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.

Any food, any time of year.

One of the issues surrounding climate change is the consumer belief that we can have any food item any time of the year.

This struck me on a snowy day in Vancouver as I was walking by a produce store.  There was an individual asking one of the workers if they had any grapes.

I think, "It is snowing, why would you expect grapes."

The only grapes would be coming from a much warmer part of the world, quite literally thousands of kilometers away.  Can we really expect to make any progress towards sustainability if we are constantly shipping foods thousands of kilometers to satisfy the culinary desires of everybody.

That's why this winter I avoided the consumption of mandarin oranges.  It is silly that this 'tradition' of eating oranges at Christmas time has become part of the way things are done in Vancouver.

Just a thought.  If we want things to get better, we all need to think a lot harder and act a lot smarter.

Mix tapes rule

Earlier in the year our trusty Toyota Echo was unfortunately in a motor vehicle accident and needed to go to rust bucket in the sky.

Fortunately, our friend was selling his old Honda Accord in order to contribute towards a mini-van for his growing family.

However, the vehicle was of a vintage when cassette tapes were still standard equipment for car stereos.  This was bad timing as when I was packing up to move, I decided that I no longer needed my cassette deck and various tapes and had sold all of this.

We got one of those cassette adapters but it has an annoying his and bit awkward to use with the funny cord hanging out.  I spread the word that I was in need of cassettes and several friends forwarded what they had which was cool.

However, it was only yesterday that re-aquired a cassette deck, just $20 on craigslist.

So, this morning I connected it up in "mission control" and got everything working.  My son and I then sat down to record some music.  It is very easy now with youtube as compared to 15 years ago with a stack of CDs.  We just think of a song, go to youtube and find it.

It was a good teaching moment too as I had to show my son how to use a pencil to wind the leader up to the start of the tape and then blanking the first part of the tape.  Then showed him how to set the level on the cassette deck so that all the songs would be roughly the same loudness, saving one from jumping to the volume control if a sound was too loud or soft.

There are some benefits to old technology and to be able to spend an hour quietly with my son was great because he's approaching his teens and by then hanging out with dad might not be on the top of his priorities.

If you're going to make your own, I like this set of rules.

Homeschooling, a brief word

I came across an article by Penelope Trunk who writes on many things, but what caught my interest was one of her entries on homeschooling in that is a how-to-live decision not a how-to-learn decision.

People ask me why I homeschool my son and it comes down to allowing my son to learn at his pace and not have his enthusiasm and energy restricted by a teacher that is struggling to keep control of over twenty kids at a time.

I also feel that you maybe have ten to twelve good years to be with your child, from the age of around two to their early teens before they go out into the world more on their own.  I figured that taking some time out of my life to build a strong relationship with my child isn't such a burden.  Really, if you're going to have kids you should be prepared to deal with the responsibility of kids.

Not everyone is in the position to homeschool but many who think they aren't really could do it if they committed themselves to the idea of being more involved with his/her child's education.  Our family has learned to live with less, and really we have a lot, in order to homeschool.

And to those who think homeschooled kids don't get enough social interaction, you're wrong.  Homeschool kids have sufficient opportunities for social interactions: sports teams, field trips, homeschool groups (we have a math group), classes for homeschoolers, and more are out there.  The cool thing is that it provides these children opportunities for interacting with not only children of their own age but children of all ages, instructors, teachers, other parents, grand parents, store owners, field trip guides and more.  Homeschool children aren't restricted to the four walls of a school and one teacher for the year.

I overheard a conversation between a regular school kid and a homeschooler.  "So when do you go to school?" the answer, "All the time."

Cool, Wade Davis joins UBC

Anthropologist and language preserver crusader Wade Davis has joined UBC and will be teaching undergraduate classes.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/BC/ID/2425189164/

I put up there with David Suzuki in drawing my awareness to the challenges we face to ensure that humankind will continue into the future.

Is it so wrong to be average?

I recall a story of a U.S Senator stating that half the doctors in the United States were below average and that action needed to be taken.  Not sure if this was urban legend but it represents a poor understanding of math.

However, what's wrong with not being average?  It has to be put into perspective.  A fourth line hockey player is below average for a professional hockey player but he could still outplay everyone on the ice in my Sunday night hockey group.

This comes up because I am reading The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor.  He teaches at Harvard where the students come in with high expectations because they have been groomed their entire lives to attend such a prestigious school.  However, once again after their first exam, many are shocked to be considered below average.

He also dismays his students by reminding them that 99% of them will not graduate at the top 1% of their class.  The students fail to recognize where they are relative to the rest of the world where the majority of people their age will never attend a university.

So, don't let being less than average stop you from doing something you love or make you feel less than adequate.  Never stopped me from playing goalie in ice hockey.

Metro Vancouver, Future of the Region (November 28, 2013)

Attended another Metro Vancouver event on Thursday, part of their Future of the Region dialogues.  The talk discussed the planning necessary for the Metro Vancouver region in order to make it an economically robust, culturally rich and socially equitable place to live, work and play.

The panel members included former Vancouver city councilor Gordon Price, Bev Grieve (Director of Development Services, New Westminster), Tim Savoie (General Manager, Development Services, Port Moody), and Gary Pooni (President, Brook Pooni Associates).  I’ve attached a scan of the bios that was provided at the dialogue.

The bottom line message, repeatedly emphasized by Gordon Price, was that the future of the region is going to be decided by the Translink referendum.  If the people do not vote to support Translink, then more roads will be built to support a car oriented society.  Over a million more people will be coming to the region over the next 25 years and developments will have to increase density but without proper public transportation, it will be very difficult to move the people as needed.  Price also emphasized that the transit system is at its limits already, with the 99 B-Line unable to meet demand.  The Marine Gateway project and the proposed Oakridge redevelopment will also place increased pressure on the Canada Line.  However, without increased funding to meet the transit needs of the increasing population, things will only get worse and push people into cars.  This is the wrong direction for the region to take and hopefully people will recognize this and vote appropriately when the referendum does come around.

Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast - Food Waste

Attended the Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast today.

Today’s topic was the challenges and opportunities presented by the upcoming ban of organics in the waste stream in 2015.

Todd Jeanotte of the Four Seasons hotel presented how the hotel works to minimize food waste in their different restaurants and catering business.  This involves staff engagement, menu engineering, preference reports, collaboration with suppliers, forecast management, and accurate measurement of input and output.

Erin Nichols represented the Vancouver Food Bank and spoke of how the organizations Food Runners program helps divert food that is near the expiration date from over 200 donors to those that can make best use of the food.  The interesting point made was that there is no liability for businesses that donate food which was a concern in the past.

Stuary Lilley of Enterra Feed described the process of how they take food waste and convert it into feedstock for chickens/farmed fished, oil and fertilizer.  Their process is described as a bioconversion process which uses the food waste to feed black soldier fly larvae which are then processed to make animal feed and fertilizer.  It helps close the loop in terms of minimizing waste and putting back the nutrients used to grow food into the agricultural process.

Steve Harpur, founder of Earth Renu, described how his company takes food waste and processes it into natural gas or biodiesel.  His main message is that there should be no food waste (packaged or unpackaged) going to landfill.  There are sufficient technologies capable of dealing with the waste and by locating his facility on Annacis Island, he reduces the distance that waste needs to travel – rather than the 700 km round trip to Cache Creek.

There was also a representative from Recycle Smart, a company that connect sustainability and business.  Many businesses do not know where to start, especially in dealing with the upcoming organics ban.  They also demonstrate that working towards meeting these requirements is not that costly and may actually save a business money by reducing waste collection fees.  Your waste may actually be a resource for another company.

The main message is that food waste represents nearly a third of the food produced in the world and that being organize material there exists the means and technologies to make use of this material rather than sending it to landfill.

Credentialism runs its course

Has the value of the college/university education diminished in the last twenty years?


I began reading College (Un)Bound by Jefffrey J. Selingo which looks at the future of higher education and how it has changed in the last twenty years with those born in the 1980s and 1990s attending post-secondary institutions.  In one part of the book, he looks at whether students are benefiting from college in a meaningful manner and refers to the book Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in which the authors looked at Collegiate Learning Assessment scores for recent graduates.  In their analysis, 45% of students after two years of study made no gains in writing, reasoning and critical thinking skills.  While after four years, a disappointing 36% made no progress.  Sadly, many students and parents blame the institutions for their failings.

I graduated with my undergraduate degree almost twenty years ago and my masters degree almost fifteen years ago.  Was it worth the time and cost?  If that is judged based on me working in the fields I studied, then no but if it is judged on me making use of the skills I learned then yes.  I started off with an undergraduate in biology and a my masters was in pharmaceutical sciences.  I am now a researcher and project manager for a shared value/sustainability consulting group.  How I got from there to here is a convoluted trip taking me from working as a lab technician, to a shipper/receiver, to managing a pharmacy teaching lab.  I never truly focused on grades, as the knowledge and skills I learned were much more interesting.  And I would rather have a good night's sleep rather than trying to squeeze out those extra few percentage points.  Not that I didn't take pride in doing well, but it really wasn't about the marks.

But I guess I'm also a little different from most people as I've taken some sort of academic or continuing education course every year since I graduated from high school except for 2002.  That's twenty years of additional formal learning that many people wouldn't even consider.

What am I getting at?  That school isn't about the grades.  It has been demonstrated that educators from grade school, high school and beyond participate in grade inflation such that the value of an "A" is diminished.  If everyone does well in school, how come so many graduates seem to know nothing when they enter the working world.  I've had to deal with PhD's trying to get packages from Vancouver to Belgium in less than twenty four hours - it was brought to me at 4:00 PM (PST) and had to get to Belgium for the next morning.  It stunned me the incapacity to realize that Belgium is 9 hours ahead of Vancouver which meant it was already 1:00 in the morning there when I received the package.  Flights to Brussels direct from Vancouver take at least 13 hours - thus, if you eliminate all processing and ground transport times, the package would at earliest be there at 2:00 in the afternoon in Brussels.  Alas, all FedEx packages go to Memphis first for sorting and then to Europe.  There was no way this was getting there the next day unless this researcher bought a ticket and got on the plane themselves.  This to me was a clear case of a lack of critical thinking or analysis skills and brought to mind me expression that incompetency on another individual's part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

So, yes, I believe that schools are failing our children and I struggle on a daily basis to help bring understanding to the world, one college graduate at a time.

Dear. Mr. Watterson

Interesting to see that there is a documentary out about the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Googling it, one finds there are several reviews, but the one that caught my eye was the one in Christianity Today.  Now, I never knew about this website before today but it fascinates me that they do movie reviews.

I named my son after the little boy who has adventures with his tiger.  He even reads the comic strip himself now - hopefully he doesn't try to imitate the toboggan adventures.

Remembering Veterans

It would seem that once again, some retailers like Costco and Target take objection to those that wish to sell poppies during the period before Remembrance Day.

My mother-in-law's husband, a World War II veteran, passed away last week at the age of 94.  He volunteered to serve his country in a war against the Germans.

My son has a fairly good understanding of the sacrifices that soldiers make and the story of the big box retailers diminishes these acts.  The representatives and public relation talking heads will undoubtedly put a spin on the whole issue but it will not mean much to me.

I personally object to the reasons some wars are fought but support those that are willing to put their lives on the line in service of their country.  I can't convince you to avoid shopping at Costco but is that big box of socks really what people have died for?

The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

 The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

Over 50% of the world's population lives in cities.  Establishing a sustainable urban culture is important in ensuring that cities will continue to be able to serve as a place for people to live.

Huge elephant in the room

I typically disagree with the Margaret Wente's opinions in the Globe and Mail but her piece on Toronto mayor Rob Ford is bang on.

He won't quit and there is no mechanism to remove him.  He lacks the ability to run the city with all the controversy surrounding him but as long as he stays in office he can command the resources of his position to defend himself.  How does that serve the people of Toronto?

He's mocked on every late night show and is an embarrassment for Canada.

I hope he comes to his senses either resigns or steps back to get some help.  Only time will tell.

What will it take?

Shooting the s**t after hockey on Sunday with tales of working in cold climates such as -30 C in Edmonton or one guy saying it was near -70 C up in the Yukon once.  And then someone pipes up that with places being that cold this whole global warming thing is bunk.

In past I would have tried to reason with him but the fact is that people will believe what they want to believe.  Stating facts and evidence from the latest scientific reports won't do a thing because in general, people know so little about science that they go to the extremes of not trusting it.

State sized chunks of ice falling off Antarctica and longer ice free periods in the Arctic are enough for me to believe.  But for me, it is common sense.  If we burn thousands of gallons of fuel a day, that exhaust has to go somewhere.

Some of it is natural but humans play a role in climate change.  If you don't want to accept that then get out of my way because I'm here to do something about it.