. The potential goes
further than this, however. For example, the
data could be sold to transport companies,
ensuring that they build bike sheds in the
right locations. The team plans to expand
on their work by developing an app which
recognises people’s form of transport
and offers rewards for cycling, thereby
encouraging greener travel. When the app
arrives, users will also be able to ask it to
‘bikeme’ to the nearest café/shop offering
discounts for cyclists.
5 Windshed is a programme created by
WattTime that monitors the amount of wind
energy being fed into the electric grid at
any moment, using data from regional grid
operators (currently only in the US). It also
highlights when ‘wind energy traffic jams’
are occurring and clean energy is being
wasted. This information allows progressive
consumers to base their energy use around
the level of supply from renewable sources,
and shift their consumption away from fossil
fuels. The programme is already up and
running with the help of $3,500 prize money
from the San Francisco BSR hackathon,
which took place in November last year; the
Windshed website shows the current clean
electricity supply in 18 US states. WattTime
also plans to encourage wind farms to pay
for smart thermostats to be installed in local
homes, so that they can benefit from ‘rush
hour’ wind energy that might otherwise be
wasted.– Alex Fenton
4
5
13
In cities across the world, informal networks are
delivering essential services. Time to recognise their
value, says Ben Goldfarb.
A local
residents’
committee
fought
flooding in
Bangkok
“
Photo: Next City
Baseco, Manila: an
80-square-metre
community garden
provides fresh veg for
locals and customers
across the capital
companies: potable water, waste collection, even
ambulances. In the global south’s municipalities, these
underground economies, unregulated neighbourhoods,
and undocumented businesses flourish beneath a
regulated veneer. In Lima, Peru, ‘shadow economies’ –
from orange juice vendors on bicycle carts to traditional
healers peddling bat carcasses – account for 60-70%
of total economic activity. In some Asian cities, informal
jobs contribute to the production of global commodities
like garments, textiles, and sport shoes – employing up
to 85% of the workforce.
These informal structures don’t just drive
economies – they also administer crucial resources
and enhance urban resilience. In Accra, Ghana,
a patchwork of unregulated urban farms grows
everything from cucumbers to papayas, strengthening
food security. In Nairobi, Kenya, garbage pickers sort
through waste, performing the recycling services
that the city disregards. Slum-dwellers all over the
world devise innovative ways to obtain potable water,
including digging makeshift wells, installing rainwatercollecting cisterns and relying on vendors selling
individual plastic bags of water. “These are cities
where the government honestly doesn’t do much”,
says Will Doig, Next City’s editor for the Informal City
Dialogues. “Informal systems are some of the best
sustainability systems they have.”
For all their nimbleness and ingenuity, informal
systems confer hazards as well as benefits. Accra’s
14
Photo: B A Raju/Next City
“
In October 2011, as rising floodwaters
threatened to submerge Bangkok, the Thai
Government stumbled. Officials issued conflicting
reports and warnings. The city’s governor assured
citizens that everything was under control, even as
water began to pour into Bangkok’s northern suburbs.
The flood’s toll – 815 people dead and $45 billion in
damages – was exacerbated by a government that
proved unprepared in the face of a crisis.
Yet even as the Thai Government was bungling
the disaster, Bangkok’s citizens began springing
into action. In Sai Noi, a suburb, a local residents’
committee came together to fight the flood with sand
bags and water pumps, distribute food and water,
and defend the area from looters. Thanks largely to
the swift work of the residents’ committee – which
collected money from neighbours to buy a new pump,
and initiated a system of barter and labour exchange
to rebuild homes – not a single resident was killed or
injured, and villages were restored in less than a week.
Writing in Next City, a media organisation dedicated
to connecting cities, the Cambodian journalist Dustin
Moasa marvelled that, “With minimal help from the
government, the neighbourhood had survived the
worst disaster ever to hit Thailand.”
The Sai Noi residents’ committee isn’t an isolated
success story. All over the world, similarly informal
systems and networks are delivering services
typically provided by government or big private sector
Metro Manila, and the Institute of Economic Affairs
(IEA) in Nairobi.
Between 2012 and 2013, the Dialogues brought
together an eclectic group of stakeholders in each
city, from government officials in London to slum
leaders from South Africa. In early 2013, stakeholders
in each city convened to develop ‘futures scenarios’:
visions of what the six cities – Accra, Bangkok,
Chennai, Lima, Manila, and Nairobi – will look like in
2030. Later, the same groups got together and used
those future scenarios to come up with innovations
that will help those cities remain resilient against the
pressures like climate change and population growth
and create a more inclusive city for the informal
sector. The innovations range from an initiative that
will provide legal knowledge and access to affordable
legal support to informal groups in Bangkok to an
economic forum for local traders to promote more
secured livelihoods of the sector in Accra. The
Rockefeller Foundation has awarded generous grants
to organizations in each of the six cities as seedfunding for the innovations.
As the world’s urban planners gain a better
appreciation for the informal sector, some designers
are also trying to apply its lessons in developed
nations. Baltimore-based architects Kuo Pao Lian and
Pavlina Ilieva argue for “self-generative communities”:
urban environments that mimic the mixed-use layouts,
energy independence and versatility of informal
systems. Lian and Ilieva have drawn inspiration from
informality in cities like Tijuana, Rio de Janeiro and
Caracas when designing urban environments in
Baltimore, Dallas and New Orleans. “You’re seeing
massive populations [in informal communities]
creating their own electricity, collecting their own
water, building their own dwellings, educating their
own children, against a backdrop of poverty and
violence”, says Lian. “We’re not celebrating that
situation, but we can learn from it.”
Chennai: illegal sewage
channels can lead to
polluted coastlines,
but eradicating
community-based
systems isn’t the answer
“
As cities
develop,
governments
push informal
economies to
the edges
“
The unofficial story
urban farms are watered with untreated gutter water,
perhaps contributing to cholera outbreaks; Nairobi’s
garbage pickers burn themselves with chemical
waste; and illegal sewage channels in Chennai, India,
pollute groundwater and coastlines. In other words,
the informal institutions pioneered by the urban poor
are boundlessly creative, but they can also create new
public health and environmental problems.
For this reason – and because governments can
feel undermined by informal solutions – such systems
are frequently targeted for harassment or eradication,
often with ruinous consequences for the people who
depend on them. In Johannesburg, South Africa,
urban ‘street cleansing’ programs have swept away
unlicensed food vendors whose stalls are critical
sources of nutrition and income for impoverished
families. “As cities develop, governments often try
to push informal communities out to the edges,
marginalising them geographically, socially and
economically – or try to formalise them”, says Jessica
Rosen, sustainability advisor at Forum for the Future.
That’s a problem, says Rosen, since many of
the qualities intrinsic to informal communities – their
mobility, their adaptability and their reliance on social
networks – are the same ones that make them so
valuable. In Bangkok, where state hospitals can’t
meet the needs of the city’s eight million residents,
a corps of over 4,000 volunteer ambulances acts as
a vast first-responder system. Although Bangkok’s
‘body-snatchers’ have been accused of thievery,
taking bribes and even witchcraft, Doig warns that
simply formalising the ambulances would likely make
them less effective. “Ideally you would figure out a
way to use the ambulance system’s flexibility and
nimbleness to work with the city and the hospitals”,
he says. “The goal is to integrate the formal and
informal, to let them coexist.”
Durban, South Africa, offers a vision for how
municipalities might nourish informal systems without
suffocating them. For years, Warwick Junction, a
sprawling marketplace on the edge of Durban’s inner
city, thrived as a hotbed of informal trade – but it was
also neglected and run-down. Instead of bulldozing
the bazaar, in 1996 the city launched the Warwick
Junction Project, an initiative headed by South
African architect Richard Dobson that built pedestrian
bridges, provided childcare and established buyback programs for cardboard salvagers. Keith Hart,
the anthropologist who coined the term informal
sector has called Warwick Junction a model for how
poor people can “enliven a city centre, generate
employment for themselves and expand services” in
cooperation with urban planners.
Can the success of Warwick Junction be
replicated? That’s the question that the Informal City
Dialogues, a collaboration funded by The Rockefeller
Foundation, with Forum for the Future and Next City,
set out to answer. Over two years, this global, multistakeholder project aimed to foster a conversation
about the role of informality in creating inclusive and
resilient future cities. Crucially, the Dialogues involved
six local partners: the African Center for Economic
Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Chulalongkorn
University Department of Urban and Rural Planning
in Bangkok, Transparent Chennai in Chennai,
FORO Nacional Internacional in Lima, Ateneo de
Manila University School of Government (ASoG) in
Ben Goldfarb is a postgraduate at Yale University and
the Editor of Sage Magazine.
15
With their eye on the next generation, family businesses could
have a head start in sustainability, finds Anna Simpson.
“
The flower of youth can
be a business asset
16
Photo: Ya Kun Kaya Ortigas/Carlos C. Palma/Flickr
Leaders plan
for succession
well in advance
of their exit
For one, the next generation can be primed from a
young age, witnessing their family’s values in action
around them. Blood ties aside, family businesses often
nurture relationships with employees, partners and
suppliers over many years, building a culture of trust
and loyalty. And, with an eye on the future, leaders start
planning for succession well in advance of their exit,
long before a typical three-month notice period.
What does this long-term approach mean for
sustainability? It certainly doesn’t mean every family
business is necessarily a leader, but it does mean
they are primed to address some key challenges –
from strong value chain management and resource
stewardship to an appetite for innovation and a clear
social purpose.
I met Jamie Lim, Regional Marketing Director of
the carpentry firm Scanteak, and the daughter of its
founders, at the launch in Singapore of new research
into succession issues within Asian business families,
conducted by Singapore Management University’s
(SMU) Business Family Institute (BFI) with a grant from
Deloitte Southeast Asia. Lim’s slick and stylish garb
is appropriately set off by her 10-month-old babe in
arms. “This could be something that she will like”,
Lim explains to me: “so we can start investing in her
now. In family businesses, young talent can learn the
soft skills that they would not learn in any business
school. This helps us such a lot. My brother and I were
exposed from a young age, going to meetings and so
Photo: DenKuvaiev/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
“
Nguyen Binh, a Director and Board Member of
one of Vietnam’s most successful enterprises,
speaks with pride of his mother. She has held
the titles of Chairwoman and Chief Executive of
Refrigeration Electrical Engineering (REE) for the past
decade, having started her career with the company
in the 1980s. For her son, Madam Nguyen is “a true
pioneer … decisive and modern”. When he accepted
her invitation to join the firm, his motivation was
not only “to bring the company to greater heights,
continuing her legacy”, he asserts: “I also wanted to
help the REE Family grow from strength to strength”.
Charles Tan – a second-generation employee
of Sunray, one of the largest interior developers in
Singapore – tells a similar story: “After my graduation
from RMIT University, I returned to the family business.
Topmost on my mind was the Chinese proverb […] that
I am to remember my roots. Truly, I want to give back
to the Sunray Family who supported me.”
Businesses can struggle to inspire such
commitment among their employees, particularly as
more people aspire to flexibility and variety in their
working life. Strong values can make a difference to
staff engagement and retention, but defining them
is one thing – instilling them in the hearts and minds
of the workforce another. In this, family businesses
(defined as those in which at least two relatives are
involved, through ownership and/or management) have
a head start, thanks to their intergenerational approach.
is the key to ensuring the business stays fresh and
competitive. “As a CEO I’ve been there for eight years,
and I’m not prepared to be there for too long – because
sometimes we take things for granted. If we assume
we are doing well, we are discouraging new blood and
new ideas from coming in. I strongly believe that CEOs
should not be at the helm of a company for too many
years; maybe 10 years is good enough.”
Choosing a successor will only go so far towards
ensuring innovation. “In the face of mounting resource
and climate-related business challenges, there is
a real opportunity right now to groom a pool of
environmentally-aware next generation leaders, and
equip them with the skills to shift their family business
onto a more sustainable path”, says Jie Hui Kia, a
Futures Advisor at Forum for the Future, Singapore.
If you really want to drive innovation, there’s also
a need to invest in research and development. The
long-term mindset of family business helps to foster
longer-term investment strategies – argues Professor
Annie Koh, Vice President for Business Development
and External Relations at Singapore Management
University, and Academic Director at BFI. “If you don’t
have patient capital to wait for ideas to take on a life
of their own, there will be no innovation.” Such capital
Kaya toast as Loi Ah
Koon used to make it
“
To maintain
a family
business
you must be
receptive to
change
“
Family valued
on: we made connections. Now we are connecting
with our business partners’ kids, so the second or
third generation can continue that network. Normally it
would take a long time to build up that rapport with a
business partner – but we know that our parents trust
them, and we know that their parents trust them, and
we probably even met them when we were young…”
This approach to relationships has ramifications
throughout the supply chain, Lim claims, putting the
emphasis on quality and longevity, above cost. “When
my parents started they really had to find their sources;
some of the suppliers have been with us for 15-20
years, and so it would take a lot more than a better
price to convince us to make a transition.” It has also
meant that Scanteak looks to the future of the stock:
“We now only use plantation teak which means that
for every tree cut down, they have to plant another” – a
strategy which has been in place for over a decade.
When Lim joined the firm, she asked her father
for permission to rebrand it for the next generation
of consumers, moving away from the traditional
aesthetics established through Indonesia’s long history
of teak furniture production, and instead focusing on
lifestyle. She came up with the concept for an awardwinning television advert, which tells the story of a
young boy caught doodling on a table by his father.
“The angry father tells him off, only to find that he was
scribbling the words ‘I love you Daddy’. Fast-forward
to the future, and the father gets the son a desk as a
graduation present – with a message engraved on it.”
The theme of education is not accidental.
“Business families understand that training and
development needs are of paramount importance in
ensuring success of the next generation”, says Tam
Chee Chong, Regional Managing Partner at Deloitte
Southeast Asia. Anecdotes of inter-generational
learning and mentoring recur, with the younger
generation frequently reporting to long-serving
employees to ensure their insights and techniques are
passed on. Such is the secret behind the success of
Singapore’s popular kaya toast (a traditional breakfast
served with eggs) brand, Ya Kun. Its founder, Loi
Ah Koon, grew up watching his father’s meticulous
preparation of the toast, learning “to make sure it was
crispy and good”.
But does such an emphasis on tradition get in the
way of innovation? Not necessarily, the BFI-Deloitte
report indicates. In a survey of 83 business families,
mostly from Southeast Asia, the research team found
that 61% see research, development and innovation
as one of their top three priorities for the next three to
five years, alongside expanding into new markets and
growing new lines of business.
“In order to maintain a family business, you must
be very receptive to changes and you must be very
fluid”, Neo Tiam Boon, the second-generation CEO
and Executive Director of property and construction
firm TA Corporation Group, told me at the launch event.
“There’s no need [for my generation] to maintain the
same business that our late father started [specialising
in public housing in Singapore]. Innovation, for me, is
continuously introducing new ideas into a business.
If something has been there for 10 years, it can’t be
left unchanged 10 years down the road. You have
to be very creative in your designs.” and in meeting
requirements.”
For Neo, planning his own exit and successor
17
They have to
live up to the
family name in
every product
or service
“
Daughter on a mission:
Ruth Yeoh has driven
YTL’s environmental
agenda
18
a big part in inspiring my passion for protecting the
environment and growing my commitment to the
cause”, she told the publication Green Prospect Asia,
recalling in particular the experience of planting trees
with her father on the island of Pangkor Laut – one of
her earliest memories, and “particularly influential in
instilling such values within me”. She also remembers
accompanying her father on business trips to New
Zealand, where she remarked not only on the country’s
natural beauty but also the active role of communities
in protecting it.
Working to her vision and direction, YTL has set up
systems to monitor energy, water, waste effluent, solid
waste and consumables, across all its divisions – and
targets to reduce its impact. One success story is a
10% reduction in carbon emissions at the YTL Power
Seraya plant, through efficiency measures and a switch
to less carbon-intensive fuels. Another is the installation
of energy meters on the high-speed rail service KLIA
Ekspres, which runs from KL International Airport to
Kuala Lumpur and in which YTL is a major shareholder
– resulting in a 5.3% reduction in energy cost per trip.
Ruth’s talent and determination speak for themselves,
but it’s difficult to tell whether these measures would
have been implemented so rapidly were it not for her
influential position in the family.
While non-family businesses may not be able to
fast-track innovative policies, perhaps by overriding
the hesitations of wider stakeholders in the way that a
family business can, there are lessons they can learn.
The value of nurturing relationships over generations,
building both trust among employees and partners and
commitment to the company’s social role is certainly
one. As the Chinese proverb goes, “If you want one
year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years
of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of
prosperity, grow people.”
Anna Simpson is Editor, Green Futures.
a greenfutures Special Edition
Published by
Photo: A Journey Through Time V/YTL
“
is easier to set aside in family businesses, she notes,
which are often privately held, and so experience less
pressure to meet shareholder demands or targets set
on a quarterly reporting basis.
For these reasons – their capacity to fund
innovation and their emphasis on social capital – claims
Koh, if any business can lead change in sustainable
development, a family business can. Moreover, they
have an added incentive, she says: “They have to live
up to the name of the family in every product or service
that bears their name.”
This incentive – the family name and its reputation
as a brand – drives many family businesses to take
both their environmental and social responsibilities
seriously, through both corporate policies and
philanthropy. “If we look around us, in any part of the
world, most educational institutes and hospitals carry
family names”, Koh observes.
Stephanie Draper, Deputy Chief Executive at
Forum for the Future, agrees that family businesses,
such as Swire, YTL and Huntsman, have a sense of
responsibility and reputation that makes them well
placed to lead the charge on social and environmental
issues. “At Forum for the Future, we are keen to see
this go beyond traditional philanthropy and reach into
the heart of the business”, she adds.
John Riady, the grandson of the founder of Lippo
Group, a major Indonesian conglomerate established
in 1950, illustrates the potential. “My father didn’t build
all this for me. The word he uses is ‘stewardship’, and
this is the word I would also use. It means that the
businesses you own, you don’t really own: you are its
steward. You have a responsibility to grow it and to also
use it responsibly. Hopefully, our businesses can be a
blessing for the people of Indonesia.”
Riady’s interest in the future stretches well beyond
the interests of his family: his personal ambition, he
declares, is to train and educate the next generation of
Indonesians. He is an Associate Professor and Dean at
the country’s leading private university, and oversees
BeritaSatu, one of Indonesia’s largest multimedia
organisations, owned by Lippo Group.
“It’s a country full of inequalities: many people do
not have medication, many do not have access to
health care”, he explains. “It’s a country without the
infrastructure necessary to empower people to be
able to do what they can do. I grew up during a time of
transition; it was a time of political upheaval and social
and sectarian violence. All these experiences have
really shaped my views and why I am in business.”
Perhaps the most striking (and frequently cited)
example of leadership in sustainability among
family businesses is the Malaysian infrastructure
conglomerate, YTL. The real leader on this front is
Ruth Yeoh, who before the age of 30 was driving the
environmental agenda within the business as Executive
Director at YTL Singapore Pte Ltd and Director at
YTL-SV Carbon, an in-house carbon credit and
clean development mechanism consultancy that she
established to help companies within the group – and
also across Malaysia – “go clean and green”.
One year after Ruth Yeoh joined her father’s
company, in 2005, YTL produced its first sustainability
report – two years before the Malaysian stock
exchange required any CSR disclosure. Ask Ruth
about the roots of her environmentalism, and she
points to her father, Tan Sri Francis Yeoh. “[He] played
Energy Culture
The currents connecting people to power
Energy Culture is a Green Futures Special Edition,
produced in association with the Low Carbon Hub
and the Community Energy Coalition.
19
Energy plus
“An irrepressible sense of potential”
Jonathon Porritt reports on the growing momentum of community
energy in the UK.
I’ve had the privilege of visiting a number of
community-owned sites, both in the UK and abroad,
and I’m always left with an irrepressible sense
of its potential – not just to mitigate fuel poverty
but to raise living standards across the board.
After all, it comes with a whole raft of benefits,
from opportunities to build social cohesion and
create new jobs, as well as to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases. And with share options available
for as little as £1 on some projects, with returns of
4% per annum, it’s financially inclusive to boot.
So how much energy are we actually talking
about, and what impact might it have on the
economy? A recent report by ResPublica, ‘The
Community Renewables Economy: Starting up,
scaling up and spinning out’, suggested that 5.2GW
of community renewable electricity is achievable
by 2020, or soon after. Independent researcher
Rebecca Willis, in turn, cites a potential value of
£6 billion to the energy economy. It’s clearly an
investment opportunity that is starting to resonate
with consumers, with share offers in communityowned schemes regularly exceeding targets well in
advance of closing dates. People love the idea that
they can take energy matters into their own hands!
Community ownership can never be the
complete solution to our current energy crisis.
We need to shift the entire system onto a more
sustainable footing, diversifying our energy sources
through renewable energy projects at both large and
small scale. But combine community energy with
options such as farm-based renewables, and the
potential becomes really exciting.
Fiona Harvey examines the benefits of
renewable energy for communities.
Photo: Andrew Aitchison/Ashden; Cover photo: jesskatew/Flickr
Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for
the Future. His latest book, ‘The World We Made’, is
available to buy from theworldwemade.com
20
Greg Barker, the Conservative energy
and climate minister, has championed the
idea that more of our energy should be
decentralised and low-carbon. With “sufficient
financial rigour, affordable expansion [of local
energy schemes] is achievable”, he says. “We
can build the Big Sixty Thousand.” The prize, he
believes, will be “growth, jobs, economic resilience,
unprecedented consumer choice, and a cleaner,
safer environment – and energy security.” But signs
of the ‘Big Sixty Thousand’ taking over the energy
reins are still hard to find. Communities represent
“a largely untapped source of renewable energy
investment”, says James Beard of the Renewable
Energy Association. Could greater awareness of the
benefits tip the scales?
This is the aim of the Community Energy
Coalition, a group of 30-plus influential and trusted
civic society organisations with a shared vision of
community energy at scale in the UK, by 2020. In
2013, the Coalition – whose members include The
Co-operative, the National Trust and the Church of
England, convened by Forum for the Future – ran
the first Community Energy Fortnight to encourage
groups to set up their own projects. Giles Bristow,
Director of Programmes at Forum for the Future,
says, “The value of visible support for community
energy from known and trusted organisations can’t
be underestimated. With a collective reach of over
16 million members, the Coalition’s ability to raise
awareness of the potential is vast.”
One of the UK’s most active regions, with
excellent solar resources as well as wind,
hydroelectricity and the potential for marine
energy, is the south-west. There, the sustainable
energy centre Regen SW supports 179 community
projects, including the Bath and West Community
Energy group, which has raised more than
£2 million in share offers and installed a range
of solar products. Chief Executive Merlin Hyman
reports “a huge amount of interest in community
energy, and some excellent initiatives”. But, he
warns, people must be prepared for hard slog:
“Most communities find it takes a great deal of time
and effort.”
One hurdle is funding. A useful source is
the Government’s £15 million Rural Community
Energy Fund. This works in two stages, making
available up to £20,000 for an initial investigation
into feasibility, after which qualifying projects
can receive up to £130,000 to support planning
applications and develop a robust business case to
attract private sector investment. Private funding is
also available, from mission-led organisations such
as Good Energy and Triodos Bank, and increasingly
from social impact investment funds, which aim
to create returns for communities beyond the
balance sheet. For instance, Resonance manages
a community share underwriting fund which
provides match-funding for projects of up to £1
million. In November 2013, it supported the launch
of Leicestershire’s first community energy share
offer, which will enable John Cleveland College
to install a renewable woodfuel heating system.
This will significantly reduce energy costs for the
college, support the market for local woodfuel, and
give students first-hand experience of low-carbon
technologies.
Daniel Brewer, Founding Director of Resonance,
says, “There is significant opportunity to generate
meaningful amounts of energy at a community level:
more than individual households could achieve,
and yet not enough for major energy companies to
afford to spend time on. Underwriting community
shares can turn a bunch of volunteers into a
viable business, allowing people to invest directly
in their own communities, and bypassing the
need to get caught up in the opaque mainstream
financial system. It’s a catalyst for giving power and
autonomy to communities, whatever they want to do
– whether that’s more woodfuel heating, or insulating
the homes of older people.”
Another interesting new development is the
advent of crowdfunding, whereby thousands of
people contribute a small amount – from a few tens
or hundreds of pounds to a few thousand each – to
get projects off the ground, and then share in the
revenues when they arrive. Julia Groves, Managing
Director of Trillion Fund, and Chair of the UK
Crowdfunding Association, says: “Crowdfunding
is expanding the community of investors from
neighbourhoods to nationwide. Whereas, to date,
local community projects have tended to raise less
than £1 million, crowdfunding has the potential to
fund larger scale renewable sources of energy to
rival generation from traditional coal and gas-fired
power plants.”
Money isn’t the only measures of success.
For Peter Spark, an energy entrepreneur, there
are advantages well beyond the commercial:
“Community energy brings people from all walks of
life together, working towards a common goal that
makes a real difference to their local area.”
“
COMMUNITY
ENERGY BRINGS
PEOPLE FROM
ALL WALKS OF
LIFE Together
“
At key moments in
the political cycle,
the subject of energy
policy lurches back
into the headlines.
We’re seeing this now,
in the build-up to the
2015 General Election
– a debate fuelled
by the Big Six, once
again, hiking up their
prices. Cue a political
exchange of fire in
which politicians fight
it out in the media to see who can gain the biggest
short-term political advantage, regardless of the
long-term consequences for energy policy.
Far too many people in the UK seem resigned
to being powerless observers in the debate, and
unmoved by the horrendous prospect of people
having to choose between heating and eating.
But while the Big Six battle it out for dominancy
in an energy system that has clearly been broken
for a long time, throwing in the odd offer of free
loft insulation or a low-energy light bulb for good
measure, an underground movement with much
more promise is gaining momentum.
The UK is seeing a surge in community-owned
energy, spear-headed by the likes of The Cooperative Group, the National Trust, and the Low
Carbon Hub in Oxfordshire, to name just a few. This
is a sector replete with opportunities and enthusiasm
– as well as commendable perseverance in the face
of numerous legislative and policy barriers, political
inertia, and supine kowtowing by politicians
to the incumbent heavyweights in
the industry.
Fiona Harvey is the environment correspondent for The
Guardian.
More information: ukcec.org
21
22
Carbon Hub raised the finance locally and installed
the PV panels. The result is that the Bus Company
uses the cheap, green electricity generated by the
panels, investors get a fair return, and the Hub
receives the payments from the UK’s Feed-in-Tariff
(FITs) programme to support local communities to
develop their own renewable schemes. This backs
the rise of ‘energy citizens’ where locals can buy into
renewables, whether it is a community or a corporate
scheme. Everyone’s a winner.
Like most community renewable programmes, the
Hub’s model depends on the FITs – but Hammond is
pragmatic about the risk of further cuts. “The other
side of the coin is that the cost of the kit – such as
solar PV – is coming down rapidly. So financially it still
stacks up for us: we can still make it work.”
The Hub is also adept at identifying smart
financial mechanisms which can boost the returns
for local investors. Mechanisms like the Enterprise
Investment Scheme (EIS) and the Seed Enterprise
Investment Scheme (SEIS), which provide tax relief on
investment sufficient to boost the annual ROI, are “a
whole lot better than putting it in a building society”,
as Hammond says. Expertise of this sort can make
all the difference when it comes to encouraging local
people to invest for the benefit of their communities.
With the help of the Hub, a group of locals
Photo: Low Carbon Hub
Getting connected
Above: Westmill Solar
Co-operative, the largest
UK community owned
solar farm
Right: Switching on of
Oxford Bus Company’s
solar PV installation
No Finance Director likes a wasted asset. But
not everyone is as adept at spotting one as Luke
Marion. Marion is FD of the Oxford Bus Company
(OBC), and the asset in question is a roof over its
main depot. It might be doing a good job keeping the
buses dry, but Marion reckoned it could work harder.
Vast, sprawling and – crucially – south-facing, it struck
him as the ideal site for a massive photovoltaic (PV)
plant. The roof could accommodate a system with
a peak performance capacity of 140kW – enough
to produce a quarter of the company’s total energy
needs. At a stroke, Marion realised this could both cut
its bills and help achieve its carbon target. But the upfront costs – around £150,000 – “just didn’t stack up”.
Which is where the Low Carbon Hub came in. Set
up by community renewables expert and sometime
government adviser Barbara Hammond, the Hub
helps local companies and communities develop
renewable installations for community benefit.
It works like this. The Hub draws on the expertise
of Hammond and its founders – all veterans of
Oxford’s community renewables scene. Supported
by a £1 million European Intelligent Energy Fund,
they partner with local communities to develop,
finance and manage renewable energy schemes
for community benefit. In the case of the OBC, the
business made the roof space available and the Low
Photo: Adrian Arbib
New business models are transforming the prospects
for community energy and revitalising support for
renewables, too, as Martin Wright discovers.
An investment worth having
Communities setting up a new renewable energy enterprise can take
advantage of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the
Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) to make the projects more attractive
to investors. These schemes offer income tax and capital gains reliefs.
Individuals can benefit from 50% tax relief on the amount invested under
SEIS and 30% tax relief on the amount invested under EIS, having a
significant positive impact on their overall return.
Power bills have plummeted, says one resident, Lucy
Conway: “People used to pay 65p per unit when they
were reliant on diesel. Now it’s just 21p.”
But it’s not just financial benefits. Eigg has shown
what it feels like to be in control. And this, says Giles
Bristow, Director of Programmes and energy lead
at Forum for the Future, is one of the great unsung
benefits of a community energy culture.
For most of the UK, by contrast, it’s still early
days, says Bristow. “The whole regulatory system
– whether it’s about planning, or grid feed-in - is
geared to the ‘Big Six’ utilities. It just doesn’t
understand community energy.” As a result, local
communities continue to face hefty obstacles, such
as access to finance for the initial capex. Support
to overcome these obstacles, from pioneers like the
Low Carbon Hub, WREN or Energy4All, can unleash
a whole range of additional benefits, adds Bristow:
“Once people own their energy supply, they get more
engaged with the whole issue. So they’re more likely
to look for ways to cut consumption – especially if
they are still relying on the ‘Big Six’ for part of their
needs. It has a huge democratising effect.”
With the right policy environment, Bristow believes
the UK could see 3.5GW of installed capacity which is
entirely community-owned. That’s the same amount
as both new reactors planned for the Hinckley nuclear
plant: “We’re only just beginning to see what happens
when people become energy citizens.”
“
People like
the idea that
profits stay
local
“
Rise of the
energy citizens
interested in setting up a micro-hydro scheme at
Osney Lock, in West Oxford, were able to raise
£600,000 in a share offer in just three weeks. “The
Hub was incredibly helpful in offering advice as to
how to market the share offer and structure the whole
thing”, says Saskya Huggins, Director of Osney Lock
Hydro IPS. She calculates that, over the 40-year
life of the scheme, they should generate £2 million
of income, which can be reinvested in further local
community energy work.
This kind of local multiplier effect is at the heart
of the Hub’s vision, explains Hammond: to work
with communities so that the surplus income from
renewables can be invested directly in further
schemes – or in helping local households become
more energy efficient. “That work is much less
developed, but our aim is to ‘power up’, by creating
new renewable capacity, and then use the income to
‘power down’ by reducing overall energy demand.”
Green commitment is the spark for many
community energy initiatives, but it’s not compulsory,
says Paul Phare, Development Director of Energy4All,
a group which helps to advise on such schemes.
Many people who decide to invest are motivated as
much by a combination of decent returns – which can
be as high as 10% annually over 20 years on some
wind schemes – as by the thought that they’re doing
something for their home territory. “They like the idea
that profits are staying in the local area.”
The idea of harvesting energy close to home is
a motivator, too. Take Cornwall. It’s blessed with a
bounty of local resources – such as wind, waves,
sun, hydro and biomass. Yet much of its power
comes from energy companies far away. Now, a
group of local enthusiasts in one Cornish town have
formed the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network
(WREN), a co-operatively owned social enterprise
which has installed 6.5MW of renewables – including
‘repowering’ a local wind turbine. Over 1 in 10 local
adults are members of this Ashden Award-winning
scheme: proof that enthusiasm for home-grown
energy isn’t restricted to a few fringe enthusiasts.
What’s novel in the UK is fast becoming normal
elsewhere in Europe. Dutch co-op Windcentrale is
just one of many which is attracting investment by
appealing both to people’s concern for the planet
and their pockets. Its latest offering saw all 6,648
shares in a new wind turbine, priced at €200 each,
sell out in just 13 hours. Impressive, but perhaps
not surprising given a projected annual return of
8.5%. In Germany, meanwhile, one local energy
co-op is even negotiating to buy the Berlin city grid.
Others are using local sources such as wind and
biogas to pursue a dream of energy independence.
Feldheim, just outside Berlin, has even managed to
go completely off-grid, cutting its bills by one-third
as a result.
In Britain, there are rare pockets which the grid
never reached, such as the Scottish Isle of Eigg.
Until recently, the islanders were dependent on noisy,
polluting and increasingly expensive diesel generation.
But after buying out their feudal owner, they took
control of their power supply, too. Eigg Electric is an
Ashden Award-winning community-owned company
which supplies over 90% of residents’ requirements
through a mixture of solar, hydro and wind – pumping
power into a local grid which runs around the island.
Martin Wright is Founding Editor of Green Futures and
a Visiting Judge for the Ashden Awards for Sustainable
Energy.
More information:
www.lowcarbonhub.org
www.energy4all.co.uk
23
Energy’s big shift
4 million
The number of households which
could be powered by existing renewable
energy projects in the UK, developed
by businesses, communities,
farmers and the public sector.
Which path towards a localised,
low-carbon energy system?
24
0.3%
80% – The percentage of the UK public
that wants to reduce the use of fossil fuels
and their own energy usage.
In Germany, community energy accounts for
46% of all energy produced from renewables.
In the UK this figure stands at just 0.3%.
[Source: UK Energy Research Council]
[Source: European Commission]
20%
Photo:
Photos:SCRIBERIA
xxxxx
46%
Photos: xxxxx
80%
[Source: Smartest Energy]
550MW
The UK community energy capacity
by 2020 on current trends, compared
with less than 60MW today.
[Source: ResPublica]
9.8%
20% – The proportion of energy which the EU aims
to generate from renewable sources by 2020 –
more than double the 2010 level of 9.8%.
[Source: European Commission]
25
Tech talk
Fast forward
The vision of creating districts that act as an ‘internet of
energy’ is still a way off. But when it eventually comes to pass,
some credit may have to be given to a European Commission
project that has already sketched out what Europe’s energy
systems may one day look like. The ICT Roadmap for Energy
Efficient Neighbourhoods (IREEN), was launched in September
2011 to encourage energy-positive buildings, and eventually
whole districts by emphasising the role of technology in
delivering energy efficiency at a neighbourhood level. The
project has received funding from the European Union Seventh
Framework Programme.
IREEN was created over a period of two years with
the help of over 200 experts representing the ICT, energy
and construction sectors across Europe, coordinated
by Manchester City Council. It makes a number of
recommendations: flexible and pay-per-use pricing
schemes; “modular and configurable monitoring control
systems” to manage neighbourhood energy services,
such as LED public lighting; and using chargeable electric
vehicles as storage for microgrids. It also recommends
the use of web and mobile applications to engage the
local community, and e-learning and gamification to raise
awareness of energy usage and encourage participation.
Mari Sepponen, an Energy Systems Research Scientist
at the VTT Research Centre in Finland who contributed
to the IREEN Roadmap, believes early engagement of
Will Simpson explains why ICT will be a big player
in distributed energy.
Will Simpson is a freelance writer specialising in
environmental resource issues.
More information: www.innoz.de
“
Berlin’s Micro Smart
Grid includes a carsharing station
26
Photo: Yao Meng Peng/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
A successful
energy
system needs
to be smart
also in Berlin. “They are both used to create the
algorithms”, Toprani explains, “and Motbus also
works as a central controlling unit to bring in
communication from the smart meters from every
producer and consumer.”
Central to the successful working of an
energy hub is the idea that data surrounding
energy generation, availability and use will be
shared around the network in order to enhance
its efficiency as a whole. This raises a number of
contentious issues, not least around governance
and privacy. As smart grids become more
prevalent, these questions will become more
pressing. Toprani believes the role of ICT giants
will add fuel to the fire when it comes to managing
personal data.
Martine Tommis, Co-ordinator of the EU’s ICT
Roadmap for Energy Efficient Neighbourhoods (see
‘Fast forward’ p9), shares his concern: “Who owns the
data: the company or the individual? The idea is that
technology is used to share the data, but with whom?”
If the community energy movement wants to
avoid hitting a wall, now could be the time to start
talking tech.
Photo: Corina Shafer/Flickr
“
Question: what do a car-sharing station, an
office and a popular TV show have in common?
Answer: a smart grid in Berlin.
Distributed energy systems require a number of
things before they can get off the ground. Some of
these are obvious: a level of community engagement
and consent is a prerequisite, as is capital investment
and a long-term funding model. Another essential but
often overlooked factor is digital technology. Quite
simply, a successful energy system is unthinkable
without the data and algorithms to make it ‘smart’.
At present there are estimated to be around 300
smart grid systems in the EU. One of the smallest
examples is Micro Smart Grid, a Berlin-based project
run by InnoZ, an NGO funded by Deutsche Bahn
that promotes decentralised energy production and
consumption. It currently has three clients: a carsharing station, an office and the popular television
show of Gunter Heir, but is looking to take on another
10 by the end of 2016. At present the grid produces
54kW of solar power in addition to a micro combined
heat and power plant and three small noise-reduced
wind turbines. Balancing these outputs to ensure the
grid runs smoothly, InnoZ’s Energy Economist and
Analyst Vipul Toprani explains, depends on significant
data crunching and the creation of algorithms.
At the moment this happens through the cloud,
which just means that the data is sent to two
external processing units, Motbus and Mathlab,
all stakeholders is critical in planning an effective energy
system: “All too often, city planners just make the plans
by themselves without taking the energy aspects of the
whole neighbourhood into consideration. There’s a need
for more collaboration and information-sharing between
planners and energy experts from an early stage. Architects’
plans should be sent to an energy engineer who knows
how energy efficient the building is likely to be, how energy
efficient the neighbourhood is, and how the building will
affect this.”
But with so many factors to take into account, where
should a planning committee begin? “If I was advising
someone who wanted to look at this”, says Sepponen, “I
would say the first principle is to minimise energy demand
in the area, and the second is to minimise distribution
losses. Then you should look at what kind of energy
sources could be used, and how you can optimise the
energy system. What are the different energy demands
within it, and what’s needed to meet them? This strategic
thinking – matching the energy sources with demands – is
what we really need.”
Knowing what to ask is one thing, and who to ask is
another. In future, we’ll likely be looking to algorithms.
The IREEN Roadmap and Reference Guide offer some
answers and are available at www.ireenproject.eu
Europe: on the road to a
smart, low energy future?
27
Farm power
“
28
Photo: Uphouse Farm/National Farmers Union
Almost 40%
of UK farmers
are investing
in renewable
energy
such diversification will only become more important
to farmers. For Tobi Kellner, Renewable Energy
Consultant at the Centre for Alternative Technology,
clean energy generation offers a tremendous
opportunity: “In some cases, additional income
from renewables may be the only way for the next
generation to make a farm financially viable.”
Individual farmers play a crucial role in developing
farm-based energy schemes, but they can’t do it alone
– not yet, and not at scale. The National Farmers’
Union has called on the UK Government to broaden its
scope of community energy support criteria to include
rural businesses that demonstrate a significant level
of community benefit. Almost 40% of UK farmers are
investing in renewable energy compared with just 5%
in 2010 – but they are doing so in spite of the system
rather than because of it, says Iain Watt, an energy
specialist at Forum for the Future: “While pockets of
government are quite supportive, the overall message
seems to be that small-scale renewables will only
ever play a role at the margins, while all the effort
goes towards big centralised solutions. We need to
change this mind-set by demonstrating that smaller,
community-scale energy can play a substantial role in
the energy system.”
One organisation doing just this is the National
Trust, one of Britain’s largest landowners, which has
committed to generating 50% of its energy from
renewables by 2020, and has installed around 250
small and medium-scale renewables on its land. It
is collaborating with Good Energy on a £3.5 million
pilot renewables programme which, if successful,
will see 10 times that amount invested. The Trust
also works further afield to help communities
develop renewables elsewhere, such as the Anafon
Community Hydro Scheme in North Wales.
Tim Crisp, Director at Sustainable Charlbury
CIC, is adamant that such programmes must direct
as much financial and social benefit back to the
local community as possible. Sustainable Charlbury
CIC was established in 2007 to reduce the carbon
emissions of this Cotswolds town. In partnership
with Cornbury Estate, which (subject to planning
permission) has provided 30 acres of land on a 20year lease, and the Low Carbon Hub, which works
across Oxfordshire on carbon reduction projects
that benefit communities, it is developing Southill
Solar, a 5MW solar farm which members hope will
be complete by mid-2014. The Feed-in Tariff and
the revenue from the power purchase agreement
will provide approximately £85,000 annually for the
community (that’s £1.5 million over the life of the
project). The projected IRR for investors is 5%, but this
could be enhanced through the Enterprise Investment
Scheme to 8.5%, and to 12.5% through the Seed
Enterprise Investment Scheme.
“By making large-scale energy projects
community-owned, and returning a financial benefit
to the shareholders and to the community at large,
Sustainable Charlbury CIC sets a framework for a
sustainable local energy future”, says Crisp.
It’s clear that some farmers and rural
communities already have the skills, land and
access to subsidies to enable them to invest in
on-farm renewables, thanks in part to support from
organisations like the Low Carbon Hub and the
National Trust. What they lack is the infrastructure to
help them take on-farm energy production to scale,
as farmer Peter Thompson points out: “I don’t see
much stopping farmers becoming energy neutral. The
real challenge is enabling farmers to become major
generators for their communities and beyond. Buying
new plant and machinery is second nature to farmers,
so the first step is pretty easy. Supplying others is far
more challenging.”
This is what we need to work towards.
Tess Riley is a freelance environmental journalist and
communications consultant.
More information:
www.forumforthefuture.org/farmpower
“
Renewables
could
make farms
financially
viable
“
“
Our food system generates roughly a quarter
of all global greenhouse gas emissions, in
large part due to agriculture’s heavy reliance
on fossil fuels. But far from demonising farms, many
see them as part of the solution. One reason is farmgenerated renewable energy. In the UK, over 70%
of the land area is in the agricultural sector. In China
and the US, two of the world’s largest food producing
nations, this figure is 55.7% and 45% respectively.
Large amounts of land combined with significant
volumes of animal or plant waste make farms an
obvious place to turn to, not just for food but also for
biofuel, solar and wind energy. If we’re going to move
towards a decentralised, sustainable energy system,
farms and rural communities will play a significant role.
Take Nigel Joice, the award-winning Norfolk
poultry producer whose farm generates 8,500 tonnes
of manure a year. Three years ago, Joice invested a
£1.8 million bank loan in an on-farm biomass plant to
help meet his goal of turning the farm’s manure into
an asset, and – with the addition of solar panels – to
become energy-positive. An Environment Agency
licence to use poultry litter rather than woodchip to
heat the chicken sheds is now bringing Joice closer
to realising that vision. Over the last year, Uphouse
Farm has cut its gas consumption by 92% and solar
panels are expected to reduce its (grid) electricity
use by 80% during daylight hours. What’s more, the
anticipated eight-year return on investment has been
cut in half, thanks to improved feed conversion from
the poultry litter. Joice is now earning money through
the Renewable Heat Incentive and Feed-in Tariffs.
With an increasingly unpredictable climate for
crops and question marks over agricultural subsidies,
Photo: loraks/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Tess Riley finds fertile land for growing renewables.
Biomass and solar
bring good returns
to poultry farmers
Nigel Joice and son
29
Training for
success
An Indian train odyssey is equipping young
entrepreneurs with the skills to succeed in social
business, says Charukesi Ramadurai.
30
Photos: Joseph Bastin/iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Photos: Jagriti Yatra
All mentors must have been running a commercially
viable social enterprises for a minimum of 10 years
to be selected for the scheme.
The Jagriti Yatra team argues that social
enterprise is the key to long-term sustainable
development in India. This is borne out by a recent
report by WWF, ‘Green Game-changers’, which
claims that small business and social enterprises in
India and other parts of Asia are tackling local and
international challenges in a variety of innovative
ways, sending “ripples across the globe”. In
particular, many entrepreneurs are embracing
a concept known as, “Jugaad”, – the creation
of innovative solutions to problems using fewer
resources [see ‘Frugal plenty’ in the Green Futures
special edition India: innovation nation, p4].
However, no matter how frugal they are,
in the absence of mentorship and guidance
many small businesses struggle to get off the
ground. Byzantine bureaucracy, corruption and
infrastructural challenges can all take their toll on
fledgling operations. In fact, India ranks among the
world’s worst countries in terms of encouraging
entrepreneurs: 166th out of 183 countries, according
to World Bank figures from 2011. A poll conducted
by Gallup in 2012 seems to bear this out: nearly
half of the 5,000 Indian adults surveyed said that
the Government was a significant stumbling block
to starting a business, while only 37% of current
business owners and 28% of those seeking to start
a business said that they knew someone who can
offer advice about business management.
This is where a project like Jagriti Yatra can
make a difference. It helps young entrepreneurs to
identify market needs and make business plans,
and offers insights into the challenges of starting
a social enterprise and the skills needed to keep it
economically sound. This process often continues
long after the train journey has been completed.
In Kapoor’s case, Jagriti Yatra set him up to spend
six months at Deoria, a village in Uttar Pradesh,
where he leased land and interacted with farmers to
understand their lives and their problems.
This led to the creation of Jagriti Agro Tech
(note the homage in the name), which supplies
organic fruit and vegetables online under the brand
I Say Organic; the produce is sourced from farmers
in five surrounding states, connecting them directly
to markets. Kapoor received Rs.10 million (roughly
£98,100) from his family to start the business,
which now employees 20 people. The absence of
middle-men has allowed him to pay farmers 25%
more than market rates for their produce, and he
is now in conversation with external investors,
promising a five-fold growth of the business.
Extended placements like the one Kapoor
benefited from are just one of the ways Jagriti
Yatra provides follow up support. During last year’s
journey, participants were asked to form teams and
present business ideas; 15 of these teams were
then selected and called for a follow-up meeting
session called Biz Gyan Tree (meaning the ‘Tree of
Business Knowledge’) in February. Here, mentors
helped the teams to refine their business ideas,
trained them in formal business plan writing and
provided leads for financial investment.
Ben Kellard, Head of Sustainable Business at
Forum for the Future, says social enterprises need
a wide range of skills and knowledge in order to
be successful, from the kind of business planning
advice that Biz Gyan Tree offers, to guidance
in understanding consumer needs. “They also
need to learn rapidly in order to refine their offer
and business model to ensure it meets the need
and makes money”, he adds. “The Jagriti Yatra
project is a great example of how to help social
entrepreneurs gain these skills and apply them,
setting them up for success.”
In the last five years, over 225 yatris have started
their own social enterprise, and roughly half of them
are already established in small towns and villages.
“By taking a national perspective, the ‘travellers’
will get insights into how they could grow their
enterprises beyond their state borders”, says Kellard.
Rema Subramanian, partner with Ankur Capital,
an angel fund that invests in social enterprises,
including Daily Dump [also featured in India:
innovation nation, p7] is also enthusiastic about the
scheme: “Most of us lead cocooned lives with our
version of problems and solutions. A journey like
this opens up our minds to the realities out there.”
She isn’t worried about a lack of formal business
training among the aspiring social entrepreneurs,
given that most do not come from business
backgrounds. “A sleek PowerPoint presentation
or Excel spreadsheets with fancy business plans
have very limited value if the entrepreneur has not
actually got their hands dirty”, she adds.
Aditi Prakash certainly takes a hands-on
approach to her business: she makes designer
handbags from traditional Indian textiles that have
been largely forgotten by modern generations.
As Prakash began experimenting with her bags,
a friend participating in a trade fair in New Delhi
suggested sharing a stall. With the help of a local
tailor she managed to make 100 bags, which sold
exceedingly well. Prakash now works with three
skilled tailors and provides livelihood to dozens
of women from the village. Over 400 Pure Ghee
handbags, each of them entirely handmade, are
sold across the country every month.
Prakash’s most recent collection of bags, called
Allika (‘weaving’ in the local language), was made
by weavers in the south Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh. The bags are made solely from organic
cotton and organic dyes like indigo, and are one
of Prakash’s bestselling ranges. Another collection
called Mashru – meaning ‘permitted’ in Arabic –
uses a fabric popular among the Muslim community
of Gujarat. Since the religion forbids them from
letting their skin touch anything made from animals,
the fabric is glossy silk on the outside and cotton
on the inside.
Prakash, a graduate from the National Institute
of Design in Ahmedabad, is also passionate about
recycling and makes it work for her commercially.
“In the name of recycling, people make and sell
things which look dull and are poorly finished”,
she says. “When I cut the cloth for my bags, my
women sort through the bigger pieces and create
a colourful patchwork out of it.” These limited
edition bags – the Tutti Frutti collection – have also
proved popular with her customers. “However,” she
adds, “I would never cut out cloth just to make a
patchwork bag.”
In Bangalore, the Information Technology
capital of India, Kuldeep Dantewadia’s organisation,
Reap Benefit, works with school and college
“
over 225
yatris have
started their
own social
enterprise
“
Yatris on the
learning journey
When Delhi-born Ashmeet Kapoor, 28,
returned to India after seven years in the
US, he knew that he wanted to start a social
venture based around energy or agriculture.
However, this electrical engineer, with a master’s
degree in entrepreneurship from Brown University,
an Ivy League institution, was also aware of his
own ignorance about rural India, having only
experienced it from a distance.
To remedy this he went on a 15-day, 8,000km
train journey across India – the Jagriti Yatra,
meaning ‘Journey of Awareness’. For the past five
years, this project has been taking 400-450 young
people, chosen from thousands of applicants, to
12 destinations in India. On the journey, these yatris
(translated as ‘travellers’) meet successful social
entrepreneurs, in order to learn techniques which
they can apply to their own business ideas. The
role models come from a variety of backgrounds:
Anshu Gupta of Goonj in New Delhi, for instance,
works with clothing for the underprivileged, while
Dr. S. Aravind of Aravind Eye Care in Coimbatore
provides quick turn-around, low-cost eye surgeries.
Jagriti Yatra: the fast
track to success for
social enterprises?
31
We could
come back
every night
and analyse
business
plans
“
The Barefoot College in
Tilonia, Rajasthan, run
by Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy,
a Jagriti Yatra mentor
not really running a business. But we would come
back every night and we would have to analyse
the business plans of the enterprise we visited.
That gave me an understanding of how successful
entrepreneurs were doing it.”
The journey also gave them an insight into
some of the most pressing needs in rural areas of
India. “It opened my eyes to the fact that providing
a livelihood was more the need of the hour than
bringing in services to rural areas,” says Kapoor,
“which is why I thought of I Say Organic.” While
Dantewadia claims he “came across so many
new conversations and perspectives about my
country, which I kept thinking over, long after I got
off the train. I realised that there was no one right
approach to development work.”
There is considerable potential for social
enterprises in India to foster change, but the
problem has always been for such projects
to sustain themselves commercially. This is
compounded by a cultural hesitation to discuss
money matters. However, by unapologetically
focusing on this aspect, Jagriti Yatra has provided a
platform for participants to see how a social project
can work successfully as a business. As Prakash
says, “In my business, I always wanted to balance
the social and commercial sides because I never
saw myself purely as a do-gooder. For the first
time, I got a sense of how this is possible.”
Charukesi Ramadurai is a freelance writer and
journalist from India.
Are you passionate about
sustainable development and
working towards a career in the sector?
F
Want access to the very
latest thinking and practice?
F
Like the opportunity of
six months work experience
Photo: Jagriti Yatra
“
children to “make green a habit” from a young
age. The aim is to encourage students to make an
impact on their immediate environment by reducing
and managing waste, while using natural resources
responsibly. They also help educational institutions
– and increasingly corporates who are taking
their sustainability aims seriously – to go green.
Dantewadia candidly admits that the young people
Reap Benefit works with were initially cynical about
their approach because “we were talking about
concepts like global warming that they could
not relate to at a personal level”. However, the
enterprise is clearly doing something right: they
have now worked with over 60 schools as well as
numerous corporate clients.
Reap Benefit also designs waste/water
management, carbon footprint management
and energy optimisation solutions, and helps
organisations with auditing. It acts as a consultancy
for educational institutions too, training staff in
waste, water and energy management techniques.
Dantewadia claims his business has evolved in an
organic not a planned-manner. Profits from work
with corporates and private schools, and sales of
environmental products like composting enzymes,
are ploughed back into the business, making for a
circular business model – an approach that Prakash
has also adopted.
According to these entrepreneurs, exposure to
a business ethos was one of Jagriti Yatra’s biggest
contributions to their success. Prakash says,
“When I went on the yatra, I was selling bags but
in top sustainability departments* – gaining invaluable
experience and contacts?
F
Interested in a further qualification
that’s highly regarded by employers and
has a 90% employment rate?
Then take a look at Forum for the Future’s fast track
Masters course in
Leadership for Sustainable Development;
designed for a select group of 12 students embedded within the international
sustainability non-profit, benefitting from access to our partner companies,
expertise and contacts.
Photos: xxxxx
www.forumforthefuture.org/masters
Twitter: @F4FMA
32
*Some recent work placements include: Marks and Spencer, Unilever, Friends of the Earth,
DEFRA, Sainsbury’s, Islington Council, Carillion, Ecover, Welsh Assembly Government, IIED,
Fairtrade Foundation, Green Party, TUI Travel, Innocent Drinks, EDF Energy, Kingfisher, Interface
33
SallyUren
Forum for the Future’s Network is a global community of leaders, united by their
ambition and capacity to create real and lasting change. For more information,
visit www.forumforthefuture.org
New to the Forum Network
Since the last issue of Green Futures, NewsUK, China Navigation Company, Swire Pacific Offshore , Swire
Oilfield Services, Reckitt Benckiser and FareShare all joined the Network and The Crown Estate and BSkyB have
accepted the challenge of becoming Pioneers partners!
Johnson Matthey
+44 (0)20 7269 8400
Sony Europe
www.sony-europe.com
Julie’s Bicycle
www.juliesbicycle.com
Swire Oilfield Services
www.swireos.com
Kimberly-Clark Europe
www.kimberly-clark.com
Swire Pacific Offshore
[email protected]
Aimia
www.aimia.com
Crest Nicholson Plc
+44 (0)1932 580 555
www.crestnicholson.com
AkzoNobel
+44 (0)1928 511 695
Cultura Technologies Ltd.
www.culturatech.com
Kingfisher
[email protected]
Target
www.target.com
Alliance Boots Ltd
[email protected]
Delhaize Group
[email protected]
www.delhaizegroup.com
Kyocera Document Solutions
[email protected]
Tata Global Beverages
www.tataglobalbeverages.com/
Lafarge Tarmac Ltd
www.lafargetarmac.com
Taylors of Harrogate
[email protected]
Levi Strauss & Co
www.levistrauss.com/
Thomson Reuters
www.thomsonreuters.com
L’Oréal USA
www.lorealusa.com
Technology Strategy Board
www.innovateuk.org
Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
+44 (0)20 7811 3315
Technology Will Save Us
www.technologywillsaveus.org
Marks & Spencer Plc
[email protected]
Telefónica UK
[email protected]
Mondelez
www.mondelezinternational.com
Tesco Plc
+44 (0)1992 806 790
NewsUK
www.news.co.uk
Tetra Pak Ltd
+44 (0)1978 834 018
Nike Inc
[email protected]
The CarbonNeutral Company
www.carbonneutral.com
OgilvyEarth
+44 (0)20 7309 1226
[email protected]
The Coca-Cola Company
www.coca-colacompany.com
AMEC
+44 (0)1912 726 128
Arjowiggins Graphic
[email protected]
ARMOR SA
[email protected]
Ashden
+44 (0)20 7410 7023
Aviva Investors
+44 (0)20 7809 6000
Azaria International
[email protected]
+91 22 2285 6161
www.azaria.in
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
+44 (0)20 7996 2054
Barclays Bank Plc
www.barclays.com
Benchmark Software
+44 (0)1458 444 010
Blue & Green Tomorrow
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.blueandgreentomorrow.com
Delphis Eco
+44 (0)20 3397 0096
www.delphisworld.com
Diageo Plc
[email protected]
eBay Inc
[email protected]
Ecover
+32 3 309 2500
www.ecover.com
EDF Energy
+44 (0)7875 110 289,
[email protected]
Ella’s Kitchen and Earth’s Best
[email protected]
EnergyDeck
www.energydeck.com
Energy Saving Trust
+44 (0)20 7227 0398
www.energysavingtrust.org.uk
FareShare
www.fareshare.org.uk
Finlays
+44 (0)20 7802 3239
Panasonic UK Ltd
+44 (0)1344 853 325
PepsiCo UK & Ireland
[email protected]
Firmenich SA
+41 227 802 435
PHS Group
[email protected]
www.phs.co.uk
FirstGroup Plc
[email protected]
Plexus Cotton Limited
+44 (0)151 650 8888
Food and Drink Federation
+44 (0)20 7420 7132
Pret A Manger Ltd
+44 (0)20 7827 8888
FoodTrade
[email protected]
Pureprint Group
+44 (0)1825 768 811
Bupa
+44 (0)20 7656 2343
GlaxoSmithKline
www.gsk.com
Quintain Estates and Development Plc
[email protected]
Burberry Limited
+44 (0)20 3367 3100
Green Ink
[email protected]
www.greenink.co.uk
Rail Safety and Standards Board
+44 (0)20 3142 5380
Bowman Ingredients
www.bowmaningredients.co.uk
BP Shipping
www.bp.com/shipping
BSkyB
[email protected]
BT Plc
+44 (0)7730 426 189
[email protected]
C&A
[email protected]
Cafédirect
+44 (0)20 7033 6056
Capgemini Ltd
+44 (0)870 904 5761
Cargill
+44 (0)1932 861 916
Carillion Plc
+44 (0)1902 316 258
Certis Europe
www.certiseurope.co.uk
Chi Group
www.chigroup.co
China Navigation Company
[email protected]
City of London
+44 (0)20 7332 1431
ClimateCare
+44 (0)1865 591 000,
[email protected]
www.climatecare.org
34
GrowUp
+44 (0)7862 259 566
www.growup.org.uk
Hammerson
www.hammerson.com
Heineken UK
+44 (0)1432 345 277
HSH Group
www.hshgroup.com
IGD
+44 (0)1923 851 919
Ingersoll Rand
www.ingersollrand.com
Innovia Films
+44 (0)1697 342 281
Interface Europe Ltd
+44 (0)20 7490 3960
Jaguar Land Rover
[email protected]
John Lewis Partnership
+44 (0)20 7592 4413
Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc
www.rb.com
Rexam Plc
[email protected]
www.rexam.com
Royal Dutch Shell Plc
+31 610 974 798
RSA Insurance Group Plc
www.rsagroup.com
RWE npower
+44 (0)1793 892 716
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd
[email protected]
SC Johnson
www.scjohnson.com
Shell Foundation
www.shellfoundation.org
Skanska
+44 (0)1923 776 666
Small World
+852 2799 3998
www.interiorsourcing.com
Three reasons why I see brands as
a sustainability solution.
The Co-operative Group
www.co-operative.coop
The Converging World
[email protected]
The Crown Estate
[email protected]
www.thecrownestate.co.uk
The Jordans & Ryvita Company Ltd
+44 (0)1767 319 415
Triodos Bank
+44 (0)117 980 9770
TUI Travel Plc
+44 (0)1293 645 911
Twin
[email protected], www.twin.org.uk
Twinings
www.twinings.co.ukU-Ming
www.uming.com.tw/
Unilever Plc
[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7822 5917
United Biscuits
[email protected]
United Coffee
[email protected]
www.unitedcoffee.com
University College London
[email protected]
Veja
[email protected]
Virgin Unite
www.virginunite.com
Volac
+44 (0)1223 208 021
Whitworths
www.whitworths.co.uk
Willmott Dixon Ltd
+44 (0)7814 003 046
WWF-UK
+44 (0)1483 412 395
Photo: Nick Woodford/Forum for the Future
ABF Plc
[email protected]
Colep UK Limited
[email protected]
+44 (0)1427 858491
www.colep.com
Are brands the problem or the solution
when it comes to creating serious change?
At Forum for the Future, we look for levers we
can pull to bring down some systemic barriers to
sustainability. I’m definitely in the camp that sees
brands as a lever, rather than a barrier. Why? Partly
because I think the box of potential solutions to our
current sustainability crisis is a bit on the empty
side. But mostly because I think brands have
the potential to shift systems. ‘How on earth can
brands do that?’, I hear you cry. In three ways.
First up, brands can lead, and create demand,
when hitherto there was none. Henry Ford famously
said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses”. Brands have the
ability to give people what they want before they
know they want it. They also have the ability to
normalise behaviours, expectations and desires.
Take the story of shampoo. Before the advent
of indoor plumbing, washing hair was inconvenient
and happened only about once a month. Instead,
women brushed their hair a hundred times a night
to spread natural oils and remove older, excess
oil and dirt. In 1930, Dr John Breck of Springfield,
Massachusetts, developed one of the world’s first
pH-balanced shampoos. At first it was known
only in New England in the US. Then Breck’s
son Edward took over the company. He hired an
illustrator named Charles Sheldon to draw pastel
portraits of ‘Breck girls’. It was a stroke of branding
genius that made Breck shampoo synonymous with
beauty. By the 1950s, most middle-class women
washed their hair once a week. In the 1970s, Breck
girls migrated from illustrations to real people,
including models, and brands began running highprofile campaigns to convince women to wash their
hair every day.
As a result of daily shampooing, women
washed the natural oils from their hair, which
created the need for this new stuff we call
conditioner.
Granted, the story doesn’t shine with
sustainability lustre, but it shows the power of
brands to change the way we behave. Mike
Markkula, one of the first investors in Apple, came
up with the Apple Marketing Philosophy.
“The idea of understanding a consumer’s
needs before they actually needed what Apple was
making has remained a hallmark of the company
throughout its history. The idea of empathising with
a consumer before a market was even developed
set Apple on the path of perpetually looking forward
to find how people would behave.”
Just imagine if this brand magic was applied to
the challenge of creating demand for sustainability.
There are already successful examples out there.
Method, for example, has redefined the relatively
boring cleaning category into one festooned with
good looking and safe products.
Second, brands can bring long-term research
and development ambitions to life. Many
businesses have an R&D pipeline, but bringing
those future insights into the development
of today’s products can be challenging. By
asking how might my brand deliver these future
innovations – in a way that resonates with my
consumers’ (often anticipated) needs, brands can
act as the super-highway for product innovation.
Take Unilever’s Pureit, a water purifier for
domestic use in those countries where unsafe
drinking water is still the norm. The innovation
behind this simple device comes from Unilever’s
R&D laboratory in Bangalore. The brand is the
mechanism which brings this potentially life-saving
device to market.
Third, brands can create the conditions for
wider change. This is an emerging area, and one
which is potentially the most game changing. Nike’s
business strategy is all about shifting to a closedloop business model. Such a model isn’t possible
today: the infrastructure simply isn’t in place. How
can Nike create the conditions to be able to make
that shift over time? For one, its free Making App
encourages designers to use the Nike Materials
Sustainability Index Database, giving them the
information they need to see the environmental
impact of material choices. This is helping to drive
demand for sustainable materials by empowering
designers to make better choices. And then there
is Launch 2020, an open innovation competition
to find game-changing solutions to sustainability
challenges that can scale in two years.
So, brands can create demand, bring innovations
to market, and influence the world around them.
Clearly, one brand can adopt all three strategies, or
switch between them depending on the market and
product. But a brand unwilling to experiment with any
of these strategies, in my view, will become a brand
from the past, not a brand that can last.
“
It was a stroke
of branding
genius
“
3M
www.3m.com
Sally Uren is CEO, Forum for the Future.
@sallyuren
35
Pressure points
Light freight?
Ros Leeming recently left the UK Government to lobby for
change from the outside. She tells Katie Shaw what she
hopes to achieve.
Skyscraper-sized vessels and industry-wide initiatives
point shipping towards a sustainable future.
Currently: Parliament Manager at the
International Fund for Animal Welfare
Class of: ‘07-‘08
Individual leader I most
admire: David Attenborough, for
his quiet leadership and ability to
connect people with the environment
in a way that they find entertaining
and fun
Organisation I most admire:
The National Trust, for its
understanding that sustainability is
always a journey and you can only
lead at the pace that people are
prepared to follow.
I’m looking forward to having
opinions again
During my time in the Government, I tried
to take society, the environment and
economics into account in equal measure –
but that’s not always the most appropriate
approach as the reality is that trade-offs
must usually be made. Any one department
will have multiple objectives that it’s trying
to achieve, and you have to hope that one
won’t negatively impact the other. As a civil
servant, you look at everything through your
Government officials need data
Government officials usually aren’t experts
on their policy area. One of the things
that surprised me most going into the
Government was that one person may
have worked on, say, pensions, transport
and agriculture. Their strength is being able
to walk in with no prior knowledge and,
within two weeks, be able to talk about a
subject as if they know it really well.
Because of this, officials need others to
provide data and evidence if they’re going
to change a policy. A lot of people don’t
realise that the Government needs a lot of
the information to come from stakeholders,
so they only provide rants, and miss out
facts that could support a change in policy.
You get a lot of protestors outside the
DECC office making vague demands. I
used to think, “Give me three key actions
that you’d actually like us to do.”
“
I’m looking
forward to having
opinions again – being
subversive, even
“
Ros Leeming
I don’t believe in reincarnation
I always wanted to work on climate
change, because I believe that we’re here
only once, and I feel a huge moral burden.
I had been focusing on climate change,
on the basis that it seems irreversible,
but of course this also applies to species
extinction. So that’s why I chose to make
the change from working on the Energy
Bill team at DECC to working here, at the
International Fund for Animal Welfare.
analytical standpoint and are obliged to
be unbiased, but the trade-offs mean that
conviction is needed, and this is the job
of ministers. I’m looking forward to having
opinions again – being subversive, even.
Forum for the Future’s Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development has
shaped the career of some of the most ambitious and influential people working
for a desirable future. www.forumforthefuture.org/masters
36
Photos: Maersk
Tomorrow’s leaders
environmentally friendly way. In 2012, The China
Navigation Company voluntarily adopted a policy to
send vessels only to yards with verified accreditation
issued by a reputable, independent third party
against all industry standards, as well as preferably
being an ‘A’ member of the International Ship
Recycling Association – going beyond legislative
requirements.
As Simon Bennett, General Manager for
Sustainable Development, CNCo, says, the harm
caused by ship recycling yards with poor health,
safety and environmental standards “can be
mitigated by a commitment from shipowners to not
support those yards commercially”.
It’s this kind of innovation that the Sustainable
Shipping Initiative (SSI), a cross-industry coalition
formerly facilitated by Forum for the Future and
WWF, now a standalone charity, seeks to support.
Ship-owners, charterers, operators, shipbuilders,
engineers, marine financiers and supply chain
managers recently met in Singapore for the launch
of its ‘Case for More Action’ report, which details
the practical tools the shipping industry can use to
reduce its environmental footprint.
Helle Gleie, leader of the SSI, remarks, “From
new vessel types, and new financial models to
propulsion through kites and bacteria-based fuels, it
is clear that the maritime sector is driving innovation.
Our new tools and our recommendations for future
action will accelerate this even further.”
– Duncan Jefferies
The Majestic Maersk can
carry 18,000 twenty-foot
containers, but with a
lighter footprint than
other sea giants
“
It’s the most
energy
efficient
container
vessel ever
made
“
I worked in the Government to
understand the system
I understood going into the Government
that, while civil servants can champion
evidence-based policy making, it is still
a world that revolves around four-year
cycles and political agendas. I worked
there to understand the way in which
decisions are made, and my plan was
always to eventually move on and use this
knowledge to press Parliament and the
Government effectively. I’ve seen a lot of
good and bad lobbying, and I’m looking
forward to sharing and applying what I
learnt during my time in the Government.
Stand the 400m long Majestic Maersk
on its stern and it would tower over the
roof of the Empire State Building (381m).
As the world’s largest container ship, it can transport
roughly 18,000 twenty-foot containers, or around
182 million iPads – one each for every person in
Brazil. A single link from its anchor chain weighs
500 pounds.
It’s the first of a new generation of Triple-E class
ships, a name which is derived from the class’s
three design principles – economy of scale, energy
efficient and environmentally improved. Maersk has
ordered 20 of these vessels, costing $190 million
each. Fuel-saving and emission-reductions features
account for around $30 million of the price tag,
though the Majestic still gets through 21,200 gallons
of fuel per day.
To put this into perspective, a Boeing 747 burns
approximately 36,000 gallons of fuel over the course
of a 10-hour flight, while the typical car gets about
25 miles per gallon. So despite having a large C02
footprint (3-4% of global emissions), shipping is
still the least environmentally damaging way of
transporting freight, emitting 3g of C02 for every ton
of goods transported 1km. Rail, by comparison,
emits 18g of C02 per ton.
The cost of installing fuel-saving technologies
will be dwarfed by savings made over the ship’s
lifetime; using the Clean Cargo Working Group’s
methodology, which measures grams of C02 emitted
per container moved 1km, it is the most energyefficient container vessel ever made. It uses 20%
less fuel than the previous holder of the title, the
Emma Maersk, and 50% less than the industry
average on the Asia-Europe trade lane.
The ship’s U-shaped hull creates more space
in the cargo holds for containers, while an unusual
‘twin-skeg’ design – two engines, each driving a
separate propeller – allows the ship to run more
efficiently at slower speeds, using fewer propeller
revolutions and distributing pressure better than the
Emma Maersk’s single engine system.
A waste heat recovery system has also been
included in the Majestic to reuse energy from the
engines’ exhaust gas for extra propulsion, reducing
fuel consumption by around 9%. The remainder
of the Triple-E vessels that Maersk has purchased
should feature even more efficiencies, says
Signe Bruun Jensen, Global Advisor, Maersk Line
Environment & CSR, as “the pace of innovation is
so rapid”.
All the materials used to build the ships have
been documented in a ‘cradle-to-cradle passport’
to ensure they are reused or disposed of in an
For more information on the SSI visit
ssi2040.org or email [email protected]
37
Catching them
young
Going local
Ecover asks what a distributed business model really means.
MSC-labelled
fish is on the
menu at 4,000
UK primary
schools
“
38
MSC is a Forum for the Future Partner.
www.msc.org
Photos: Digital Vision/Thinkstock
“
Over the past three years, more than 30 in-store
campaigns have also taken place around the world in
conjunction with major retailers, resulting in a 500%
increase in sales of MSC products. Contract caterers
like Compass and global restaurant chains such as
McDonalds have also made large-scale commitments
to the MSC label – the latter introducing it in all of its
European restaurants and 14,000 US sites.
While the MSC is keen to engage with consumers
of all ages on sustainable consumption, according
to Michel Kaiser, Professor of Marine Conservation
Ecology at Bangor University, “if one is to affect
behavioural change you need to take the long term
view and realise that it is the next generation that will be
most receptive to these messages”. Indeed, a recent
survey of 4,000 US adults by the Natural Marketing
Institute found that the percentage of Generation Y
who “buy as many green/eco-friendly products as they
can” had risen to 36% in 2012 from 31% in 2009. And
from going into primary schools and talking to children,
MSC staff have seen first-hand how the generation
that follows on from Gen Y intuitively understands the
importance of this issue too.
MSC-labelled fish is now on the menus at some
4,000 primary schools across the UK, supplied via the
local authority, which chooses what’s on the school
menu. Many of the contracts they can select from
include the option to serve sustainable fish. However,
some local authorities are stopping their support for
central catering contracts, while academies are being
encouraged by the Government to make their own
healthy eating standards. Because of this, it is more
important than ever to ramp up the MSC’s Fish and
Kids project and reach more schools.
Launched in 2006, Fish and Kids encourages
schools and restaurants in England to serve
sustainable, MSC-labelled seafood. It gives children,
teachers, parents and caterers the opportunity to find
out why choosing sustainable seafood is vital for the
future of fish, fishing communities and the environment.
With the help of Murdock, the friendly, sustainable
fish-eating cat and mascot for the project, the scheme
is able to communicate with children on their level,
teaching them about the food chain from boat to plate
and responsible consumption. Moreover, by engaging
with young consumers while they are still living at
home, the MSC is also engaging with their parents: a
child’s knowledge and enthusiasm about sustainable
fishing should encourage the rest of the family to
support it too. – Charlotte Owen
Photos: Zute LightfootAlamy
Tucking into a sustainable
school dinner?
According to the
Food and Agriculture
Organization of the
United Nations (FAO),
approximately 87% of
the world’s fisheries
are overexploited or
fully exploited. In fact,
the fleet needs to be as
much as one third smaller
in capacity if we want our
oceans to continue to
teem with life.
Consumers have an
important role to play
here: by making more
responsible purchasing
decisions, they can help
to drive change within the
fishing industry. Buying
Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC) certified
seafood directly rewards
well-managed fisheries for their sustainable practices.
The more MSC-labelled, demonstrably sustainable
produce bought, the larger the market for certified
sustainable seafood becomes. If they want to tap
into this market, fisheries operating below the MSC
standard will have to reduce their environmental impact
and acquire MSC certification, thereby adding to the
number of sustainable fisheries in operation.
“Eventually, we hope that every wild-caught
fish will be able to bear the MSC label”, says James
Simpson, Communications Manager at the MSC. “It’s
going to be a long journey, but we’re making significant
strides: 10% of the world’s wild-captured fish are
already in the programme.” To make this figure 100%,
more consumers will need to understand what the
MSC label means. Fortunately this is happening. In
September 2012, an independent survey carried out on
behalf of the MSC found that 30% of consumers who
buy fish at least once every two months are aware of
the MSC ecolabel for sustainable and well-managed
fisheries – up from 23% in 2010. What’s more, over 9%
of all respondents were able to accurately describe,
without any prompting, what the MSC ecolabel stands
for, as opposed to 5% in 2010.
“There’s a rise in interest right across the board”,
says Simpson. “We’ve also seen a huge increase both
in terms of the number of mentions of sustainable
fishing online and in print, and the amount of people
interested in sustainable fish and related issues. It’s
becoming something people are really interested in.”
You’re an international company in an
otherwise heavily centralised sector, and you
want to ‘go local’. First things first: what does a
distributed business model even look like – in terms
of manufacturing, sales and branding? That’s the
question the ecological cleaning products brand
Ecover is boldly trying to answer – a frontier few
businesses have broached.
To find out, Ecover has launched Glocal, a pilot
project in partnership with Forum for the Future to
explore producing cleaning products using local
materials and local manufacturing methods. Find a
commercially viable way of doing so, and the Glocal
team will have developed a new business model for the
bio-economy. According to Tom Domen, Long Term
Innovation Manager at Ecover, this pioneering work
has significant potential: “Glocal is helping us envision
a model in which Ecover goes beyond producing and
distributing globally to become a knowledge centre and
a catalyst for local production and local businesses.”
Ecover is running a pilot project in Mallorca, the
geography of which – a manageable size, clearly
defined boundaries, part of the EU – makes it a perfect
testing ground to explore potential scenarios. The team
has mapped all the available sources of biological
materials – or biosources – particularly focusing on
waste streams, to work out viable ingredients for the
three selected pilot products. Ecover is investigating
the opportunities presented by satellite data to map
biosources globally in the future. In Mallorca, the team
is experimenting with turning the selected materials
into products such as peroxide bleach – a natural
bleach unlike toxic, commonly used chlorine bleach
– and soap, with guidance from Mallorcan locals,
including a peroxide bleach expert.
In parallel, Ecover has been investigating local
packaging and distribution options. The ideal scenario
is that the packaging is made locally to the high
standards set by Ecover. In spring 2011, the company
implemented the use of PolyEthylene, a green plastic
made from sugarcane affectionately known as Plantastic that is 100% renewable, reusable and recyclable.
Taking this to a local level, however, is not simple:
diverse waste collection models, reclamation systems
and reuse cultures are just some of the complications.
Not a company to fall at the first hurdle however,
Ecover is committed to working through issues like
this. And solutions are beginning to emerge. For
example, a shop in Mallorca sells detergents out of big
barrels from which customers re-fill their own bottles
– and can even add different fragrances to the mix. A
closed-loop system isn’t impossible to envision in the
longer term.
So what have they learnt? Most importantly,
says Domen, the need for ongoing experimentation
in order to understand specific local conditions. A
neat illustration of this is the commercial viability of
any new cleaning products in Mallorca, an economy
underpinned by tourism. The odd visitor may be happy
to buy an expensive soap, but for hotels – which
constitute most of the market – price is key: any local
product must compete on price with cheap imports.
The opportunities presented by a Glocal business
model go beyond supporting local economies. Current
production of cleaning products depends on a diverse
and complex value chain, exposing the manufacturer
to resource scarcity and uncertainty. By turning to
local areas, mapping their resources, making use of
‘waste’ products and putting an idiosyncratically local
stamp on the final product, there are opportunities to
strengthen Ecover’s resilience as a business.
The rise of distributed manufacturing technologies
makes such a vision possible. According to Anna
Warrington, Principal Sustainability Advisor at Forum
for the Future, exploring new, sustainable ways
of manufacturing is critical across the business
spectrum: “Given the challenges we face, civil society
and investors are looking for companies to deliver
something revolutionary rather than just evolutionary.
Once we have captured the learning from Ecover’s pilot
project and established a long-term vision, we can start
to work out how this might be scaled up elsewhere.”
A fundamental question is branding, which Effi
Vandevoorde, Corporate and Legal Affairs Manager at
Ecover, believes is key to ensuring an ethical company
such as Ecover lives up to its market expectations:
“There has been lots of innovation in waste and
packaging in recent years but it’s the stuff inside the
bottle that’s key. We want to create a product working
in partnership with the local areas where it will be
used – not at their expense. Is it an Ecover product or a
Mallorca product? It’s both. That way we live the values
of our brand.” – Tess Riley
Mallorca: sun, sand
and locally produced
cleaning products?
“
Mapping local
resources
could
strengthen
ecover’s
resilience as a
business
“
Tomorrow’s consumers learn the
importance of sustainable fishing.
Ecover is a Forum for the Future Partner.
www.ecover.com
39
Asia’s edge
A good read
Western companies should look east to stay ahead,
says Dax Lovegrove of WWF.
The World We Made aims to be the most sustainable book
of its kind ever produced.
“
Solar panels beneath the
Shanghai Bund skyline
40
Green Futures
Photos: Arjowiggins
Dax Lovegrove is Head of Business,
Sustainability & Innovation, WWF-UK.
www.wwf.org.uk
Photos: iStock/Thinkstock
There’s a
major opening
for western
firms with
cleantech
solutions
arise from efforts across Asia to address pollution,
congestion, resource scarcity and other challenges.
China is set to spend over $500 billion in the next five
years on renewables, energy efficiency and cutting
air pollution, and this presents a major opening for
Western firms that can bring cleantech solutions to
the continent.
The massive expansion in on and off-grid
renewable energy in India and China presents new
avenues for Western renewables providers, whose
expertise can complement Asian home-grown
initiatives. Californian-based Solaria is such a
business establishing operations in China.
When it comes to improving air quality, firms such
as Terra Motors seek to electrify the tuk tuk, which
could make a huge contribution to cutting smog
in Asian cities. And BioLite, which used to provide
equipment solely for camping, now provides clean
cooking stoves for export to replace polluting ones.
Western businesses can build on Asian
interests in frugal product innovation, bringing new
approaches to business models. For instance, the
car-sharing services brought by Zoom to India help
to leapfrog car ownership and cut congestion and
pollution. Collaborative consumption solutions that
are increasingly being tested out in the West could
accelerate the dematerialisation of eastern systems.
The green economy has much to offer to
those firms that make the most of Asian-Western
innovation flows. Go to www.wwf.org.uk/innovation
to see WWF’s new collection of stories and insights
in this space.
It’s often assumed that e-books are the most
environmentally friendly form of the written
word, but that’s not necessarily true. As shown
by the production of Jonathon Porritt’s new book,
The World We Made, a paper-based book that is
sustainably designed and printed can have less of
an impact on the environment than an electronic
equivalent; it all depends on what criteria we use to
define their sustainability.
Jonathon’s book is written from the perspective
of Alex McKay, a history teacher looking back
from the year 2050, reflecting on the technological,
environmental and social challenges that had to be
overcome to create a world that works for the majority
of people. As Jonathon says, “A brilliant, fairer and
genuinely sustainable world is still available to all
of us by 2050 – if we start making it happen right
now. So it was particularly important for me to leave
no sustainable stone uncovered when producing,
creating and manufacturing this book.”
Arjowiggins Graphic, a manufacturer of
environmental paper solutions, and Pureprint Group,
an award-winning print and marketing company,
therefore set out to create the most sustainable
book of its kind. Printing The World We Made
on four different types of 100% recycled Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper reduced its
environmental impact by 17,120kg of landfill, 371,887
litres of water, 35,013kWh of electricity, 3,105kg of
CO2 and greenhouse gases, and 27,817kg of wood,
according to Arjowiggins Graphic’s Environmental
Benefit Statement, which shows savings made by
using recycled papers compared with using virgin
fibre papers (non-recyled papers).
“The average CO2 emissions for a book is around
4kg of CO2, so we’re proud to have created a book
that produces less than half of this amount”, says
Angela De Vorchik, Operational Marketing Manager,
Arjowiggins Graphic. “Not only does this reduce the
book’s carbon emissions and divert waste paper
from landfill but it also provides a really simple way to
communicate its commitment to the environment.”
For the printing process, Pureprint Group, a
carbon-neutral company based in East Sussex,
used inks made from vegetable-based oils, and no
isopropyl alcohol (which creates toxic emissions)
was applied, in order to reduce ground-level ozone.
Pureprint also diverts 99.5% of all its waste from
landfill, only uses electricity produced from renewable
resources and was awarded the Queen’s Award for
Enterprise for Sustainable Development in 2013. The
book was dispatched directly from the printers to
warehouses in the US, UK and Australia to cut out
any unnecessary transportation. Climate Care then
offset residual emissions (1.8kg per book) to make it
completely carbon neutral.
So, a big improvement on your typical printed
book then – but how does this compare with an
e-book? Apple has stated that the total life cycle of an
iPad 2 will produce 130kg of CO2 emissions, which
equates to the CO2 emissions from about 32 books
(based on the average of 4kg of CO2 per book across
the publishing industry), or 72 copies of The World
We Made. That’s roughly the number of books you’d
need to read on an iPad or other e-reader to realise its
environmental benefits over a printed book.
Many tablets and e-readers also contain rare earth
elements, which are typically obtained in ethically
unsound ways from warring regions of Africa. What’s
more, these devices are often manufactured in China
under working conditions that would be considered
unacceptable in the West. And they’re typically
upgraded well before they reach the end of their
useful life, with last year’s model ending up in landfill
or a toxic e-waste dump in the developing world.
That’s not to say the printing side of the book
business is perfect – far from it. Around 40% of all
the books published each year end up pulped, and
there’s still a way to go before all the paper used by
publishing industry is the recycled kind championed
by the Arjowiggins Graphic, sourced from certified
suppliers like the FSC. But as the production methods
employed on The World We Made demonstrate, truly
sustainable printed books need not be classified
under ‘fiction’. – Duncan Jefferies
Arjowiggins Graphic and Pureprint Group are
Forum for the Future partners.
www.recycled-papers.co.uk
www.pureprint.com
“
Avergae
emissions for
a book are 4kg
of co2
“
“
What can Western and Asian firms learn
from each other? How can they collaborate
around solutions that tackle regional, national and
international challenges? This is the focus of WWF’s
latest ‘Green Game Changers’ report.
Asian innovations are already sending ripples
across the globe. Centralised green policies in China
that support responsible businesses and clean
technologies for the nation and beyond are on the
rise. For example, in 2013, the Chinese Government
deployed a policy to offer almost $10,000 to buyers of
electric vehicles, boosting firms such as BYD which
have already become giants in manufacturing electric
vehicles (EVs) and batteries. Chinese firms plan for
strong growth in domestic EV use, but they also have
ground-breaking technology in light and heavy-duty
EVs for export.
India is well known for its entrepreneurial spirit, so
vital for building resilience in the face of fast-moving
global challenges. Entrepreneurs are embracing frugal
innovation across the country to achieve more with
fewer resources. The Economic Times in India reports
multinational businesses have set up over 750 R&D
centres over the last two decades to drive innovation
for both local and global markets.
Bangladeshi bottom-of-the-pyramid microfinance
services are highly unconventional and successful in
their methods. Borrowers do not provide collateral
in the traditional sense to secure loans, and yet the
instances of successful pay back are extremely high,
thanks to obligations placed on individuals by the
wider community. This model is expanding westwards
and linking up with the financing of micro renewables.
There are incoming Asian innovations of this
nature for Western businesses to adapt to and
work with. There are also export opportunities that
Scrap paper for
recycling at the
Greenfield paper mill
41
“
That’s the way
I was used
to thinking:
analytically
“
42
she first had to see the value of what she terms
‘sustainability risk management’ herself. “When
you’re in a corporate environment and you have to go
against the mainstream, one of the basic requirements
is your own belief that what you are doing is legitimate
and correct.” She describes the intense research
process she threw herself into at the time, delving
into papers on the potential impacts for business and
industry of climate change and resource shortages
and applying rigorous economic frameworks to them
– in her words, “connecting the dots”.
“For lack of a better word, I was not educated
about these things, but once I began researching
the issues, it became eminently clear how important
these newly emerging risks were”, she admits. “We
were a mainstream asset manager across various
classes: bonds, equities, private equities, real estate.
In those days sustainability risk was not considered
risk at all. Risk was seen as financial risk, business
risk, event risk and so on. Sustainability risk is all
about acknowledging the externalities, the effect
your behaviours are having on others. I could see this
within an economic framework – and that’s the way
I was used to thinking: analytically. This gave me the
confidence and enthusiasm to push the concepts.”
Conviction is one thing; communication another.
Appleton describes her approach in the language of a
marketer: rebranding, translating, creating messages.
There’s a lesson here for anyone trying to promote
sustainability in the mainstream. First listen to your
audience; then adapt your message.
“We had to take issues around environmental and
social aspects and translate them into the language of
risk. We called it ‘enhanced due diligence’ – because
that was part of the rhetoric the portfolio managers
and research teams were used to hearing. You really
had to demonstrate how these things could impact
the bottom line.”
I ask her for an example – the sort she would
have used to make her point. She picks the potential
impact of water shortages on the many semiconductor manufacturers in Hong Kong. “In their
production processes they need a lot of clean water. If
there’s a shortage of water, what’s their back-up plan?
If they all have the same one – to truck it in from a few
other reasonably local sources, for instance – then
that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Appleton describes one ‘aha’ moment with the
Project Finance team – an asset class that gathers
funds for large projects, such as infrastructure. They
looked through the externality checklist, and began
to discuss the impact of developments on indigenous
peoples and their ability to disrupt the infrastructure.
It’s not that this ‘social’ risk was unknown, Appleton
Photos: iStock/Thinkstock
Woman of steel: Marlys
Appleton of Avtaar
American and Avtaar
Management Solutions
“We had a $700
billion investment
portfolio.” The year
is 2005, the company
AIG Asset Management.
Marlys Appleton had
been working there
for four years when
she was asked to take
part in a ‘management
development’ exercise
which, she recalls, defined
both her attitude to risk
and her career. She went
on to become the Chair of
the Sustainability Steering
Committee, and Vice
President, Sustainability
Initiatives for AIG Global
Investment Group. Today
she is the President,
founder and 100%
owner of the wholesale
metals trading and recycling firm Avtaar America, and
Co-Founder-Director of the Indian company Avtaar
Management Solutions. She is also on the board of the
non-profit Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future,
which aims to support women as agents of change for
sustainable practices in the business world.
Back in 2005, Appleton was one of a small group
charged with investigating how climate change issues
might affect the company’s portfolio, and researching
progressive behaviour in corporations to see what
AIG could learn. “My first though was ‘What does this
have to do with me?”, she admits. “My background
was analytics and this sounded more like softball!”
Based on the group’s findings and acceptance
by the CEO, Appleton was asked to chair an internal
committee to convince the asset class business units,
to take the risk seriously, and help them change their
governance and approach to risk. What had they
found? Put simply, that high-impact, low-probability
events – such as those related to a changing climate
and environmental degradation – could affect the
performance of the investment portfolio. But not
everyone was listening.
“There was considerable resistance”, she recalls.
“Just because you convince the CEO of a company,
it doesn’t mean all the lieutenants fall in line. We
had to tell reluctant people who thought they knew
everything already that this was a risk worth putting
in the main category, and then give them the tools to
assess it themselves. My role was to lead that effort.”
Before Appleton could convince anyone else,
Photos: Marlys Appleton
Anna Simpson meets Marlys Appleton, an early champion
of sustainability risk management on Wall Street.
stalled during the financial crisis. Her ambition had
been to expand the global investment platform for
long-term risk assessment to the liability underwriting
side of the business. However, after the crash there
was no funding for new programmes. (Her established
programmes remain in place, she is happy to say.)
After 25 years on Wall Street, she was ready for a
new challenge.
“I decided that I wanted to do something more
independently. One of the biggest exports in the US
is high quality scrap metal, and this is also one of the
biggest inputs into the steel production process. By
using recycled steel you reduce the carbon emissions
and water footprint significantly – and it’s less costly.
I looked at the big emerging markets for scrap steel –
Turkey, China, Korea, India, and so on. India is a big
steel producer: by 2020 they could well be the second
largest steel manufacturing country in the world
[after China]. I found a partner in India who knew the
business, and that was the genesis of Avtaar.”
Fundamentally, Appleton believes, she wouldn’t
have started the business without her experience in
helping others to understand sustainability. Appleton
also credits her time chairing the Sustainability
Steering Committee as a process that brought her
entrepreneurial skills to the fore, and informed her
decision to seek out more autonomy.
There’s a long way to go before sustainability
risk management is common in financial markets,
Appleton admits. If she could make one change to
the world of finance, I ask, what would it be? “To
encourage CFOs and others working in investor
relations to consider long-term risk and to bring it up
in their quarterly calls”, she replies, “even if the Wall
Street analysts don’t ask! The main impediment is
short-termism.”
However, she adds, there’s a need for regulation
as well as advocacy. “I am encouraged by the work
of some progressive organisations in assessing
all manner of sustainability risk – GE, Allianz and
Deutsche Bank, and non-profits such as WWF, to
name a few. That said, had you told me in 2007 that
by 2014 we would still not have any climate change
legislation, I would have thought it implausible.”
Anna Simpson is Editor, Green Futures.
“
It’s not just
about how
boards
behave: it’s
how the
whole chain
of command
behaves
“
Risky business
hastens to clarify – but that the right value hadn’t been
placed upon it. This exercise turned the fixed income
team, into one of the biggest supporters internally
of this new risk review. It was for this team that her
group developed a carbon calculator which focused
on sensitive sectors such as metals, mining and
energy companies, and quantified their potential to
adapt to future carbon-related regulations.
“Externality is a key analysis of sustainability risk.
We open our eyes to costs to which we were able to
close our eyes in the past.”
If the language of risk and externalities was one
tool in Appleton’s change-making kit, proxy voting
was another. Proxy, she explains, is an annual voting
process for issues relating to all the public companies
in which you hold shares.
“We had a proxy voting committee and they
took their role very seriously. There are all kinds
of questions that fall under proxy voting issues:
transparency, reporting on a company’s vulnerability
to climate change, etc. What we did was educate the
proxy voting committee on how they might vote on
sustainability issues.” Appleton became the first nonportfolio manager member of the committee, voting
exclusively on sustainability-related issues. This could
only happen after she and her team convinced internal
and external counsel and legal teams that by taking
into account such risk, they were indeed upholding
their fiduciary responsibility to manage funds prudently.
She considers this a fundamental achievement.
Another essential factor in minimising risk is
governance, Appleton maintains. “It’s not just about
how boards behave”, she explains: “it’s how the
whole chain of command behaves. Good governance
won’t necessarily gain you a lot that you can quantify,
but poor governance will almost always comes back
to hurt you.”
Take the BP oil spill, she says, referring to the
2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster in which 4.9 million
barrels flowed into the sea over 87 days. “If the
questions that might have been asked of that
company had been informed by sustainability, that
would have been a good thing”, Appleton observes.
“What happened with BP was a case of governance
risk: down to poor safety policies or lack of
enforcement. It’s clear that they saw citations [reports
of health and safety incidents] as a cost of doing
business, and didn’t take them seriously. This I see as
a result of poor governance and it doesn’t just occur
at board level, but also at project and division level.”
In contrast, it was the strong governance of some
metal and mining giants that prompted Appleton
to consider starting her own company in metals. “I
became fascinated by it while doing research into the
sustainability reports of the [the mining and natural
resource group] BHP Billeton and Anglo American and
[the aluminium manufacturer] Alcoa. I saw that these
guys had been looking at environmental issues, such
as water and waste, for a long time. They’re also big
supporters of education and healthcare in developing
nations, because they know that if they don’t, they
won’t have a workforce. What really surprised me
was that they had put together a rigorous intellectual
framework to consider these issues – particulary BHP
Billeton, the Australian mining giant.”
Come 2010, Appleton was looking for a change.
Her progress mainstreaming sustainability at AIG had
Water: a source of
pressure for steel
manufacturers - and risk
analysts
43
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Feedback
However, the consequential effects of
global warming are already here – storms,
droughts, forest fires of increasing severity
and frequency – all of which will increase in
the next few decades, making the world a
disaster zone well before then.
Perhaps Forum for the Future should
endorse low-level use of solar radiation
management geoengineering now, without
slackening its promotion of sustainability.
– Colin Baglin
Water, water, anywhere?
Geoengineering
the future
I support all that Forum for the Future
is doing to promote sustainability,
especially green energy. But, in order
to avoid the imagined, but all too likely,
horrors identified in Jonathon Porritt’s
‘Conversation with the future’ [See
GF90, p21], I believe that we need to do
more. Not just more of the same – wind,
wave, solar, nuclear energy, etc. – as
these methods are too slow and cannot
keep pace with the increase in global
energy use. The US Energy Information
Administration predicts a 46% increase
in CO2 emissions by 2040, resulting
in a further 2ºC increase in Northern
hemisphere temperatures.
In the short to medium term, I believe
we need to use geoengineering to counter
global warming caused by CO2 emissions.
Jonathon’s vision of the future sees some
geoengineering systems – air capture and
ocean fertilisation – being used in 2050.
I would have expected aquaponics to get
a mention somewhere! [See ‘Crops take
shelter’ in GF90, p26, which looked at
indoor food production] – Tim
Tess Riley [author] responds:
Thanks Tim – paragraph seven does
mention it, which is good news. There
are a lot of impressive things happening
in that field so it wasn’t possible to go in
depth into each method, but hopefully it
gives an overview.
Governing for sustainability
I couldn’t agree more with this article [See
GF90, p28] in terms of acknowledging that
governance is such an important issue
when thinking about creating big change.
It’s not a sexy topic, but good governance
provides the essential foundations for
things to flourish, and needs to be given
the same attention as some of the more
whizzy innovations that emerge. This
topic shouldn’t be exclusive to just the
national and regional leaders of countries
either; it’s perhaps even more relevant
when thinking about new and emerging
organisations and power structures.
[email protected]
@GreenFutures
Comments may be edited for publication.
Having worked on the Sustainable
Shipping Initiative (SSI) over the last three
years, I’ve experienced first-hand how the
governance structure has evolved to fit the
growing and changing needs of the project.
Working through the appropriate structures
was something that took much more time
than we had anticipated, but it’s one of the
things I am most proud of having achieved.
We’ve now established the SSI as a
separate legal entity with its own trustee
board, spinning it out of Forum for the
Future. We hope this will allow the initiative
to grow and flourish and create even more
impact within the industry.
It seems that there is very limited
knowledge about what the options for
alternative governance structures are
– be that for new bodies or established
structures looking to adapt. As far as I’m
aware, there is no obvious place where
people can go to learn and share their
experience of governance structures. In
addition, there seems to be a resistance to
talking about the nitty gritty of how these
things work. I know it would have been
useful for me to discuss these matters with
others facing similar design challenges.
Plus, it’s my hunch that there is also room
for innovation in the options for new forms
of governance.
Most importantly, when designing
governance structures for the future we
must acknowledge that these structures
can’t be static. They need to be flexible
and adaptive, yet resilient and appropriate
for the needs of the community they’re
working to support. If we don’t work with
the evolving forces around us, then we’re
not going to get the get anywhere close
to effective governance for sustainability.
– Louise Armstrong, senior advisor at
Forum for the Future
@tess_riley: Great to see @SoilAssociation’s focus on the
impacts of #cotton. Read @GreenFutures’ #cotton special?
http://bit.ly/12GgWdQ
@CambridgeAroma: @GreenFutures @tui_travel Fuel efficient
[sic] applied to air travel is an oxymoron
46
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Readership
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47
JonathonPorritt
We’re
trapped in an
ideological
stand-off
“
48
shortages induced by further population growth, or
decreased, indicating the power of technology to
secure new supplies? Ehrlich promptly accepted the
bet – and lost on every one of five counts!
More tellingly, our societies have not collapsed
into the kind of polluted hell-hole that Ehrlich saw as
inevitable. Despite huge increases in human numbers,
most indicators of human progress have moved in
the right direction, particularly on longevity, access
to education, reduced mortality from contagious
diseases, and so on.
“But at what cost to the natural world?” is Ehrlich’s
continuing refrain. We’ve eroded so much of our natural
capital (in terms of fresh water, soil, forests, fisheries
and so on), and so profoundly destabilised the climate
(through our still-increasing use of coal, oil and gas) as
to profoundly jeopardise all the gains that we’ve made
over the last few decades.
And so the debate goes on, reflected in the
anguished plea of the CEOs quoted above to
let innovation rip. Paul Sabin’s The Bet uses that
very personal battle between Ehrlich and Simon
to demonstrate eloquently why we’re now so
fundamentally trapped in an ideological stand-off that
just gets more and more vicious – especially in the US.
It wasn’t always like this. Richard Nixon described
the environment as ‘a cause beyond party and beyond
factions’ in his State of the Union address in 1970,
inviting his Democratic opponents to join him in a
bi-partisan approach to addressing pollution and
population growth. George Bush Senior picked up
on that theme in the early 1990s, distancing himself
from Ronald Reagan’s earlier constant campaigning
to dismantle as much environmental regulation as
he could get his hands on. Bush’s pro-environment
enthusiasm didn’t last long, and nor did Margaret
Thatcher’s ‘green period’, but at least they were
capable of listening to other people.
President Obama must think back ever
so nostalgically to those golden days. Today’s
Republicans (and their militant wing in the Tea Party)
see anything to do with the environment as antimarket, anti-progress and anti-God himself!
But as Sabin’s subtitle implies, the bet between
Ehrlich and Simon is still in play. We’re engaged in a
massive gamble regarding the future of humankind,
and more and more people believe the odds on a
happy outcome are getting longer by the year.
Which is precisely why we do indeed need to be
driving innovation harder than we’ve ever done before
– but not without due precaution every step of the way.
Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for the
Future. His latest book, ‘The World We Made’, is
available to buy from theworldwemade.com.
www.jonathonporritt.com
A ‘slow travel’ air cruiser over Incheon Bridge, South Korea, 2041
Image courtesy of SeymourPowell
Photos: Nick Woodford / Forum for the Future
“
The CEOs of the
world’s biggest
chemical and
agribusiness
companies recently
petitioned the
presidents of the
EU Commission,
Parliament and
Council to downgrade
the Precautionary
Principle and focus
instead on a new
‘Innovation Principle’.
On what grounds? That
taking an excessively
precautionary approach to policy-making and
regulation is holding Europe back in the cut-throat
world of global competitiveness.
I’m not sure this was terribly wise. The
Precautionary Principle is what it is precisely because
the majority of EU citizens have lost what trust they
might once have had in these industries – with good
reason, for the most part. Does it really make sense
to imply that ‘precaution’ and ‘innovation’ are polar
opposites, or to address society’s widespread anxiety
about the impact of some products by petitioning EU
decision-makers to give them even greater licence to
innovate with even fewer regulatory constraints. This is
already such a polarised world, so why make it worse?
Polarisation on environmental issues has been the
name of the game for so long that few question when
that game first came into being. Paul Sabin nails that
historical sweep in his new book, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich,
Julian Simon and our Gamble Over Earth’s Future,
taking us back to the birth of the modern environment
movement in the late 1960s in the US.
Of Sabin’s two protagonists, Paul Ehrlich is
by far the better known. Author of The Population
Bomb in 1968, and so-called ‘high priest of the ecoapocalypse’, he has spent the best part of 50 years
warning people that we’re living way outside the
Earth’s natural carrying capacity, and that the sheer
weight of human numbers will eventually trump the
power of technology and innovation – even when it is
not held back by unnecessary precaution!
At the start of his academic career, Julian Simon
subscribed to more or less the same world view. But
he soon came to see things very differently, dismissing
Ehrlich and all other supporters of the ‘limits to growth’
thesis as misguided fools or ‘dangerous false prophets’.
Simon’s best-known book, The Ultimate Resource,
was published in 1981. Shortly after that he challenged
Ehrlich to a bet: would the price of five key raw
materials (copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten)
have increased by the end of the decade, indicating
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Informal fruits - Forum for the Future

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