The Circular Economy - World Economic Forum, Davos 2014

The following is excerpted from the Guardian's Sustainable Business Blog, with attendees in Davos for the World Economic Forum

The Guardian bloggers interviewed Danish environment minister Ida Auken and discussed the role of the circular economy as the best route to sustainable business transformation:

"Whether you are a political leader looking for a new vision on where to go coming out of the crisis, or a business leader looking for new business opportunities, then look no further than the circular economy.
If you are a green NGO still discussing with your organisation whether business is part of the solution or only part of the problem, then look in the same direction.
It is going to be huge and transform the way we think, produce, consume and live. Everything needs to be redesigned when we move from a linear to a circular economy, so that we make sure that we don’t lose or destroy our natural resources but instead make products and services that are resource efficient, recyclable and innovative.
This will include new leasing and sharing models and creative ways for businesses to engage with their customers. The good news is you will not be alone. Here in Davos I have met business leaders from some of the world’s largest companies wanting to drive this agenda and transform their own business models.
I have met large consulting firms that want to help you do it the right way and I have met people from the start up world that have ideas if someone is willing to invest in it. To quote one of the champions of the circular economy – just do it!"

You may be asking, what is the circular economy.  In a nutshell it is industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative rather than the traditional linear economy which takes resources, makes a product, and when the product reaches the end of its life cycle is thrown in a landfill.  The circular economy attempts to mimic nature - when something dies, it is food for something else.  There is virtually no waste in nature.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation in cooperation with McKinsey and Company has produced two reports on the circular economy, they are available on the Foundations website here. 

Life isn't a straight line

In today's Globe and Mail, there was an article about former CFL running back Jesse Lumsden and his success in bobsled.

He is going to the Olympics in Sochi and will be on both the two man and four man teams.

It is a remarkable as he had expected to still be playing football but that dream was cut short by injuries.

For someone who grew up playing football and expected to play football as an adult, he has found something different that he loves and excels.

For me this is the reality of our lives and why we shouldn't be too quick to push our children into things.  Sure, some people know what they want to do and manage to do it for their entire lives but most do not.  I would fall into the second group as I've wandered from being a lab technician, researcher, and shipper/receiver to my current position as a pseudo project manager in the field of shared value/sustainability.

The only reason I managed to get to where I am and where I will be is by having a diverse skill set which allows me to write, research, navigate technology, and understand much jargon.  This is what we have to help develop in our children, a cross-section of skills that allows them to adapt to many situations, and not limited to a narrow set of possibilities.  Always keep learning, whether it be in a formal situation or informally.

I am currently taking a communications course - mainly business writing - in which being concise and accurate is emphasized.  Now for those that poo-poo arts courses, it is interesting how my history courses were quite valuable in terms of writing for business.  In some of these classes, a five to ten page article had to be summarized in a 250 word precis.  This can be incredibly difficult to isolate the main points of a long article and to bring it to conclusion.  However, this is exactly what needs to be done in some business communication.  You can't write an essay for every email.

So, even if you don't fully understand why you are being taught something or if you'll ever need it, perhaps it is important not to disregard it.  You don't have to invest your full attention but don't ignore what you are being taught.

Should we keep fighting?

In a blog entry by Dave Pollard he reviews the book Requiem for a Species by Clive Hamilton.

The basic message is that it is too late to stop traumatic climate change.  The predicted changes to the planet include (from CHAP 7):

• the uncontrollable burning of most of the world’s remaining tropical, subtropical and temperate forests due to latent heat
• the prevalence of desertification, disappearance of glacial melt, massive water shortages and endemic high rates of heat-related deaths in the world’s temperate zones (including the Western US and Canada; worst in Southern Europe, the Middle East, much Southeast Asia and most of Mexico and Central America)
• an ice-free world, with a commensurate rise, sooner or later, of 50-70m in sea levels
• unprecedented and chronic floods, storms and monsoons
• the death of almost all ocean life
• large-scale collapse of human infrastructure not designed for such extreme and frequent weather events
• massive numbers of climate change refugees, migrating (mostly north) thousands of miles in search of lands that are still habitable and arable

I'm not sure if things will go so far, so fast but it is a wake up call.

In the Guardian Sustainable Business blog there is an entry discussing Vivienne Westwood's proposal to form laws against ecocide in light of the massive damage humans are perpetrating on the environment.

Why science faces an uphill battle

As someone with a bit more education than most, it frustrates reading newspaper articles about "recent" findings.

Today's Vancouver Sun has an article about how obesity raises the risk of influenza and respiratory diseases.  I typically try to track down the original journal article for such things to have a better idea of the research that was done.  So, I dig up the original article from the International Journal of Obesity and it is from May 2013.

Now, this may be recent in terms of being within the last year but in this age of super short news cycles, social media and almost non-existent information retention information should have the ability to reach a broader audience a lot faster.

At least this time they actually referred to the actual journal along with the senior author's name.  Some references are so difficult to track down that the news writer may as well have made up the story.

Coming from an academic background where everything you say write to be backed up by a reference, these newspaper articles would receive a failing grade.  I'm not in industry but things could definitely be done better.

The Limits of GDP

In an Op-Ed piece by Michael Porter in the Boston Globe, he comments on how GDP is not the best way to quantify national success.

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The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was developed by economist Simon Kuznets and is a measure of a country's national income that represents economic assets.  GDP growth became a measure of national progress but it has increasingly come under question whether GDP is sufficient measure.

Even Kuznets commented in 1934 that the welfare of nation cannot be measured just by a measurement of national income.  Our standard of living includes other factors including social, environmental and community assets.  Happiness goes beyond wealth and includes: health, access to knowledge, tolerant communities and opportunities for personal achievement.

To try and include these other factors into a new metric, Porter has developed what he terms the Social Progress Index (SPI)which measures social progress in three broad areas: basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing and opportunities for an individual to reach their full potential.  The goal of the SPI is to "capture the breadth of issues that constitute wellbeing and identify priority areas for improvement."

The SPI helps measure social outcomes separate from economic indicators and allows a comparison of per capita GDP to social progress.  In general, economic growth correlates to improved social progress but some nations are shown to achieve higher social progress with similar GDPs.  Porter provides the example of Costa Rica having greater social progress as compared to South Africa.

By measuring the right thing, we can work towards improving national wellbeing and the development of the SPI allows a better measure than the GDP.

Hopefully this measure will be more broadly used by all those in a position to make decisions that affect our lives.

One issue with increasing density in cities

In Vancouver and the surrounding Metro area there is an expected population increase of nearly one million people expected over the next 25 years.

To prepare for this increase, city planners are working on increasing density through the construction of multi-use apartment units and townhouse complexes.  This is great for getting a lot of people onto a small area but one thing that doesn't get much press is that these are strata units.

Having lived in a strata complex and served on council, I think there needs to be more training and information made available to individuals looking to buy such housing.

One of the issues, is the ever increasing strata fees that owners will be expected to pay.  If you're initial fees start at $400/month, after ten years at a modest annual increase of 2.5% your fees will be $500/month.  And at the 10 year mark for many of the new units going up, there will be the initial wave of maintenance that will need to be considered from roofs and painting, to drainage issues and fixing the swimming pool that so many places seem to come with.

Unless the complex has a well funded maintenance fund, these costs could also result in assessments that many people are unprepared for.

The Metro Vancouver region is growing and this requires the construction of higher density housing.  With each development, I believe the developer should be mandated to provide buyers a full educational package on the expected responsibilities of strata owners.  I also believe that everybody should serve on council at least once in their lives because so much happens during meetings that doesn't get put into the minutes.  An inside scoop to the activities of council doesn't take much time, a handful of meetings every year and it allows one to learn who is in the complex because in this increasingly digital age, it seems face to face contact is a diminishing asset.

Observations about Craigslist

Spent my New Year's Day sorting some things out in the basement as it was getting a little labyrinthian on one side and I couldn't actually get to some things with ease.

As part of the process, I threw up a few items on Craigslist to give away and sell.  I like Craigslist because it helps link local people with items they need.  It also fits with my personal ethos of recycling and reuse.  I often look on Craigslist or thrift stores first when looking for an item instead of rushing out to the big box store.

Anyhow, looking at Craigslist posting this week makes me think that a lot of people got a new flat screen television for Christmas or at Boxing Week sales based on the number of older CRT TVs being given away.

I was joking with my wife, that instead of keeping up with the Jones by buying a new TV, we can just get the box off someone and leave it in the alley to make people think we got a new TV.  We get to up our neighborhood cred while saving all the money.