Cool IT. Google a Climate Laggard?

Greenpeace has launched Cool IT Challenge, which ranks the executives of the major IT companies–including Google, Microsoft, IBM and Cisco–according to what their companies are doing to reduce carbon emissions.

The initiative exposes the gap between what the IT industry could do to fight climate change, and what they’re doing today.  Every IT executive has a profile page that includes a list of actions one can take to help pressure them to act.

Greenpeace’s central theme is, however, a propositional one: The IT industry can be a pioneer of a new economy. They can make money, create new markets and generate new jobs while helping to stop runaway climate change. Their services and products could cut the world’s emissions by an estimated 15 percent when applied in industry, buildings, transport and power sectors.: A win-win for business and the planet.

Currently the IT industry’s carbon footprint is growing, and much of these green IT opportunities remain unrealized potential or lack the detailed studies to show how and where they can reduce overall emissions.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/cool-it-google-a-climate-laggard/.

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First Finance PLC (Phnom Penh) seeks a CFO

Company Overview: First Finance Plc, a joint venture established between locally incorporated First Home Plc, Singapore‐based Phillip Capital, and Luxembourg‐based Insitor Fund SCA, is the first and only finance company in Cambodia specializing in home financing for low to low‐medium income individuals and households. Acknowledging the various benefits of home financing products for this underserved market, the mission of First Finance is to directly offer home acquisition and home improvement products that meet the needs of lower‐income households, using a micro‐finance perspective to traditional banking products.

Job Overview: Based in Phnom Penh, the CFO is an important part of the management team who reports to the CEO and will take on key responsibilities for this growing, early‐phase business. Beyond managing the financial team, the CFO’s key responsibilities broadly include: financial risk management of the organization, engagement of local/international lenders for fundraising activities, interactions with all investors and regulators, and treasury‐related functions of the business.

Tasks & Responsibilities:

• Risk management of lending practices
• Development of financial products and related pricing
• Engagement of local and international lenders for fundraising activities
• Reporting to investors, shareholders, and regulators on financial matters
• Creation of financial packets for board
• Development of policy and procedures for financial function
• Responsible for financial budget and annual audit
• Adherence to regulatory reporting and compliance requirements
• Responsible for all treasury‐related functions

Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree with Masters preferred in related disciplines: finance/accounting
• Strong analytical and communication skills
• Experience dealing with international funders and/or investors beneficial
• Knowledge of financial and management accounting
• Experience with regulatory, tax, compliance requirements and risk management
• Commitment to the social mission of First Finance
• Willingness to relocate to Phnom Penh w/ competitive, local salary
• Commitment of 18‐24 months
• Good command of English (both written and verbal)
• Previous work experience with investment banking or MFI preferred
• Experience with financial planning and risk management of financial institutions preferred

Interested candidates, please send a cover letter and resume to Micaela Ratini (micaela.ratini@oltredevelopment.com)

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/first-finance-plc-phnom-penh-seeks-a-cfo/.

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Flying Through the Next 100 Years

As I flew back from Adelaide and Melbourne via Singapore yesterday and through the seemingly unending night, I read The Next 100 Years by George Friedman in its entirety.  A stunning piece of work. One of the most provocative books I have read in a very long time - and I dived into it because of a recent project in which I was asked to think through what the world - and our agenda- would be like in 2097.

Another spur for my growing interest in demographics, gender-related trends and ageing. The stalling of China’s rise, the collapse of Russia and the collision between the USA, on the one hand, and Japan and Turkey, on the other, is dealt with persuasively. My only real quibble is the way the challenges of global warming and environmental change are almost dismissed out of hand on page 252, as likely to be addressed by demographic changes and new technologies. Highly recommended.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/flying-through-the-next-100-years/.

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Business and Biodiversity - Change In the Making?

A UN-backed report looking at 31 companies in the food, drink and tobacco industries, predicted increasing risks to the supply of raw materials and reputation risks for firms that undervalued natural services such as healthy soils, water and insect pollination, in line with earlier posts I’ve done on this subject.

While the report’s finding is not surprising — that companies are failing to address issues of sustainable sourcing — the coalitions and investor networks that are forming around the issue are a sign of serious action in-the-making.

The report was published by the Natural Value Initiative (NVI), a collaboration between UNEP’s Finance Initiative, Fauna & Flora International and FGV, the Brazilian business school. Their partnership aims to raise awareness on the links between biodiversity, investment value and the finance sector, as well as mobilise investors.

Of the companies surveyed, only Unilever qualified as best practice, judged against a new Ecosystem Services Benchmark took, which evaluates the strategic approach to the risks faced by a drain on raw materials. The UK retailer Marks and Spencer was also praised.

Also on our radar

Another initiative by UNEP’s Finance Initiative is the Forest Footprint Disclosure Project (FFD Project); a new UK government-supported initiative, created to help investors identify how an organisation’s activities and supply chains contribute to tropical deforestation, and link this ‘forest footprint’ to their value. The FFD Project launched on 15 June, 2009 at with the backing of 12 major financial institutions with over $1.3 trillion in assets under management.

In January 2010, the first annual disclosure report will:

• Identify companies leading on this issue
• Analyse how companies are positioned to sustain their value
• Offer peer group comparison of companies to drive sector performance improvement

The FFD Steering Committee Members are: Carbon Disclosure Project, Fauna & Flora International, Global Canopy Programme, The Prince’s Rainforests Project, Strategic Environmental Consulting, UK Department for International Development and UNEP Finance Initiative.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/business-and-biodiversity-change-in-the-making/.

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The future is being written in California

Shortly after we included the State of California in our Phoenix 50, it ran into deep financial problems. But in choosing the Golden State, we were both following the voting patterns of the entrepreneurs we had polled - and basing our ultimate judgement on California’s extraordinary 160-year history. As I flew to Adelaide from Singapore last night, I was fascinated to read Michael Grunwald’s article ‘The End of California? Dream On!’ in the latest issue of Time. “In the depths of the breakdown,” says one interviewee, “you can see the next narrative.” And that’s pretty much what we were saying in The Phoenix Economy.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/the-future-is-being-written-in-california/.

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Hopenhagen

Travelling to Singapore and Australia this evening, so visas have been on my mind. No visa needed for Singapore - or to become a citizen of Hopenhagen, though, so I signed up to the latter last night. This is an international movement to drive action on climate change at the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen this December. The idea is that Hopenhagen will allow citizens to become active participants in the climate change dialogue and make their voices heard to world leaders and conference delegates attending the meeting. The ultimate call to action will be to secure signatures for the “Climate Change” petition in support of the UN, which calls for a climate treaty that is “ambitious, fair and effective in reducing emissions.”

Recognizing the tremendous role that communications will play leading up to and during the conference, the UN engaged the global advertising and media industry through the IAA to develop a comprehensive communications program to drive public awareness and generate action. Hopenhagen will complement the UN’s “Seal the Deal!” campaign.

For more information, or to sign up, go to http://www.hopenhagen.org/home

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/hopenhagen/.

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Carbon Scams: The Risks Ahead

The $100 billion carbon-trading market is called into question after the world’s largest auditor of clean-energy projects was suspended by United Nations inspectors. SGS UK has had its accreditation suspended as a result of being unable to prove that its staff had properly inspected the projects it was accrediting for carbon trading or that its staff was properly qualified to do so.

A report by Greenpeace has helped direct attention to one particular case, the Noel Kempff project in Bolivia, which illustrates the potentially disastrous pitfalls of the growing market for forest offset projects (REDD), raising critical questions about the pathways forward.

The Bolivian project started in 1996, driven by The Nature Conservancy and Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN). The following year, the Bolivian government signed an agreement with three polluting energy corporations: American Electric Power (AEP) BP-Amoco (BP) and Pacificorp. Under the agreement, the corporations would pay to protect almost 650,000 hectares of rainforest for 30 years. In return, the carbon offsets generated allowed the companies to continue polluting.

But the lack of adequate monitoring, verification and assurance of REDD projects are key obstacles in the way. Critics rightly fear that these loopholes could turn the proposed carbon market solution into a cover-up for growing emissions-as-usual in the developed world.

Between 1997 and 2004, Greenpeace found that “AEP, Pacificorp, and BP reported about 7.4 million tons of carbon offsets from the Noel Kempff project to the US Department of Energy. This is considerably more than the amount verified for the 30 year project: 5.8 million tons. Greenpeace explains that the investors “may have claimed millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions reductions that never occurred”.

The highest risks are around the long-term guarantees that the forests in question will remain intact, argues REDD-monitor, which is impossible to guarantee. Besides the challenges of effective law enforcement and governance in Bolivia, drought, forest fires, pest infestation, disease could all have a dramatic impact on the forest in the project area.

In a rapidly changing climate such threats to the forest become more likely to happen. If AEP, BP-Amoco and Pacificorp have already used the project to offset their emissions and the forests were to be destroyed, this would double the volume of CO2 emissions.

In the meantime, 49 leaders of the main social and environmental movements in Brazil have jointly called on the Government of Brazil to reject REDD as a carbon market-based mechanism and on using REDD as a way of compensating emissions from Northern countries.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/carbon-scams-the-risks-ahead/.

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WWF to Screen Forest Investors

Next December, WWF will launch the Investment Screening Guidelines for Financial Investors, which will be used to screen investors and companies whose activities impact forests, such as timber, pulp and paper, palm oil cultivation and mining.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/wwf-to-screen-forest-investors/.

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Global Social Venture Competition (Southeast Asia) launches

GSVC is a global graduate-student business plan competition began in 1999 at the Haas School of Business of the University of California at Berkeley, USA. GSVC was the first competition to promote entrepreneurial start-ups which not only offered financial returns, but also provided measurable social or environmental benefits.

UC Berkeley has partnered with Thammasat Business School in Bangkok, Thailand to host GSVC for the Southeast Asia and Oceania region.

The GSVC-SEA Competition 2009-2010 season is now ready for your application till 8 January 2010. Check out the calendar for the key dates.  More details on GSVC Southeast Asia can be found at http://www.gsvc-sea.org.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/global-social-venture-competition-southeast-asia-launches/.

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Deforestation: Enter Google and Space Agencies…

…to partner on a project for the satellite monitoring of forests. But key to their success from outer space, they argue, will be to find their feet on ground. This is something on our map, as the Pathways to Scale program seeks to catalyze markets and alliances to speed up ecosystem services.

“The only way to measure forests efficiently is from space,” said Jose Achache, director of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which is linking governments, space agencies such as NASA and others in a new partnership to measure forests. The system will make annual assessments of forest carbon stocks, compared to a current five-year cycle.

Google, which offers satellite images via its Google Earth site, would contribute with a related project. Details of the company’s involvement would be given in November.

From Outer Space, but with the Feet on the Ground

“Investors will want some kind of guarantee that when they are putting money into forests that the forests will remain there and remain in good condition,” Achache said.

America’s NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and national space agencies of Japan, Germany, Italy, India and Brazil were among those taking part in the forest mapping. Costs would be low, Achache said, since satellite data were already being collected for other purposes. GEO’s members include 80 governments as well as U.N. organizations.

Seven countries would act as pilot projects in 2009-10 — Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Guyana, Indonesia, Mexico and Tanzania — based on satellite images taken in recent months. Under the satellite project, a first phase was to show how much of a country was forested. A second phase would be to work out how much carbon was locked up in each type of forest.

Stephen Briggs, head of ESA’s Earth Observation Science, Applications and Future Technologies unit, said radar images of forests can measure carbon above ground since the microwaves are scattered by passing through vegetation.

But efforts from outer space are likely to be only a part of the solution. Key to the ultimate success of this alliance is bringing in “ground-level” actors to generate data, verification and, not least, to influence the good governance in forest management. “We need some form of validated, assured mechanism,” Briggs added. Assessments of carbon stocks from space need to be calibrated against measurements taken on the ground.

Others are also planning to enter this space: The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) together with the State University of South Dakota has recently declared that they, too, will make available satellite imaging for free to developing countries to monitor deforestation.

Photo Credit: Reuters “An aerial view of a cattle farm is seen in an Amazonian deforested jungle close to Maraba, in Brazil’s central state of Para in this May 3, 2009.”

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/deforestation-enter-google-and-space-agencies/.

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Reverse Innovation: GE aims to disrupt glocal capitalism

In the same way that Volans argues that mainstream business leaders have much to learn from social and environmental entrepreneurs, so the netrepreneurs need to keep track of the leading edge of mainstream business thinking.  This simple thought was very much in my mind as I read the October issue of Harvard Business Review - and specifically the article ‘How GE is disrupting itself‘ by GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Professor Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

The key idea in the piece is that the period of glocalization - in which R&D and innovation done in the developed world was rolled out successively less developed markets - is being paralleled (and potentially overtaken) by a new trend of reverse innovation. In this new era, companies like GE will innovate wherever it makes sense to do so, for example in countries like China and India, and then roll the resulting products and services back into the developed world.

This fundamental sea-change holds huge potential for those who are seeking to help major companies connect with emerging market mindsets, solutions, business models and talent that are erupting in areas of the world that are outside the normal spotlight.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/reverse-innovation-ge-aims-to-disrupt-glocal-capitalism/.

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Now Hiring: Chief Executive Officer for The Community Foundation of Singapore

Community Foundation of Singapore

The Community Foundation of Singapore is an independent, not-for-profit philanthropic organisation which builds up funds from donors of means to make programmatic grants to worthy causes. It will help high net worth individuals, institutions and groups achieve their strategic philanthropy objectives by proactively identifying projects to achieve donors’ intent and meet funding gaps in the community.

Chief Executive Officer

Reporting to its own Board of Directors, the Chief Executive Officer is responsible for leading the foundation in achieving its mission and goals. This is an excellent opportunity for a tested leader who thrives in startup situations, but who is now seeking to apply his/her skills in a non- business setting to drive social returns.

The Job:

* Advance and implement organisation’s vision, mission, strategic plan and performance measurements

* Work closely with the board, programme and grantmaking committees, and external stakeholders in the public, private and non-profit sectors

* Raise major gifts and/or legacies from high net worth individuals, institutions, and other sources to meet short and long-term targets

* Build up awareness of social landscape, and relationship and trust with donors and potential donors, with an emphasis on donor accountability

* Build up the organisation in all areas, including HR, finance and investment, corporate communications, fundraising, grantmaking and technology

* Hire, train and develop a small but multi-tasking team of staff

* Build reputation and trust with key stakeholders

* Identify worthy causes, make grant disbursements, and monitor effectiveness of grants

* Institute best practices in financial management, sustainability, governance and legal compliance areas

Requirements

Candidates should have at least 10 years of management experience, with some start-up experience. Those with at least 5 years of senior management experience in fundraising, grantmaking, marketing, wealth management and working in or with Institutions of a Public Character would have an advantage.

To apply, please send cover letter and resume to career@cf.org.sg

For further details on the Community Foundation of Singapore, click here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/now-hiring-chief-executive-officer-for-the-community-foundation-of-singapore/.

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What does the past tell us about the future?

A recent project at Volans involved developing future scenarios for a major company’s sustainability advisory council, imagining what the world might look like in 2097.  John’s guiding thoughts on predicting the future include looking backwards, referring to Churchill’s dictum that the further you can look back, the further you can look forward.  Or at least that approach can work if you can spot the underlying patterns that drive the world forward.

When I tried to look backwards 88 years, specifically through the lenses of my own family history, it was very interesting to think about the shifts of mindset, national culture, and what this meant for my family—and, at another level, what it has meant for politics and for entrepreneurship in China.

The lens that came to mind first was that provided by my grandmother, my mother’s mother.  She was born in the early 1920s and, as was the way then, at age 5 was arranged to be married by her family.  Incredibly, she dug a hole into the ground outside their house and saved enough coins to buy a single ferry ticket to Chongqing, the closest major city to her hometown.  She escaped from her family at such a young age, and later became an activist for the Communist Party when she was working as a child labourer at a local textile factory.

The more I think about this story, the more I have come to appreciate her extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit.  Embedded in a profoundly challenging historical context, the mindset of subsequent generations in the last 60 years of the Chinese history has been much more tightly controlled and heavily influenced by the mainstream powers. 

I sometimes wonder whether the level of courage that enabled my grandmother to take her escape, —as well as prompting some of the historic movements such as the May Fourth Movement in 1919— would be beyond the wildest dreams for most people today. Whatever the answer, my grandmother’s choices have been an ongoing inspiration for me as my own journey took me to Singapore, the USA and now the UK.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/what-does-the-past-tell-us-about-the-future/.

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Can Corporations Get Ecosystem Valuation Right?

Seeking this ambitious goal is the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, identified as a Phoenix 50 pioneer by Volans earlier this year. WBCSD has just launched the report Corporate ecosystem valuation - Building the Business case.

Companies and their operations, argues the WBCSD,  will be under increased scrutiny and should respond by better understanding and proactively managing their ecosystem impacts and dependence, as well as exploring and developing new business solutions to meet these challenges.

The impacts

All major companies have impacts on the world’s ecosystems, which are being rapidly depleted, in part because their services to the planet have been under-valued, i.e. taken for granted.

The impact of corporations and global supply chains on natural ecosystems is massive, and the consequences poorly understood. For example, WBCSD points out:

• Freshwater is a critical input for every conceivable major industrial process;
• The pharmaceutical industry benefits from genetic resources;
• Agribusiness and the food sector depend on ecosystem services like pollination, and pest and erosion regulation;
• Forest industries – and the downstream construction, communications and packaging sectors – rely on continued supplies of timber and wood fiber;
• All extractive industries cause some level of ecosystem disturbance; while tourism increasingly builds on an ecosystem’s cultural services and aesthetic values; and all building owners and plant operators benefit from the natural hazard regulation service that some ecosystems provide.

Expect New Corporate Risks

The world loses natural capital worth between €1.35 trillion and €3.10 trillion each year, found The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). Because these loses are real, ecosystem degradation is becoming a critical sustainability issue for business and society at large. Businesses must expect changing government policies and regulatory frameworks to be developed to address these pressing ecosystem challenges – at the global, regional and local levels.

Part of what Volans will be doing over the next year is to work with leading pioneers to develop the different scenarios of what those regulatory and market environments might look like. Mindsets are beginning to change, albeit still too slowly, about the level and scope of business impacts on, and use of, ecosystems – among customers, regulators, shareholders, investors, NGOs and the media.

What to look out for

WBCSD’s Ecosystem Focus Area has launched the Ecosystem Valuation Initiative (EVI), which will be working with a number of member company “road testers” to develop a Guide to Corporate Ecosystem Valuation that makes the case for corporate ecosystem valuation as an integral part of business planning and decision-making and guides companies through the process of undertaking ecosystem valuation studies. The target date for the release of the guide is October 2010 during the next Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan.

The key question with this and other change-driven initiatives; the international ministerial meetings; the investment capital funds; and the civil society networks all whom are trying to put ecosystems valuation on the map is: How can critical mass be accelerated? This is of central concern to Volans and the Pathways to Scale program, and where efforts like WBCSD will have a central role to play in providing bridges to corporate leaders who are either enlightened individuals, or are starting to think seriously about the changing landscape of corporate risk and reputation.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/can-corporations-get-ecosystem-valuation-right/.

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Sri Lankan Campaign for Peace & Justice gains momentum

Volans increasingly focuses on a 3-point agenda: ‘Cool’ (i.e. climate friendly), ‘Just’ (i.e. equity, human rights and access to the basic necessities of life) and ‘Open’ (i.e. transparency, accountability and a growing use of open source processes).

In relation to the second of these, we have increasingly lent our (admittedly limited) weight to organisations like the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Normally, like B&HRRC, we don’t pursue a soapbox strategy, banging the drum on every latest issue.  But there are moments, I believe, when history shows that a failure to protest human rights abuses led on to worse abuses on a much greater scale.

This was true of the treatment of many groups of people in Germany and the USSR ahead of WWII, for example. And with two emerging 21st century superpowers currently deeply involved in the Sri Lankan crisis, I believe that it is crucial that we signal international disapproval and rejection of what is happening there in the wake of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers.

To declare a personal interest, a long-standing friend and colleague is closely involved in the Sri Lankan Campaign for Peace & Justice. He has asked me to help spread the word - and I am glad to do so.

The latest news on the Campaign is that three leading US human rights advocates have joined forces to urge UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, President Obama and other world leaders to put an immediate end to what they see as an imminent humanitarian catastrophe in Sri Lanka.   Professors Noam Chomsky, Rajan Menon and Michael Grodin are the latest prominent world figures to lend their support to the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice.

The three award-winning professors come from very different academic and professional backgrounds but are united in calling world leaders to act. Announcing his support, Dr Grodin said: “At the Nuremberg Trials following the Nazi Holocaust, Justice Robert Jackson exclaimed, ‘The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.’ These words echo and reverberate as we witness the crimes against humanity perpetrated in Sri Lanka.

According to Professor Menon: “Now is the time to settle the civil conflict in Sri Lanka, which has consumed thousands of life and brought severe misery to countless others. In the short term, access should be provided to the UN and international relief agencies to deal with the humanitarian problems facing refugees and lists of detainees should be made available. In the long run, economic development in the war torn areas must proceed hand in hand with political measures aimed at reconciliation and empowerment.”

Professor Chomsky added: “The fate of Tamils in Sri Lanka has been a shocking story of mounting horrors. It would be unconscionable to stand by in silence as the remnants face still more torture and disaster. Every effort must be expended to bring this tragedy to an end while there is still time.”

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group - who have all criticised the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in the past - have also called for immediate action to deal with the imminent crisis affecting at least 50,000 children.

The Sri Lanka Campaign is chaired by Edward Mortimer, journalist and former Communications Director to Kofi Annan. Other members of the Advisory Council include Lakhdar Brahimi (a former high level UN envoy and member of the Elders - an independent group of global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, to address difficult global challenges), Brahma Chellaney (a senior Indian foreign policy adviser), Charles Glass (the internationally renowned journalist) and Chibli Mallat (the Lebanese legal specialist) and Bianca Jagger, prominent human rights advocate, a member of the Executive Directors Leadership Council of Amnesty International USA, and a Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador).

The Campaign calls for the following:

1. The UN, international Red Cross and voluntary agencies must be given full and unrestricted access to care for and protect the civilians in the camps, and help them return to wherever in their own country they choose to live. Meanwhile, these civilians should have their right to freedom of movement restored in time to escape the devastation that the monsoon will otherwise bring.

2. A list of all those still alive and in custody (in internment camps or elsewhere) should be published, so that families can stop searching for loved ones who are dead.

3. Those who continue to be detained as alleged LTTE combatants must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and urgently given access to legal representation.

4. Accountability processes must be established to ensure that international aid is not diverted to purposes other than those for which it was given.

5. The Sri Lankan Government should allow conflict reconciliation specialists unhindered access to help rebuild lives and communities.

6. Sri Lanka should request or accept a full UN investigation into war crimes committed by all parties during the war.

7. The UN Secretary General should appoint a Special Envoy to Sri Lanka.

For more information, please take a look here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/sri-lankan-campaign-for-peace-justice-gains-momentum/.

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The top 10 countries in cleantech, 2009

Denmark tops a new list of cleantech-oriented countries. See here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/the-top-10-countries-in-cleantech-2009/.

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Nominate Champions of the Earth

In 1989, Julia Hailes and I were elected to the UN Global 500 Roll of Honour, awarded for extraordinary environmental achievements - the highlight of which was meeting so many others around the world who had been spotlighted in the same way. Now, against a tight deadline, nominations are being invited for the successor scheme, Champions of the Earth. Any ideas?

The UNEP Champions of the Earth Award honors those who, through their visionary thinking, unwavering dedication and committed action, promote the sustainable use of the planet’s resources towards global green growth. (It’s interesting that when Julia and I founded SustainAbility in 1987, with early inputs from Tom Burke, our tag-line was ‘The Green Growth Company’, building on the work I had done for an early book called The Green Capitalists.

UNEP will select a laureate for each of the following categories: Policy Leadership, Science & Innovation, Entrepreneurial Vision, and Inspiration & Action. Each laureate will receive a $40,000 prize and a specially designed trophy at an Award Ceremony and Gala Dinner to be held on 22 April, 2010 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Nominations will be accepted until 31 October. For more information, please visit www.unep.org/champions.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/nominate-champions-of-the-earth/.

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Can (this) man live by social entrepreneurship alone?

Is it possible to live for a month purchasing everything you need only from social enterprises? Alex Sobel, general manager of Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber, could be about to answer that question.

Sobel has posted a challenge on the blog of his social enterprise support organisation. If he gets 100 people to vote via his blog, and if the majority vote yes, he will spend a month purchasing exclusively from social enterprises. See here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/can-this-man-live-by-social-entrepreneurship-alone/.

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Comment on Novartis in FT.online

I comment on the animal welfare campaign against Novartis and Daniel Vasella in today’s FT.online.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/comment-on-novartis-in-ftonline/.

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Access to Energy for the Base of the Pyramid

A new report on the theme from Ashoka and Hystra on theme here. Video here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/access-to-energy-for-the-base-of-the-pyramid/.

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Looking Forward to 2010 GRI Conference

Just in from Amsterdam, after several days with the Board of the Global Reporting Initiative - among other things sketching out a project which we hope to launch at their 2010 Conference on Sustainability and Transparency next May.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/looking-forward-to-2010-gri-conference/.

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Guinness Fund offers €100,000 each to 25 Irish social enterprise projects

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland has announced that the Arthur Guinness Fund is now open for applications. The fund is seeking to find and support up to 25 Social Entrepreneurs over a two-year period within Ireland. Successful applicants will benefit from financial support (in the region of €100,000 per project) as well as practical support and advice. In addition, successful applicants will benefit from access to the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Alumni Network.

The Arthur Guinness Fund is a global initiative, created as part of the Guinness 250 celebration. In the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland it is investing up to €2.5m. The Fund will benefit Irish communities and is a fitting tribute to Arthur Guinness and his enduring, philanthropic legacy. The ethos of the Arthur Guinness Fund is ‘From one to many. Creating opportunities for communities’.

To apply and to find out more information on the Arthur Guinness Fund, please look here. If you have any questions email TheArthurGuinnessFundIrel@diageo.com. Closing date for receipt of applications is 31st October 2009. Applications will only be accepted via the Guinness.com website.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/guinness-fund-offers-e100000-each-to-25-irish-social-enterprise-projects/.

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Social entrepreneurs to be paid by results in Conservative UK

Social enterprises will be paid for successfully delivering public services without central or local government intervention in the event of a Conservative government after the next UK election, Oliver Letwin said on 7 October at a fringe event at the Conservative Party annual conference.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/social-entrepreneurs-to-be-paid-by-results-in-conservative-uk/.

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OUR NUMBER’S UP—AND IT’S 350

OUR NUMBER’S UP—AND IT’S 350

Bill McKibben is the man behind 350.org, the global campaign on climate change that has declared October 24 to be International Day of Climate Action. John Elkington[1] talked to him about the campaign—and the underlying science.

For a comment from Dr Gary Kendall, SustainAbility’s Director of Energy Sector and Climate Change, see here.

John Elkington: Bill, it was great to meet you at last when we were both speakers at the Oslo Sustainability Conference—and to hear more about the 350 campaign. In headlines, what do you hope to achieve with the International Day of Climate Action?

Bill McKibben: To—for the first time—use a citizen’s movement to put a piece of scientific data at the center of the planet’s agenda. We want to take the most important number on Earth and make it the most well-known, on the theory (well-founded, we think) that that will push the politics nearer to the science.

John: When—and how—did you first switch on to climate change?

Bill: I wrote the first book for a general audience about global warming, way back in 1989. The End of Nature came out in The New Yorker, and in 24 languages, but it didn’t solve the problem.

John: So what’s the story behind the 350 campaign?

Bill: It grew out of a nationwide campaign I helped organize—the first big U.S. campaign for action on climate change. We called it StepItUp and we (me and 6 college students) managed somehow to organize 1,400 simultaneous demonstrations in all 50 states on April 14, 2007.

A few days later both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton changed their platforms to meet our demands—we were feeling pretty smug.  Then, few weeks later, in the summer of 2007, sea ice in the Arctic began to melt with a vengeance, and scientists began to panic—global warming was beginning to happen much faster than predicted.

The old targets—the ones we’d campaigned on–were out the window, and in a few months the leading researchers produced new, deeply rooted goals: 350 ppm CO₂ turned out to be the maximum safe level in the atmosphere if we wanted a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” Which we did, so we started trying to figure out how to organize globally. Which is ludicrously hard, but my crew of young organizers is ludicrously talented!

John: Why ‘350’?

Bill: In addition to the reasons already mentioned, for organizing purposes it’s turned out to be the perfect strategy. First, because we’re already at 390 ppm, it really wakes people up—it’s like going to the doctor and learning your cholesterol is too high. That’s the day you buy a pair of running shoes and Google ‘vegan.’ Second, because Arabic numerals translate across linguistic boundaries, one reason that October 24 will be the most geographically widespread day of political activity in the earth’s history.

John: Just to clear, what does the 350 figure represent—long-term stabilization of CO₂ or CO₂e[2]?

Bill: CO₂—but it works as a figure for CO₂e as well. (As Jim Hansen has explained in a couple of papers, CO₂ works as a good proxy). In any event, both CO₂ and CO₂e are elevated far above 350 already, so in effect the message is the same—time to stand on the brakes and throw this baby in reverse.

John: Our view—both at SustainAbility and Volans—is that it’s crucial to distinguish between CO₂ and CO₂e. But we absolutely agree about the underlying trajectory, which is for science to suggest ever lower safety thresholds. Putting that aside for a moment, however, what’s the best estimate in terms of the likely average global temperature rises associated with 350 ppm of CO₂, based on the latest science?

Bill: It’s very hard to say, but probably we’re talking something like 1.5 degrees or less, hopefully considerably less. We’re obviously not going to prevent global warming, and we’re obviously going to keep going past 350 for a while. If we get back down quickly enough, we may be able to prevent civilization-scale challenges (and, truthfully, we may not—the momentum of these changes is large and there are no guarantees).

John: What might the wide adoption of the 350 target mean in terms of impacts?

Bill: It means less sea level rise, less drought, less flood, less methane release, less everything. That’s about all you can say with any assurance.

John: Bill, what was your reaction to the G20 statement acknowledging the need to stay below 2 degrees C?

Bill: If 0.8 degrees melts the Arctic, setting 2 degrees as a goal seems ill-advised. We may hit it, but the emphasis should be on coming down just as fast as we can. The goal has to be 350 or below—or so science says. Of course, politicians deal in political reality, which to them seems more real than the laws of nature. Would that it were so—but chemistry and physics are pretty tough bargainers.

John: SustainAbility has committed to the ‘less than 2 degrees’ goal, recognising that the allowable CO₂ and CO2e to keep within such limits levels been falling almost continuously as new science comes in. Still, given that we’re now around 385 ppm CO₂—and 435 ppm CO₂e—what do you say to people who think that it’s too late for 350?

Bill: In our lifetime it probably is. Even if we do everything right, the youngest people on the planet will likely be elderly before we get back there. But we have to start now, and very dramatically, before any more feedback loops kick in, or we’ll never get there.

John: What strategies for lowering greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do you find most persuasive?

Bill: The rapid conversion of our fossil-fuel economy to renewable energy. We have the technology, but so far not the will.

John: What sort of time-scales might be involved?

Bill: That’s the trouble—we have to do it faster than our political and economic systems will find convenient or easy. The best data seems to show we need to be out of the business of burning coal by 2030, and sooner in the western world. That means wartime footing for change—and it means a lot of sunk costs for folks who’ve been building power plants. Tough problems, but not as tough as the alternative.

John: What needs to be done next to have any chance of meeting the 350 target?

Bill: Set a stiff global cap on carbon based on the science, and transfer the necessary money and technology north to south so that developing countries can participate in this transition.

John: What sort of response have you had from the business and financial communities?

Bill: They’re beyond the denial phase, and there are plenty of companies smelling some serious money to be made. But very few want to move as quickly as we need to go. In normal circumstances gradual evolution makes utter sense. These aren’t normal circumstances.

John: Is there any individual or organization whose efforts in this area sum up for you what we all need to do next?

Bill: I’m most impressed by the fact that October 24 is being organized by ordinary people all over the world-especially in the developing world. I mean, today we passed the 130-country mark. it’s exuberant, it’s homemade, it’s powerful. Leaders aren’t leading so citizens and scientists are taking up the slack.

John: Many thanks, Bill. And how do we all get involved?

Bill: Almost anyplace anyone is reading this (except North Korea), there’s an October 24 action happening nearby. Go to 350.org to figure out how to throw your weight behind one!

[2] CO2 equivalent. As a start, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/carbon_dioxide_equivalent

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/our-numbers-upand-its-350/.

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Bunker Roy critiques the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals are misguided - and likely to be achieved only on paper - says Bunker Roy, founder of India’s Barefoot College and a member of the Volans Advisory Board.  In his Opinion piece in The New York Times, he argues that:

“Any goal that is driven from the top by international donors and governments not accountable to the communities and without financial transparency is doomed to fail. That model encourages colossal falsification of figures, the excessive hiring of private consultants and contractors, conflicts of interest and a massive patronage system.

“When poor communities think at the human level, all their goals are interconnected. But under the present top-down model, with the absence of a global grass-roots movement with the communities as equal partners, the goals have been broken up compartmentally into project mode, to suit donors and governments.”

And that, he says, is a recipe for failure.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/bunker-roy-critiques-the-millennium-development-goals/.

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Volans Year – enrollment opens

Starting last Friday, we’ve been sending out emails to friends and networks to announce the opening of enrollment into the Volans Year program.  Please feel free to use this email template below to spread the word!  For a list of Volans Year positions available within our outstanding list of hiring organizations, click here.

Dear [friend’s name],

You care deeply about the complex problems facing our world. Passionate about finding solutions, you drive results through business innovation. You are a strategic thinker who makes an impact. Volans Year is a new program that leverages the drive and talent of passionate, highly-skilled professionals like you to transform social impact organizations. Volans envisions a global community of leaders where business innovation and social and environmental responsibility are an integral part of who they are and woven into the fabric of their careers. These leaders will pioneer and drive the new economy.

THE PROGRAM: VOLANS YEAR
Volans Year trains business professionals through one-year placements in high-calibre social impact organizations while enhancing their skills and directly increasing the organizations’ impact. The program has two integrated components:

· SOCIAL IMPACT PLACEMENTS: Participants are matched with a social impact organization in either Cambodia or Singapore in a full time position.

· EXECUTIVE EDUCATION: For a week every quarter, participants strengthen their skills in executive education and transformational leadership coaching. The curriculum has been designed to include practical and high-impact business and social impact topics. It is taught by leaders in the field.

Volans Year launches in Southeast Asian cities: Singapore and Cambodia. As the commercial epicenter for the region, Singapore is well-positioned to take a lead in social innovation. After nearly three decades of civil war, Cambodia is gradually rebuilding itself as a country, albeit with support from close to a thousand international and local non-government organizations. Several of these organizations are employing innovative approaches to addressing a broad range of social needs, providing significant learning opportunity for anyone in the social impact field.

Hiring organizations in the Volans Year portfolio have been screened by Volans and in several instances, recognized by social entrepreneurship intermediaries like the Skoll Foundation, the World Bank or the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

JOIN THE TRANSFORMATION
Volans Year is seeking its founding class of participants. The ideal candidate envisions a world where doing good and doing well is more the norm than the ideal, and aspires to be a leader and influencer in this space. If this sounds like you, please visit www.volansyear.com for further details. If you know anyone like this, kindly share this email with them!

Applications deadline: October 31, 2009.
Program launch: January 31, 2010.

~ One Year. Lifelong Impact. Lifelong Change. ~

For more information and application details: Visit www.volansyear.com.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/volans-year-enrollment-opens/.

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Homo Volans, Taking Flight

Volans has taken the work of the economists Kondratiev and Schumpeter as guide stars since we started – as flagged in The Phoenix Economy earlier this year. So it was nice to see The Economist recently picking up the same themes and flagging the key role of creative entrepreneurs in periods like these – but a little spooky to see Homo Volans taking flight there, too.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/homo-volans-taking-flight-with-the-economist/.

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Social Entrepreneur Stumps Up $35 Million Return Flight Fare

It is a couple of years since an X-Prize Foundation team came to visit us at SustainAbility’s London offices, but I already knew of them through magazines like Wired and Fast Company - and have since kept a fairly close eye on their doings. Still, they were brought forcefully back to mind when Alejandro (Litovsky) and I met people from Concordia 21 at Richard Branson’s HQ in Hammersmith a few months back - the walls were blazoned with an evolutionary tree beginning with Homo volans and topping out with SpaceShipOne (see above). See also July 6 entry here.

Branson is now helping to fund further work through Virgin Galactic, with a typically saucy picture of their Eve launch (’Mothership’) vehicle below.

A short, hyperlinked update on the latest Prizes developed by the X-Prize Foundation can be found here. Among other things, it talks about the $35 million fare paid by Cirque du Soleil billionaire Guy Laliberte for an almost-out-of-this-world experience, flying to the limits of Earth’s atmosphere. Given Laliberte’s origins as a social entrepreneur, there’s a neat set of connections here somewhere, but I’ll work on them later.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/the-35-million-return-flight-fare/.

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Help Google Invest $10 Million

Google’s ‘Project 10 to the 100′ has identified social entrepreneurship as one of the top 16 ideas that will change the world. Now they are asking you to vote to help them identify the biggest opportunity for change.

Here’s how Google explains the background:

Q: What is Project 10¹⁰⁰? A: Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th”) is a call for ideas to change the world, in the hope of helping as many people as possible.

Q: Why is Google doing this? A: The short answer is that we think helping people is a good thing, and empowering people to help others is an even better thing.Here’s the long answer.

Q: How many ideas are you funding? A: We have committed $10 million to fund up to five ideas selected by our advisory board.

Q. Why the name 10^100? A: 10¹⁰⁰ is another way of expressing the number “googol,” a one followed by one hundred zeroes. Our company’s very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact. Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a similar attempt to produce those kinds of scalable results by harnessing our users’ insights and creativity. We don’t know what ideas would help the most people. This project’s premise is that maybe you do.

If you believe in social entrepreneurship, Ashoka asks you to vote for the social entrepreneurship idea, or - failing that - vote for another of your favourite ideas. You may also nominate an organization who you feel is best placed to carry out the idea.

The categories Google is focusing on are:

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

The criteria it is applying:

• Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
• Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
• Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
• Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
• Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?

Google will commit $10 million to organizations to implement the top 5 ideas (as nominated by the public and an advisory board.)

Voting closes on October 8, 2009.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/help-google-invest-10-million/.

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Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation Empowers Women

The New York Times Magazine recently featured a powerful article, ‘The Women’s Crusade’, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  The article portrayed a sobering picture of the injustices faced by millions of disadvantaged women and girls around the world, including sex trafficking, servitude, maternal mortality, bride burning, female infanticide as well as a general lack of access to education and health care.

Kristof and WuDunn argued that focusing aid and investment on women and girls is the most effective way to fight poverty: “In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy. With education and with help starting businesses, [disadvantaged] women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families. They represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty.” This view is increasingly being shared by governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and social entrepreneurs who are focusing their efforts and their dollars on women.

While painting a bleak picture of marginalized women around the world, the article also celebrates the incredible impact of organizations and social entrepreneurs that are working to empower and improve the lives of women and girls.  The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, which Volans has included in its list of Trailblazers via Pamela Hartigan’s involvement in the Foundation, was delighted to see coverage in a related article of a number of organizations supported by Lex Mundi member firms through the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation.  These include:

• Vital Voices – an international NGO that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs, enabling them to create a better world;
• Mercy Corps – an international NGO with a mission to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities;
• CARE – a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty;
• Grameen Foundation – inspired by the work of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world’s poorest people;
• GlobalGiving – an online marketplace that enables individuals and companies to find and support high-impact, grassroots social and economic development projects;
• Ashoka – a global organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs around the world; and
• Kiva – the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in disadvantaged communities around the globe.

Here are short profiles of two of the organizations supported by members of the Foundation:

Lex Mundi Member Firms Snell & Wilmer and Mayora & Mayora help Synergo Arts Maximize the Health and Prosperity of Artisans around the World

Artists and artisans in numerous cultures suffer from preventable injuries because they spend much of the day kneeling or sitting in difficult positions. Synergo Arts, the leading provider of resources in ergonomics education, consulting and design, helps communities of artists and artisans use ergonomics to prevent such injuries and in turn enhance their health, income, performance, productivity and the quality of their art or craft.

Synergo Arts was introduced to the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation by one of the Foundation’s partners, the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) at Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society.  Since then, Lex Mundi member law firms have played an integral role in helping Synergo Arts become a nonprofit and continue to provide legal advice regarding the organization’s daily operations.

For more information about Synergo Arts, please visit www.synergoarts.org.

Lex Mundi Member Firms Help Kiva Empower Women and Marginalized Individuals around the World

As the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, Kiva enables individuals to lend directly to small business entrepreneurs around the globe. Through its micro-lending service, Kiva facilitates the empowerment of traditionally marginalized populations by increasing their access to capital – capital that is used to create economic independence and improve lives of individuals, families and communities. The majority of Kiva’s entrepreneurs are women. Since its founding in 2005, Kiva has grown into one of the world’s largest microfinance facilitators, connecting entrepreneurs with millions of dollars in loans from hundreds of thousands of lenders around the world.

Kiva was introduced to the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation by one of its partners, the Draper Richards Foundation. Over the last few years, Lex Mundi’s global network of law firms have supported Kiva’s work in over thirteen countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.  The pro bono legal services provided by Lex Mundi’s member firms have included advice on local laws regulating the transfer of capital into the jurisdiction, advice on local banking and tax laws governing microfinance institutions, and help in establishing legal partnerships with local microfinance institutions.

For more information about Kiva, visit www.kiva.org.

More on The Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation

This is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit affiliate of Lex Mundi, the world’s leading association of independent law firms.  (For more information about Lex Mundi, please visit www.lexmundi.com.)  Utilizing the talents and resources of Lex Mundi’s powerful network of 160 top-tier commercial law firms in 100 countries around the globe, representing approximately 21,000 lawyers, the Foundation matches experienced lawyers who provide first-class legal services to social entrepreneurs on a pro bono basis, enabling them to carry out their missions of positive social change and to improve the lives of the poor and disenfranchised.

The Foundation defines social entrepreneurs as “transformative change makers”, individuals and organizations that use entrepreneurial and innovative ideas to improve communities and the lives of the poor and disenfranchised.  Because Lex Mundi member firms are leading, full-service law firms, they have the experience and expertise to provide critically important assistance to social entrepreneurs, thus helping them become successful agents of positive social change.

The Foundation is a “matchmaker” and does not practice law. Rather, it identifies effective social entrepreneurs through referrals by its partners/collaborators.  These organizations include the Skoll Foundation, Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Acumen Fund, Draper Richards Foundation, Global Fund for Children, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Echoing Green and Mercy Corps.  For a complete list of the Foundation’s collaborators, please visit http://www.lexmundiprobono.org/lexmundiprobono/Our_Collaborators.asp.  The Foundation is constantly exploring additional collaborative relationships with potential partners that support innovative and entrepreneurial social change makers.

The Foundation is unique in that there is no other global organization that is focused exclusively on providing pro bono legal services to social entrepreneurs.  The Foundation aspires to become one of the world’s premier pro bono legal service organizations and to reach many more social entrepreneurs.  It is off to a great start and continues to build capacity and expand the volume, value and impact of the pro bono services provided.

To learn more about the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation and itsprojects, visit http://www.lexmundiprobono.org

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/lex-mundi-pro-bono-foundation-empowers-women/.

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LGT Venture Philanthropy launches iCats program

LGT Venture Philanthropy is launching their iCats Program today: The iCats Program is an answer to the need for professional know-how and resources in many philanthropic organizations and social enterprises. LGT Venture Philanthropy created a web-based platform to match experienced professionals with specific positions in selected philanthropic organizations.

The fellow positions for 2010 are now online on www.icatsprogram.com ! Application deadline is 26^th October 2009.
A fellow works 11 months on-site with a portfolio organization from February to December 2010 and receives regular mentoring from the LGT Venture Philanthropy team. In addition, a 4-day induction workshop brings all fellows together in the Swiss mountains. Go to www.icatsprogram.com to find out more and to apply.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/lgt-venture-philanthropy-launches-fellowship-program/.

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Global Impact Investing Network launched

I took part in the first London meeting of the embryonic Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) some time back. They just launched at the Clinton Global Initiative last Friday. The launch covered in this week’s Economist magazine, in a story titled ‘Financial Innovation and the Poor: A Place in Society.

Here’s what GIIN says by way of a self-introduction:

Who we are
The GIIN is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to building the infrastructure, activities, education, and research that will enable more effective impact investing around the world. Impact investing is the use of for-profit investment to create social and environmental impact. The GIIN and its partners address the systemic barriers that hinder the flow of capital to businesses that solve social and environmental problems.

Why the GIIN was created
There is simply not enough charitable and government capital to address the social and environmental challenges we face. For-profit investments can, and must, become a powerful tool for solving these challenges at a global level.

The impact investing industry has the potential to steer significant sums of money to market-based solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, but the industry stands at a delicate moment. Despite early success and momentum, inefficiencies have prevented impact investing capital from growing to the requisite scale of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Individual investors and service providers lack the capacity and mandate to solve structural challenges alone.  The GIIN promotes the infrastructure, activities, education and research that will enable more effective impact investing.  The GIIN helps identify both common strategic challenges and opportunities facing impact investors globally.  By building a more a coherent impact investing industry, the GIIN helps leverage our capital markets towards improving the lives of the poor and creating a sustainable future for the planet.

Our programs
GIIN’s major programmatic initiatives are the Investors’ Council and the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards.

1. Investors’ Council: The GIIN Investors’ Council provides leadership in the industry, serves as a platform for disseminating the latest research and best practices, and supports the creation and adoption of industry infrastructure, including impact metrics.  The Investors’ Council includes leading impact investors, including major global investment banks, institutional asset managers, family offices, pioneering impact investment funds, and private foundations.

The Investors’ Council also supports working groups focused on specific impact investing themes. The first working group is Project Terraqua, a group of investors who are focused on increasing investment in sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.

The 22 founding members have volunteered their time and energy in support of the GIIN over the past two years.  Later this year, we will extend Investors’ Council membership to a broader set of active impact investors.

The founding members are:

• Acumen Fund
• The Annie E. Casey  Foundation
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Calvert Foundation
• Capricorn Investment Group
• Citigroup
• Deutsche Bank
• Equilibrium Capital
• Generation Investment Management
• Gray Ghost Ventures
• IGNIA
• J.P. Morgan
• Lundin for Africa
• Lunt Family Office (Armonia)
• Omidyar Network
• Prudential Financial
• The Rockefeller Foundation
• Root Capital
• Shorebank/NCIF
• Trans-Century
• Triodos Investment Management
• Wolfensohn & Company

2. Infrastructure Development (IRIS): The GIIN serves as a platform for coordinating the development of public goods that can benefit all impact investors. The first initiative in this area is the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS), a common framework for measuring social and environmental impact of investments.  IRIS addresses a major barrier to the growth of the impact investing industry—the lack of transparency and credibility in how funds define, track, and report on the social and environmental performance of their capital.  IRIS provides a standardized approach that leads to lower transaction costs and an improved ability to understand the impact of investments.

The project has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, B Lab, Acumen Fund, Deloitte, and PricewaterhouseCoopers and builds on prior work in the social impact assessment field.  Version 1.0 of the IRIS taxonomy is currently being piloted by six partners (listed to the right).

An updated version of taxonomy will be released in early 2010, at which point we will be encouraging adoption by a broader group of investors and enterprises. For more information and to provide feedback on Version 1.0 please refer to iris-standards.org.

Our supporters
The GIIN has been launched with seed support from several leading institutions.  The Rockefeller Foundation provided $2.5M over 2 years for operating support and for IRIS.  The U.S. Agency for International Development provided $1.0M for IRIS and J.P. Morgan contributed $750,000 to support our work over the next 2 years.  We have also benefited from support from our Investors’ Council founding members. These early contributions are allowing us to build our capacity, and we are seeking additional support for our mission.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/global-impact-investing-network-launched/.

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Cleantech in China and India

The Cleantech Group, via its Cleantech Innovation Council, of which I am a member, is one the Volans Trailblazers.  Executive Chairman Nicholas Parker just sent around an email encouraging people to take part in two upcoming events: the 2nd India Cleantech Forum on October 14-16 in Delhi and its 3rd China Cleantech Forum on December 2-3 in Beijing. The reasons he gave for this rather unusual mail-out struck me as interesting:

“For starters,” he said, “these two countries alone represent over 2.5 billion people. Both countries, under COP15, could benefit from billions of dollars of capital and support for technology transfer and cooperation. Controlling CO2 emissions as they rapidly develop, let alone other energy and environmental dynamics, will be hugely impactful.

“Despite the global recession, India’s economy grew at 6.1% in the Q2/09. During this period, the government of India announced a $22 billion solar investment program, highlighting both the scale of India’s needs and its ambition. To sustain its growth, India urgently needs and wants clean energy and scalable innovations to address its water and related agricultural issues. Facing numerous environmental hurdles, the sub-continent has become a key emerging cleantech market.

“The size of China’s green stimulus program is historically unprecedented at about 38% of the over the $200 billion announced. The Middle Kingdom is arriving as an incubator of worldclass cleantech companies, many of which are now listed on global exchanges. The scale of China’s energy and environmental challenges, combined with its deep financial resources, creates a unique opportunity to shape and accelerate market adoption of cleantech innovation globally.”

More details from either china@cleantech.com or india@cleantech.com.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/cleantech-in-china-and-india/.

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Buffett boosts Phoenix 50 listing, BYD

We liked Shenzhen car and battery maker BYD when we were compiling the Phoenix 50. Warren Buffett liked it even more, jumping owner Wang Chuanfu from 103rd to first place in the growing pack of Chinese millionaires, as reported by Shanghai-based consultancy Hurun, with a net worth of $5.1bn.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/buffett-boosts-phoenix-50-listing-byd/.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers address professional needs at Hagar during two week project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Over the first two weeks of September 2009, five partners from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) worked with Hagar International on a variety of workstreams that meet professional needs of Hagar’s social businesses.

These include tax advice and operations review of Hagar’s Catering business, business planning for a new Hydrologic – an enterprise that sells water filters – and advisory input on leasing agreements of Hagar’s factory in Phnom Penh.  The PwC team, with assistance from the local PwC Cambodia office, worked with more than ten senior managers across Hagar’s operating entities to accomplish this broad set of objectives within the two week timeframe.

This engagement is part of the “Developing Responsible Leaders” (DRL) program at PwC which targets senior executives within the firm and focuses on leadership and professional development through engaging with social enterprises in a developing world context.  Volans partnered with Pivotal Leadership – an organizational development consultancy – to put together this project.  For several months prior to the trip, Pivotal and Volans had regular communication with the program leaders at PwC to design the DRL program, focussing on the talent development objectives for PwC, while being mindful of delivering tangible long-term value to Hagar.

At the start of the trip, the DRL participants were introduced to Cambodia’s grim history through a tour of the Toul Sleng museum, which was a primary school converted into a prison and torture chamber.  We also visited the slum areas where Cambodia Living Arts worked to pass on endangered traditional Khmer performing arts to the next generation, by offering scholarships as well as stipends to children from these communities to attend school.  Despite the bustling downtown scene in Phnom Penh, most of which is fuelled by international aid and NGO dollars, the typical Cambodian still lives by the fringes of this economy under dire circumstances.  With this context around Cambodia, the team embarked on engaging the various Hagar departments on the list of objectives they had agreed to address.

Aside from meeting the professional needs of Hagar, DRL team also organized a day trip for close to 200 children from Hagar’s Children Learning Centre.  We had arranged for this outing to take place at Kirirom resort, a two hour bus ride outside of Phnom Penh.  When our convoy of five coaches arrived at the resort, it quickly dawned on us that the resort was well past its hey day and that the photos we had seen on the promotional material were severely outdated.  Various logistical challenges cropped up as the resort staff scrambled to meet the needs of 200 screaming children; one example being that we had been promised four ponies at the pony ride station whereas the staff we previously liaised with had failed to mention that the resort only had one saddle.  Nonetheless, the day was saved when we declared open season on the resort’s swimming pool and almost immediately, close to a hundred children screamed and jumped into what must have been smaller than a 25-meter pool.

All in all, much was accomplished by the PwC team during the two week stay and as the participants indicated, they had learned a lot about themselves and from one another.  There was acknowledgement that engaging with social enterprises provided a new dimension to closer collaboration with communities in need, and there is continued interest to deepen this relationship with Hagar as well as possibly other social enterprises in Cambodia.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/pricewaterhousecoopers-team-address-professional-needs-at-hagar-during-two-week-project/.

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Happy Birthday, PRC—and here’s the challenge for the next 40 years

Today—1 October—marks sixtieth anniversary of People’s Republic of China.  This year is also the tenth anniversary since Chinese rural villagers, representing more than 60% of the population, started to directly elect their village councils, an important political effort to involve the masses in new forms of democracy. 

Yu Keping, deputy chief of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, and author of the widely-discussed work Democracy is a good thing in 2006, recently reflected on the Chinese democracy evolution for the past 60 years. 

He had previously argued that “democratic politics will not operate on its own; it requires the people themselves and the government officials who represent the interests of the people to promote and implement.”  This time, when asked “what is China’s biggest achievement, and the biggest failure since 1949”, he pointed to economic reforms since the 1980s and the 10-year Cultural Revolution in the 1970s respectively.

It is interesting to ponder the political forces behind these historical events, and look at the economical, social and environmental consequences they have brought to the country.  The controlled opening up of the domestic market has fuelled the economical expansion of the Chinese economy.  In retrospect, extremist Maoism, applied by centralised political powers on the assumption that the Party always new best what was in people’s interest, led to environmental disasters, a huge waste of natural resources, devastating famines and—paradoxically—population explosion.

Some people argue that a completely democratic environment is a necessary condition for sustainability development.  However, the short-term interest of so many western politicians often conflicts with the long-term agenda of system change.  By contrast, an authoritative political culture may become quite effective if the centralized power is exercised in the right way and the right direction. 

Again, take China as an example.  Another important figure in the country is Pan Yue, the Vice Minister of Environmental Protection, described by BusinessWeek Online as “a courageous voice for a greener China”.  He was able to “take on some of China’s biggest industries over their pollution records and forced them to clean up”, although some initiatives he is advocating, including the adoption of new measures to calculate and improve ‘Green GDP’, will take longer than expected, given the various powerful interest groups potentially impacted.

People like Yu Keping obviously play an important role in catalyzing new forms of democracy, in ways that hopefully would better represent the true interests of the masses.  Meanwhile, strong authoritative figures like Pan Yue are also vital in exercising influence from the top—although few would argue that Minister Pan remains a rare example of a green voice in the world’s biggest superpower.  Ultimately, China will benefit when appropriate forms of democracy is adopted—while democracy worldwide, plus the cause of sustainability, desperately need a more democratic, greener China to bring its power and influence to bear in pursuit of a global ‘Harmonious Society’ and a better future for all.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/happy-birthday-prc%e2%80%94and-here%e2%80%99s-the-challenge-for-th-next-40-years/.

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Nine planetary boundaries

While I was at this year’s Tallberg Forum in Sweden, I was invited to take part in a session debating a late draft of a paper on nine planetary boundaries that Nature has just published. A fuller version is available here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/nine-planetary-boundaries/.

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Latest round of Ashoka Fellows

Some fascinating folk in the list of new Ashoka Fellows, here.

The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2009/10/latest-round-of-ashoka-fellows/.

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