Sam Lakha, Manager, Volans Outreach.
Ruggie.org
One of the social enterprises we have helped over time is the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which has just launched a new portal for John Ruggie, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on business & human rights. Well worth a visit.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/ruggieorg/.
- John ElkingtonNestlé Prize for Creating Shared Value
The Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value will be awarded for the first time in April 2010 to encourage and reward an outstanding innovation for improving access to and management of water, improving the lives of farmers and rural communities, or delivering high nutritional value to populations suffering from nutritional deficits. (Declaration of interest: I sit on a new Nestlé Advisory Board, focused on Creating Shared Value.)
Nestlé believes that developing countries face under-investment in key social sectors, and that rewarding truly significant and innovative efforts to meet these global challenges creates shared value for us all. For a business to be successful in the long term, it must create value not only for its shareholders but also for society. Creating Shared Value is central to the Nestlé Corporate Business Principles.
The Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value seeks to recognise not only successes and innovations in the areas of water, nutrition and rural development but will highlight exemplary efforts that benefit the local community that can be replicated elsewhere.Unlike other “one-time” prizes, awards or honours, the Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value will commit to the Prize Laureate an investment of up to CHF 500,000 for a specified period of time to assist in the scaling-up of the innovation.
Specific fields of achievement include, but are not limited to: agriculture including plant and animal husbandry; food science and technology; nutrition; rural development; water and the environment; and distribution; social organization and poverty elimination; etc.
The Official Rules for 2009-2010 and the Nomination Form can be downloaded at:
www.nestle.com/CSV/CSVatNestle/CsvPrize
More information:
General Secretariat of the Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value, Public Affairs Department, Nestlé S.A., Avenue Nestlé 55, 1800 Vevey, Switzerland. Email: CSVPrize@nestle.com
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/nestle-prize-for-creating-shared-value/.
- John ElkingtonHomo volans, 1909
Today is the 100th anniversary of the epoch-making cross-Channel flight by Louis Blériot. An early example of Homo volans. Volans, meanwhile, has been getting some lift under its wings, with real progress on a number of fronts. More anon. Meanwhile, the magnolia tree in the garden at the back has produced a second round of blossoms and we have seen a wonderful summertime flow of people through the London office, including a lunch-time session yesterday with Soli(taire) Townsend of Futerra. Also, great inputs from our current crop of interns, including Rosie Reeve and Juliana Velloso Durao in the London office. We are truly blessed with the quality of the young people who want to develop careers in this area. And I, as the resident 60-year-old, feel a growing sense of responsibility to help find their way in these turbulent times.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/homo-volans-1909/.
- John ElkingtonThe Greenest Hotel in North America
Green or Green Wash? Lessons from building North America’s greenest hotel in Toronto
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a fascinating workshop at MaRS by their new CleanTech specialist, Tom Rand. Tom is an investor and entrepreneur who is committed to building clean green businesses in Canada. The enterprise featured in this discussion was his new hotel/hostel which has incorprated all the best in class features of a green building - and then some. What impressed me the most about his discussion, however, was his refreshingly candid breakdown of the energy reduction, costs and expected payback of these features….
Geothermal Exchange: energy reduction = 40%
Solar Thermal: energy reduction = 7.5%
Solar PV: energy reduction: energy reduction = 15% (up to 25%)
PowerPipe: energy reduction = 7.5%
LED Lights/Switches: energy reduction = 5%
TOTAL energy reduction = 77.5%
TOTAL cost = CA $200K (5% of building value)
15% return with a 6.5 year payback
For the full speech - check out the video.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/the-greenest-hotel-in-north-america/.
- Charmian LoveEntrepreneurship and Scale: Reworking Platforms
A few days back I led a session at the Tällberg Forum in Sweden on Entrepreneurship and Scale, which profiled four remarkable entrepreneurs. But rather than celebrating their heroism, this was in the spirit of a ‘reality check’. An extraordinary amount of hope is being placed on entrepreneurs around the world but time is running out. The large-scale transitions that are needed to more equitable, sustainable, and low-carbon economies demand far greater ambitions of scale. Hence our leading question: Can these entrepreneurial models be scaled and, if so, how?
I introduced the groundbreaking work we are doing with the REWORK initiative, a partnership between Tällberg Foundation and YES, the youth employment summit. Rework seeks to scale up youth green jobs by brokering scale-oriented partnerships between green innovators and youth movements, providing new propositions to investors, business and governments.
The innovators profiled are part of the REWORK effort, plus we asked a number of people working with larger infrastructures — from the financial system, international aid, and business — to give their views on how to marry the Davids and the Goliaths. Enter the entrepreneurs:
- Iman Bibars, VP of Ashoka Egypt for her ‘Housing for All‘ initiative with whom we are working to generate entrepreneurship opportunities for young people;
- Pepijn Steemers, Director of D.light Designs East Africa for a solar energy partnership we are facilitating involving ‘young solar entrepreneurs’ in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda;
- Deepa Gupta of the Indian Youth Climate Network with whom we are planning to scale up their ‘climate solutions‘ programme by bringing in Indian business schools and investors;
- Minou Fuglesang, Executive Director of Femina HIP, a multimedia platform in Tanzania which reaches 2 million young people on issues of lifestyle and reproductive health, and with whom we are exploring ways to use the media platforms to inspire young entrepreneurs to start green businesses.
Bringing in the “infrastructure” perspectives:
- Carl Mossfeldt, Executive Vice President of the Tällberg Foundation who leads the REWORK initiative provided insights on the collaborative innovation being unleashed by the initiative and the methods behind it;
- John (Elkington, of Volans) gave examples from big business and the ways in which business connects (partners, buys out or copies) ideas from from front-running innovators.
- Herman Mulder, former Head of Risk Group at ABN Amro gave a clear set of ideas on how the financial system can be reworked to support entrepreneurs on the ground; and based on the cases of the different entrepreneurs profiled,
- Mia Horn at Rantzien, the new Deputy Director-General of SIDA, the Swedish International Development Agency, provided a refreshing perspective on how aid agencies could support entrepreneurial environments better in developing countries.
The sessions was powerful, the contributors connected to one another and provided their piece of the puzzle in a compelling way. Among the 60+ participants there was a sense of possibility. These pioneers are implementing cutting-edge solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems. Connecting entrepreneurs with youth movements and networks, channeling youth energy to scale up green business models, and bringing in investors and business with new development propositions, has the potential to create impacts that don’t fall short of systemic change.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/entrepreneurship-and-scale-reworking-platforms/.
- Alejandro LitovskyThere is still hope!
Those of you who came across the article in a leading Sunday paper this weekend entitled “Britain’s Green Shame” would, like me, have started this sunshine filled week somewhat despondent.
It introduced a report to be released this week by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) outlining that the UK is failing to meet almost all its targets, from carbon reduction, to income and health inequality. It highlighted that the UK is more about rhetoric than action and painted an extremely bleak picture.
So, being a glutton for punishment, I scoured the SDC website to read the report in full. I was however somewhat surprised when the only one I could find was the optimistically titled “Breakthroughs for the 21st century”.
Two pages of the report are dedicated to the need for change, outlining the areas where the UK is coming up short. The lack of progress is of course very worrying, however the rest of the report gives us sign of hope, identifying 19 ideas, initiatives and successes that could be scaled up to help achieve a more sustainable future for the UK and meet the targets that have been set.
The ideas are collected in 3 main sections; sustainable lives, sustainable places and transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy.
Here are a few simple ideas that stood out for me:
Engagement - mobilising popular support and collective action
This section championed a series of on-line networks (e.g. Project Dirt www.projectdirt.com) which link environmental groups and projects to build the critical mass required to catalyse change.
Congress for the future – influencing long-term policy
This idea is around the creation of a special congress that would convene each year to provide long-term policy direction to the UK government. If effective this would help sustainability become a priority beyond political terms of office.
From pre-pay to pay as you save
This is a new way to finance energy efficiency in homes so a homeowner doesn’t have to pay up front to retro-fit their house and instead pays back instalments based on the energy efficiency savings that he/she makes. This will mean that energy efficiency measures become accessible to more homes.
So have a look at the report. Not all the ideas are new; you might not agree with all of them but they do highlight some tangible ways forward to improve the situation in the UK. Championing these in the media may help to spark the interest of entrepreneurs and communities around the UK and start the scaling up process.
You can access the report via the link below:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=972
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/there-is-still-hope/.
- Rosemary ReeveObama announcement on Social Innovation Fund
President Obama gave a compelling speech today on social innovation and the need to scale the work of entrepreneurs in the US. To do this he has set up a $50million Social Innovation Fund to support non-profit social enterpreneurs.
One of my favourite quotes “Solutions to America’s challenges are being developed every day at the grassroots. And government shouldn’t be supplanting those efforts, it should be supporting those efforts”.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/obama-announcement-on-social-innovation-fund/.
- Charmian LoveGovernment Bonds to Reflect Ecological Footprint
The Swiss investment firm Pictet Asset Management is gaining traction with a new type of bond fund. It rates countries based on their ability to provide a high quality of life at a minimal ecological cost.
Pictet is the first bank worldwide to join the Global Footprint Network, a move that strengthens GFN’s strategic vision of their Pathways to Scale, as I reported earlier this year in an interview with its founder, Mathis Wackernagel.
Through the partnership, Pictet aims to benefit from GFN’s easy-to-use metrics and their endorsement by both government bodies and environmental organisations such as the WWF.
The countries that receive the highest bond ratings are those which, according to the Pictet Sustainability Expert, Christoph Butz, are able to create “the highest standard of living per unit of nature.”
Pictet’s rating system is based on a ratio of resource consumption – as measured by the Ecological Footprint — to standard of living as measured by United Nation’s Human Development Index, a measure that compares countries on its citizens’ achievement of long lives, literacy, income and other factors.
While traditional bonds tend to flow investment to countries whose citizens have the highest incomes and place the greatest per-capita pressure on global resources, this fund directs capital to those countries that are developing along a sustainable path, Butz says.
He adds that the new sustainable bond rating is not just for a few green outsiders but is already fully implemented in client portfolios, for instance for Geneva-based Ethos, an investment foundation that regroups over eighty small and large Swiss pension funds. Pictet also intends to incorporate footprint data into their country-level research, further opening up the pathways to scale of ecological footprint metrics.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/07/government-bonds-to-reflect-ecological-footprint/.
- Alejandro Litovsky