Sam Lakha, Manager, Volans Outreach.
Will the Chinese Be the Saudis of Clean Energy?
Quite likely, according to today’s New York Times. “China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year,” the paper reports. ”China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.” Great news, from a planetary and sustainability perspective, but there is a major potential downside: “These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.”
“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy. President Obama, in last week’s State of the Union speech, “sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race.”
Japan’s rise a couple of decades ago spurred the West to respond, particularly in areas like total quality management (TQM), so - just maybe - we can hope that China’s rise in renewables will spur the West to take the need for a sustainable energy transition much more seriously, giving powerful long-term political signals, creating the appropriate market incentives and investing in the underlying technologies. The sheer scale of China’s export trade and potential domestic markets give it a major advantage in terms of scaling, but history suggests that there’s nothing like a profound, potentially destabilising competitive advantage to spur action in rival camps.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/will-the-chinese-be-the-saudis-of-clean-energy/.
- John ElkingtonWSF and Altruism vs. Economics
Having given up Economics after a year of university-level study in 1968, I have remained interested in the dismal science - indeed helped develop The Other Economic Summit (TOES) in the early 1980s. Though these days I expect to find more of direct relevance coming out of the World Economic Forum (WEF) than out of the rival World Social Forum (WSF), the Other News service covered the question of whether another sort of economics might be possible earlier this week - and suddenly a series of things I have ben reading have converged into this space.
As Other News reported: Democratising economics as well as politics is essential for ending irrationality and discrimination as part of the struggle for social and environmental justice, said participants at one of the panels of the seminar assessing the World Social Forum’s (WSF) first 10 years. The field of “the gratis economy” or “freeconomics” is “expanding dramatically” with the rising importance of knowledge as a major component in goods and services, economist Ladislau Dowbor, a professor at the Catholic University of São Paulo, said in his presentation.
Using a street is free, and no one wonders about the cost of construction and maintenance. The same is true of vaccines, state schools and a wide range of public goods supplied at no cost to the user.
But of course these do have costs, which are usually paid through taxes contributed by the general population, or surcharges on other products, he said. Vaccines save so much in health costs that it would make no sense to charge individual beneficiaries.
As the knowledge society advances, freeconomics is expanding, based on relations that are entirely different from those derived from material goods, he said.
All of which plays very much into the original TOES agenda, as did the first thing I read in today’s Davos issue of the FT Weekend Magazine, published by the Financial Times. This was the charming story of Michael Swaine, who some nine years ago began setting up his sewing machine in the street, in San Francisco’s troubled Tenderloin district, noted for street crime and prostitution, and offering to mend people’s clothes for free. The results are reported here.
So far, so good. But then I flicked three pages forward and find the latest piece by ‘Undercover Economist’ Tim Harford, at which point the pendulum began to swing again. His argument is that altruism is over-rated. The idea, for example, that by underpaying nurses we select for those with a true sense of vocation is blatantly false, he says. Sometimes, he concludes, the way to get the results you want is to pay for them.
The distinction between private and public goods is one that has been central to the sustainability agenda, but one that I have often struggled to get my brain around. Basically, like many people, I would love to live in a world driven by altruism, and come across endless examples of extraordinary people doing unbelievably altruistic things in the world, but suspect that, once again, this isn’t going to turn out to be either/or, either altruism or payment, but both/and. The challenge is to find out which approach is best suited to the task in hand - and to be aware that the appropriate solution may well change over time as the scaling of solutions proceeds. The way that we come to resolve such tensions is not just a question of our individual values, but a central, determining feature of any culture, any civilization.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/wsf-and-altruism-vs-economics/.
- John ElkingtonNot only do they look good - but iPhones can save your life!
It is great to see examples where technology is celebrated for providing real and direct ways of delivering social good. In this case, saving a life. According to this article on Wired’s website ‘Man Buried in Haiti Rubble Uses iPhone to Treat Wounds, Survives’ U.S. filmmaker Dan Woolley was trapped in the rubble Haiti earthquake with his mobile phone.
‘He used this device to illuminate his surroundings and snap photos of the wreckage so he could find a safe place to wait for his rescue, after which he followed instructions from an iPhone first-aid app to fashion a bandage and tourniquet for his leg and to stop the bleeding from his head wound. The app even warned Woolley not to fall asleep if he felt he was going into shock, so he set his cellphone’s alarm clock to go off every 20 minutes. Sixty-five hours later, a French rescue team saved him.’
Despite the fact that this is a small scale story, it does represent and symbol of how mobile technology has the potential to profoundly shape…and save….lives.
Thanks to Jim Vanides (@jgvanides) for the twitter link to the article.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/not-only-do-they-look-good-but-iphones-can-save-your-life/.
- Charmian LoveBrilliant Ideas: Human Centred Design Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs
I was fortunate enough to speak at a fantastic Wavelength event yesterday, hosted by UK social enterprise guru Liam Black. After talking about what we do at Volans, and our view on how the corporate sector is increasingly interested in social innovation, a former classmate of mine, Tom Hulme, took the stage to talk about how his firm IDEO is also doing work in this space.
IDEO is a global design and innovation consulting company which works with many of the brands we all know and love. They apply a method called Design Thinking to the projects they work on with clients that include Nokia, Apple and many other multinational companies. In the words of their founder, Tim Brown, Design Thinking is ‘an approach that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods for problem solving to meet people’s needs in a technologically feasible and commercially viable way. In other words, design thinking is human-centered innovation.’ Full disclosure – Tim Brown is a member of our Volans Advisory Board.
In Tom’s remarks he mentioned that IDEO has created a FREE toolkit for social entrepreneurs which provides insight on how to apply Design Thinking to their models. The Human Centred Design Toolkit ‘helps organizations understand people’s needs in new ways, find innovative solutions to meet these needs, and deliver solutions with financial sustainability in mind’. You can download it from the IDEO website (you need to register for it first).
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/brillinat-ideas-human-centred-design-toolkit-for-social-entrepreneurs/.
- Charmian LoveSkoll Global Threats Fund Makes First Grants
At a time when the number of challenges is growing almost exponentially, it’s helpful when thoughtful, experienced people sit back and attempt to pull clearer signals out of the background noise. That’s what the Skoll Foundation has done in building up to the launch of its Global Threats Fund.
The Global (previously ‘Urgent’) Threats Fund was created in 2009 by Jeff Skoll to support innovative ideas and individuals combating those global challenges which, if unchecked, could bring the world to its knees. It has just announced its first round of grants, which are designed to “work towards the elimination of all nuclear weapons (Ploughshares Fund) and the promotion of a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (J Street).”
“The challenges we face are huge and complex and we need to leverage better the many disparate efforts underway to tackle them,” said Skoll, who also founded Participant Media and the Skoll Foundation and served as eBay’s first president. “We must create powerful networks of like-minded partners, build public consciousness and drive policy choices that work. The mission of the Skoll Global Threats Fund is to confront global threats imperiling humanity by seeking solutions, strengthening alliances, and spurring the actions needed to safeguard the future.”
The first two grants go to:
- Ploughshares Fund: $1 million to engage policy officials and expand public support to stop nuclear proliferation and promote reduction of global nuclear arsenals. Contact: Naila Bolus nbolus@ploughshares.org.
- J Street: $200,000 in growth capital to this pro-peace organization founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflictspeacefully and diplomatically. J Street is redefining what it means to be pro-Israel to include recognition of the urgency of establishing a Palestinian state.
Additional information is available at www.skollglobalthreats.org.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/skoll-global-threats-fund-makes-first-grants/.
- John ElkingtonThe Triple Bottom Line of Social Enterprise
It’s over 15 years since I first came up with the triple bottom line concept, which subsequently helped spawn any number of related formulations, including ‘double bottom line’ ands ‘blended value’ - and it’s fascinating to see it resurfacing in the social enterprise area.
That said, when I attended what I think was the first Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship summit in Geneva in 2001, the TBL was already very much on the agenda, with a nice plug from Jed Emerson, who went on to develop the blended value concept. And it has also been interesting to see the TBL resurfacing in the mainstream, with coverage in the business media (for example, The Economist), in new books (for example, Andrew Savitz’s The Triple Bottom Line) and the work of TBLI Group in the financial world.
The 5-month project I’m currently leading - alongside Nelmara Arbex of Global Reporting Initiative - will take us back into TBL territory. And beyond, given that we are working to a 10-year timescale. We’ll be posting updates on that shortly, but we are delighted to have the Dow Chemical Company, Novo Nordisk and SAP in alongside as project partners.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/the-triple-bottom-line-of-social-enterprise/.
- John ElkingtonFreeplay Offers Lifeline to Haitian Earthquake Victims
Given the scale of the devastation, it’s hard to imagine anything making much of an impact in short order, but social entrepreneurs have been piling in to Haiti to help in the aftermath of the disaster. Now two-time Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks, and Freeplay Foundation ambassador, is kick-starting Freeplay’s Haiti Humanitarian Radio Relief Fund for earthquake survivors in Haiti.
Access to information is critical both during an emergency and in reconstruction. Updates from local and international sources is an urgent need, along with water, food, shelter and medical attention. Radio stations are broadcasting and Freeplay’s radios will help aid agencies, the UN and the government get essential information to the population.
Freeplay has a strong track record in humanitarian relief, having been directly involved in the Balkans conflict, post-genocide Rwanda, the Mozambique floods, in refugee camps in Tanzania and Kenya, and the Asian tsunami. With AM/FM and short-wave bands, the radios will pick up both local and international stations, operating on solar energy, coupled with a fail-safe winding mechanism.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/freeplay-offers-lifeline-to-haitian-earthquake-victims/.
- John ElkingtonFiduciary Duty Seen As Key To Climate Future At UN Institutional Investor Summit
At this past week’s high-level Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk in New York City, more than 500 financial leaders heard both how far the world has come in addressing climate risk – and how far it still needs to go.
Meeting at the vast temporary conference hall erected at UN headquarters while the main buildings undergo renovations, the participants’ enthusiasm was dampened by the confusion many felt about the results of the Congress of the Parties in Copenhagen and by the massive tragedy in Haiti in which more than a hundred UN employees were missing and presumed dead.
This was the fourth summit in a series that began in late 2003. The purpose was, as it has been in the past, to bring together large asset owners – such as state treasurers and other trustees of major U.S. pension funds – and the portfolio managers who work for them to consider the long-term impact of climate risk on their portfolios.
In the early days many trustees hewed to the false assumption that fiduciary duty actually barred them from considering climate risk; today the consensus is rapidly emerging that trustees are in fact required by law to consider it. In the words of Howard Jacobs, a trustee of the UK University Superannuation Scheme, “fiduciary duty is a complete dodge at this point if it is used to avoid assessing climate risk.”
The focus of this fourth summit was also notable in its emphasis on the urgent need for countries – particularly the United States – to introduce economic rationality to the markets by setting a price for carbon. This, they argued, would unleash a flood of private capital that is currently hesitating to make major clean tech investments because they cannot calculate the likely returns. To spur action, a large subset of the participants – including US, European, and Australian investors worth more than $13 trillion – released a joint statement at the summit calling for rapid action by governments on emission reduction targets, price signals on carbon, improved energy and transportation policies, new financing mechanisms, and adaptation measures.
Many speakers focused on the practical question of how to achieve change. During the keynote speech at lunch, former U.S. vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, in his fourth summit appearance, pointed to the need to shift the compensation structures of asset managers from quarterly horizons to targets such as a rolling three year average, the mechanism used by Generation Investment, the firm he chairs. “One of the things that I have learned in business,” he said, “is that people tend to do what they are paid to do. If you want people to invest for in the long-term success of the low carbon economy, you have to compensate them for that.“
Despite its substantial achievements, the summit sponsors missed several opportunities to build even greater support for their consensus views. For seven years the events have taken place under the shadow of White House resistance to climate action; as a result, the gatherings have been tightly focused on a few immediate objectives with regard to U.S. energy policy. The evolving summit agendas have been slow in showing how both the cause and the solution to the climate crisis link to other major concerns in politics and sustainability – such as jobs, development, biodiversity, water use, and human rights.
While AFL-CIO General Counsel Damon Silvers, speaking on behalf of his president Richard Trumka, pledged union support for the switch to a low-carbon economy, there was little discussion of how such a global transition would affect jobs in the developing world. Issues that had previously been overlooked were just coming to the fore. As Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs noted in her remarks, “deforestation is 20% of the carbon problem,” yet only now, she said, after seven years were summit attendees beginning to pay attention.
The conference was also dated in its organizational design, preferring to pack the day from morning to night with speakers, thus missing the opportunity to get specific feedback – and commitments – from the participants through some of the many interactive conference technologies that are now available.
In sum, the achievements on INCR and the Investor Summit are substantial, but to be completely successful they must make the case that a transition to a global low-carbon economy will achieve many global objectives, not just those identified by the developing world in the aftermath of its orgy of carbon intensive wealth creation. The sense that the developed world, despite its own poor record, is still preoccupied with defining the terms and the outcome of the debate was partly responsible for the difficulty experienced by Denmark and its allies in making a persuasive case for binding commitments in Copenhagen. The suspicions and self-interest of poorer countries will only be overcome if the developing world demonstrates that it understands and occupies the moral high ground of embracing all the interdependent sustainability challenges facing the leaders of the world.
As one speaker aptly put it at the conference, “physics does not pay attention to politics,” meaning that the rapid degradation of the world’s biosphere will continue unless strong actions were taken. At the same time, the inverse adage – “politics does not pay attention to physics” – is also true in a world of turbulent and immediate human needs. Advancement will require, as Howard Jacobs also noted, “a language that unifies the world.” Until advocates for action on the climate crisis anchor their arguments in the broadest frame of full sustainability, they will continue to find it difficult to bring many political leaders and investors on board.
Robert Kinloch Massie was the president of Ceres for seven years beginning in 1996 and first suggested the idea of the Investor Summit on Climate Risk to its founding organizations in 2003. He joined the Volans Advisory Board in January 2010.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/fiduciary-duty-seen-as-key-to-climate-future-at-un-institutional-investor-summit/.
- Bob MassieNew BASIC realities
Copenhagen failed to deliver a climate deal but did trigger a vital shakeup of climate politics. With the birth of the BASIC bloc -Brazil, South Africa, India and China–the world must wake up to the arrival of new players in global rulemaking: Copenhagen marked their first victory as a team. The political document resulting from the summit, the Copenhagen Accord, was a product of the behind-the-scenes trading between the US and the BASIC bloc and a subsequent consultation with about 25 countries.
The EU went from being a decision-maker in Kyoto to a reluctant decision-taker in Copenhagen. It is not easy being the EU. The bloc includes early champions of the low carbon economy, notably Germany, the UK and France, but also expanded since the Kyoto days to assemble 27 disparate members including some climate foot-draggers often hiding behind Poland. These dynamics have often put a break on the ambition of the European climate agenda. Frustratingly, climate advocates could not persuade the EU to commit to a 30% reduction of its 2020 emissions compared to 1990 mostly as result of intra-EU wrestling. Add to these internal divisions a weak diplomatic strategy for Copenhagen and the outcome for the EU is disastrous: Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown were not at the table during the decisive horse-trading between Obama and the leaders of the BASIC team, Lula, Zuma, Singh, and Jiabao.
A BASIC alliance creates opportunities for the global decarbonisation agenda… We need economic and political pathways to limit the increase of average global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. (Many scientists, advocates, small islands even call for a 1.5 degree threshold). A decarbonised global economy must engage the US and the BASIC bloc, in particular China and India. Copenhagen was the trigger of a unprecedented give-and-take among these key players. Obama engaged after 8 years of US inaction and had to do so in terms that enhanced, not harmed, the prospects of passing a US climate bill. A 2 degree world requires the US to have this law approved in early 2010. This law has no chances without China moving forward as well. Despite their aggressive tactics at Copenhagen (It is said China is responsible for the lack of quantitative references in the Copenhagen Accord), this country and the BASIC bloc finally spoke as major economic powers. They have left behind a too-poor-to-act rationale that no longer matches their economic prospects (e.g. Brazil’s economy is expected to outgrow France’s and the UK’s by 2015), growing political clout (e.g. In 2008, Costa Rica “uninvited” the Dalai Lama to avoid conflicts with China) or carbon footprint (e.g. future emissions from the BASIC countries are as harmful as historical emissions from developed countries).
…but a stronger BASIC group also creates unique challenges, so what’s next? Trust-building. The new engagement of the BASIC countries and the US in Copenhagen came with a high price for the climate: the Copenhagen Accord lacks ambition and specifics. It is a letter of intentions, but not legal commitments. And there is no guarantee 2010 will deliver the foundational climate deal that science requires. So much more foundational work must be done and much of it will need to be conducted outside climate diplomacy. Agreeing some top-down legal mechanisms through the UN will be necessary but must be complemented with specialized summitry, most notably the Major Economies Forum, the G20 and APEC. Many other climate and sustainability objectives, perhaps the majority, must move forward through bottom-up dynamics (e.g. ecocity initiatives, green infrastructure projects, low impact consumer programs). Trust-building is essential. Sadly, Copenhagen was the most recent casualty of the mistrust and blame-games that I witnessed at the Bella center last month. Fortunately, we find hope elsewhere, and much of it in pioneering developing countries: entrepreneurs, advocates, scientists, investors, innovators, teachers, city majors, activists, faith leaders, musicians will move forward regardless of Copenhagen. Their efforts are critical if we are to rebuild trust and win the case for a low carbon transformation.
Monica Araya, Costa Rican expert, senior associate at E3G.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/new-basic-realities/.
- Monica ArayaBrilliant Ideas: Patient Opinion
I’ve been fortunate that my experience with the NHS has been quite limited since I moved to the UK. That said, one can’t ignore the stories that seem to permeate dinner party conversations, twitter feeds and the pages of the newspaper that slam the service provision of the UK National Health System. OK – so there are inevitably problems – but where are the solutions?
Solutions is what Patient Opinion is all about. I first met Paul Hodgkin at a dinner I was invited to crash. He is a GP with a clear desire to make the system better for people. He works with a terrific team, including James Munro, who shares his GP background and also has a flair for technology.
Together they have built an organisation that allows patients to have a voice when it comes to their healthcare. It boils down to storytelling.
There are three key kinds of messages that pass through the patient opinion portal:
1. People can share their thoughts on the service and standards of local hospitals, hospices and mental health services.
2. They can also share the story of what happened to them or their family when they were ill.
3. Most important of all patients and carers can tell it like it is - patients and carers know what the service was like and come up with lots of great ideas about how it could be better.
What makes this a truly brilliant idea is that it is about communicating solutions. People who have had experiences which can help uncover service improvements are connected to people who can implement them. The stories are posted through the Patient Opinion website and then forwarded via RSS feed to the relevant hospital manager or carer to act on.
Brilliant!
For more information on Patient Opinion, check out their website.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/brilliant-ideas-patient-opinon/.
- Charmian LoveThe future of MBAs
I was impressed by a recent report by McKinsey Quarterly which looks at how MBA programs are responding to the changing landscape of business education.
This report takes the format of a short (10 minute) interview with the Dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business - Blair Sheppard. In the first few sentences of his remarks, he indicates that there has been a twentyfold increase in student interest in public-policy and social entrepreneurship by his students over the last 5 years. Twentyfold! The time has come to recognize this in business schools and really give students what they are asking for…
Dean Sheppard also talks about the future of MBA programs - and presents a case for truly interscholastic learning models. This might include mergers between policy schools and business schools in order to give students what they want. What nailed this point for me was his positioning of what is needed to prepare the future leaders of banks. Is it a business degree? Is it a policy degree? The answer is YES! Both practices are necessary to arm this future leader with the necessary toolkit and experiences.
For more on this discussion, check out at the McKinsey Quarterly article Reshaping Business Education In A New Era.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/the-future-of-mbas/.
- Charmian LoveWEF’s Facebook Survey Sees Financial Crisis As Crisis of Values
Over two-thirds of people believe the current economic crisis is also a crisis of ethics and values. But only 50% think universal values exist. These are among the findings of the World Economic Forum’s Faith and the Global Agenda: Values for the Post-Crisis Economy, an annual report on issues related to the role of faith in global affairs. The report contains a unique new public opinion poll on values conducted through Facebook. The poll reached over 130,000 respondents in France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the United States.
The poll results point to a trust deficit regarding values in the business world. Only one-quarter of respondents believe that large, multinational businesses apply a values-driven approach to their sectors, while over 40% believe that small and medium-sized businesses apply such an approach. Almost two-thirds of respondents believe that people do not apply the same values in their professional lives as they do in their private lives. When asked whether businesses should be primarily responsible to their shareholders, their employees, their clients and customers, or all three equally, almost half of the respondents chose the option of “all three equally”.
When asked to identify the values most important for the global political and economic system, almost 40% chose honesty, integrity and transparency; 24% chose others’ rights, dignity and views; 20% chose the impact of actions on the well-being of others and 17% chose preserving the environment.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, said the report underlines the need for a set of values around which our global economic institutions and mechanisms of international cooperation must be built: “Our present system fails to meet its obligations to as many as 3 billion people in the world. Our civic, business and political cultures must be transformed if we are to close this gap.”
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/wefs-facebook-survey-sees-financial-crisis-as-crisis-of-values/.
- John ElkingtonThis Is Not An Airplane
Thanks to a Facebook response to a blog entry I did on James Cameron’s Avatar, I watched Bertrand Piccard’s 2009 TED talk this morning - and found it profoundly moving. His discussion of what ballast you have to drop and what altitude you need to aim for in order to catch winds favourable to moving in the direction you want to head resonated strongly. As did his comment about the motivation to be had in doing what others consider impossible.
But, most of all, his use of the ballooning metaphor to articulate what lies ahead of us in weaning our civilization off fossil fuels was a near-perfect encapsulation of what we are aiming towards with Volans.
And I liked his argument that his team’s efforts to get his new solar plane to make it through the night, when there is no solar radiation to be had, symbolise our collective challenge of making it through the dark night as our economies go cold turkey and begin the switch to renewable energy.
I signed up to TED immediately, if belatedly. Only wish this sort of stuff could be delivered intravenously, or while I sleep. There’s a growing amount of it - and I tend to get a little over-excited.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/this-is-not-an-airplane/.
- John ElkingtonCarbon Trading: The new anti-globalization battle?
This week, activists protested outside a Carbon Trading Summit in New York, as evidence emerges of wrongdoing against indigenous peoples around the world, driven by a fast-paced financial industry emerging around REDD — the proposed mechanisms at the UN for trading reduced emissions from avoided deforestation.
REDD-Monitor reports on the disturbances as executives from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy, American Electric Power and other corporations mingled with representatives from government, carbon credit aggregators, hedge funds and carbon traders.
“The same Wall Street bankers who gave us the global climate crisis are trying to own the sky,” said Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology. In its press release about the event (copied below), the Indigenous Environmental Network argues that what can go wrong about REDD has already gone wrong.
Abelie Wape, an Indigenous leader from Kamula Doso in Papua New Guinea, was forced at gunpoint to sign away the carbon rights to the forest. Kamula Doso is one of the most controversial of the REDD projects currently being set up anywhere in the world. These accusations of violence make any pretense of free, prior and informed consent farcical.
PRESS RELEASE
13th January 2010
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director
Indigenous Environmental Network
(218)760-0442
Carbon Markets Violate Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Threaten Cultural Survival
Indigenous leader kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to surrender carbon rights for REDD in Papua New Guinea
New York, USA — As carbon traders hawk permits to pollute at the Second Annual Carbon Trading Summit, Indigenous Peoples denounced that selling the sky not only corrupts the sacred but also destroys the climate, violates human rights and threatens cultural survival.
“Carbon trading and carbon offsets are a crime against humanity and Creation,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network. “The sky is sacred. This carbon market insanity privatizes the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source.”
“This Carbon Traitors’ Summit comes on the heels of the failed UN Copenhagen climate conference which put forests in carbon markets by creating a mechanism called REDD or REDD-plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).” According to Goldtooth, “Most of the forests of the world are found in Indigenous Peoples’ land. REDD-type projects have already caused land grabs, killings, violent evictions and forced displacement, violations of human rights, threats to cultural survival, militarization and servitude.”
A recent World News Australia television exposé sheds light on the risks of REDD, carbon traders and the shocking kidnapping of a Papuan New Guinea native leader. Abilie Wape, a leader of the Kamula Doso Peoples claims he was forced at gun point to surrender the carbon rights of his tribe’s forest.
A visibly shaken Wape told reporters, “They came and got me in the night, police came with a gun. They threatened me. They forced me to get in the vehicle. Then we came in the night to the hotel. They told me, “You sign. Otherwise, if you don’t sign, I’ll get a police and lock you up.”
“Indigenous Peoples are being forced to sign over their territories for REDD to the Gangsters of the Century, carbon traders, who are invading the world’s remaining forests that exist thanks to the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples,” denounced Marlon Santi, President of the CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, one of the most powerful native organizations in the world. “Our forests are spaces for life not carbon markets.”
Another REDD-type project, a UNEP-funded carbon forestry project in the Mau forest of Kenya has resulted in evictions and threatens the cultural survival of the Ogiek hunter-gathers. “Ordering us to leave Mau is like taking a fish out of water and expecting it to survive” said Ogiek People Development Program Director Daniel Kobei. According to REDD-Monitor, “UNEP’s failure to prevent the eviction of thousands of people to make way for a carbon project does not bode well for the millions of Indigenous Peoples and forest dwelling communities of the world.”
Survival International reports that REDD schemes could leave Indigenous Peoples “with nothing.” “Everyone who cares about our future, forests, Indigenous Peoples and human rights should reject REDD because it is irremediably flawed, cannot be fixed and because, despite efforts to develop safeguards for its implementation, REDD will always be potentially genocidal,” concluded Goldtooth.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/carbon-trading-the-new-anti-globalization-battle/.
- Alejandro LitovskyBack to my old life - same problems but new hope!
Volans’ Alumni Network member Juliana Velloso refects on life post-London
After spending a year in London, I feel re-empowered: the power of the academic environment and being in contact with inspiring people like John (Elkington) brought back hopes that I had almost forgotten, hopes not just for myself but also concerning my city, my country. After two months back at my hometown, Rio de Janeiro, I am reminded again how great the scale of various challenges are and realize how ‘change’ is difficult to bring about. However, I remain hopeful because there are so many others like me here - Brazilians that want to change this country for the better.
Given the sheer size of my country, I find it useful to roughly rank a diverse list of problems that we have to deal with: on the one hand we are reasonably stable, economically speaking, and have advanced some social indicators, such as the number and dimension of poverty that have decreased in the last decade, yet we still face several problems in our day-to-day lives that obstruct our (sustainable) development (as I learned from Amartya Sen from his book Development as Freedom, one of my great influences from my academic years at university in Brazil).
For instance, I do not feel I can walk about so freely here in Rio as I was used to doing in London: when I hear gunshots, I remember that I am living in an undeclared civil war. I feel guilty when I drive my parents’ car through the city while on the streets around me hundreds of children are begging or are trying to sell things under streets lights to earn some money. I read the newspapers and see how the politicians elected by us publicly disrespect the citizens of our country and use our money in mind-boggling ways and that an iron company will be established in my state (Rio de Janeiro) and will increase C02 emissions by 9.7 million (thats 76.3% above the current levels). I want to ride my bike but discover that we have no place or space for bicycles on our streets, unless you live near a bike-lane which generally tends to only be in the areas around the beach (rich areas) .
Ok, I know I sound very pessimistic about all the problems: I’m not usually like this, I assure you. I actually believe in the power of the human race and in our power to change the world for better. It’s easy to think of so many examples of the ‘bad things’ developed by people but it’s important to keep in mind too the many ‘good things’ created to benefit our civilization. And so, with regard to my country, after listing some of the key problems, I now have the duty to list the good things that I am observing in my new life here too and they are extraordinary: we see social entrepreneurs trying to address inequality, such as the developed by the Rede Asta, that scales the work of several people that live in low-income communities producing various crafted goods. There are initiatives being led by small entrepreneurs, young people that want a better world for future generations. For example, Henrique Bussacos, 26 years old, founded TEKOHA in 2007, a virtual company that promotes the handcraft work of several artisans and has already started to export sustainable products to countries such as Switzerland. Also, Alessandra França, 23 years old, founded in 2009 the Pérola Bank , an institution that lends small amounts of money to informal entrepreneurs in São Paulo, so a micro-finance initiative. And Tiago Dalvi, 23 years old, founder of Solidarium a fair trade design company that has begun to supply big corporations like Wal-Mart in Brazil with sustainable products. These are a few examples of initatives that fill me with hope that a different future is possible.
So, in this light, even if I have many reasons to be disappointed and frustrated with how my country is developing, I also have a growing list of reasons to not give up and am inspired to be one of the young agents of change that are moving my lovely country towards being more equitable and sustainable. I don’t know how it will turn out but I do feel that progress is being made towards paving a better world overall for coming generations. I am among a strong group who believe in our future here! I have mentioned just a few examples of progressive initiatives and will be keeping a close watch on these, seek them out in fact, and report again soon.
- Rio de Janeiro, 07/01/2010
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/and-my-old-life-comeswith-the-same-problems-but-new-hope/.
- Sam LakhaThe Methuselah Generation
I was born in 1949, which landed me squarely in the Baby Boom generation. Having celebrated my sixtieth birthday in June, I find my mind has been turning to some of the challenges that will be posed by the ageing (or, in the USA, aging) of my generation around the world. That this line of thought chimes in with the zeitgeist is underscored by an editorial in today’s Financial Times, which considers how the baby boomers will change the ageing equation.
The implications for employers range from a loss of talent as growing numbers of boomers retire, through the likelihood that many boomers will want to stay on in employment - though there is likely to be a growing interest in part-time rather than full-time work. In addition to a greater need for employer flexibility, there will be an increasing need for a focus on wellness at work, with employers expected to help older employees tackle short-term illness before it becomes long term.
I have long argued that if people want to understand what sustainability means in practice, they should look at the future strains likely to be imposed on public health care and pension systems as the ageing trend accelerates across the developed world. The intergenerational dimensions are likely to be pretty taxing. Among the questions that I find interesting: (1) How will the ageing trend impact societal thinking around sustainability issues? (2) How will it impact the appetite for the sort of risk, innovation and entrepreneurship that is needed to jump our economies and societies to more sustainable states? (3) How can we best tap the skills of the growing number of retirees and semi-retired people to support social and environmental entrepreneurship? (4) How will the ageing trend impact politics, lobbying and, over time, the prevailing paradigm that frames how we think about ourselves, others and the wider world? And (5), practically, as the first Green generation goes grey (or, in the USA, gray), how can we green the greys/grays?
To jump-start our thinking, Volans hosted a couple of working sessions last year, working closely with Professor David Grayson and Dr David Metz, with further sessions planned for 2010. As our thinking and work evolves this year, we will begin to post a growing number of blogs on related issues. For the moment, however, this is by way of an invitation to readers to get in touch and help cross-connect us to other thinking and work in this and related fields. The simplest way to do this is to email me at john@volans.com.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/the-methuselah-generation/.
- John ElkingtonWhen will a Pope call for birth control?
Given the reality that is the Catholic Church, it’s encouraging that Pope Benedict used yesterday’s New Year address to underline the need for environmental responsibility - and to change their lifestyles to save the planet. But I wonder whether he has ever been introduced to the single most fundamental equation in the sustainability field: I = P x A x T?
The logic here is that the environmental impact of an individual, community, corporation or economy is a function of population numbers times the prevailing levels of affluence/lifestyles times the level of technology used to sustain those lifestyles across that population. Perhaps its time for the Vatican to launch an internal environmental literacy program? Perhaps Daniel Goleman’s book Ecological Intelligence could be laid alongside all those Bibles?
In a world headed towards 9-10 billion people, if you believe the demographers, how long will it be before the Vatican finally bites the bullet and accepts the need for population control? Until it does, pious calls for lifestyle changes are unlikely to move the needle very much. How long before we are lucky enough to see a truly ‘unreasonable’ Pope in St Peter’s Square?
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/when-will-a-pope-call-for-birth-control/.
- John ElkingtonBRAC Founder Fazle Hasan Abed Honoured
Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and Chairperson of BRAC, is to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services in tackling poverty and empowering the poor in Bangladesh and more globally. Abed is the first person of Bangladesh origin to be honoured with a knighthood by the British Crown since 1947. He receives his knighthood for his work spanning four decades in education, health, human rights and social development and for bringing financial services to the doorstep of millions of the poor in an effort to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh and countries in Asia and Africa.
Abed, who was profiled in our 2008 book, The Power of Unreasonable People, published by Harvard Business Press, was born in 1936 into a landed family in Baniachong in Bangladesh’s Habiganj district. He matriculated from Pabna Zilla School and went on to complete his higher secondary education from Dhaka College. He left home to attend Glasgow University, where, and in an effort to break away from tradition and do something radically different - he studied Naval Architecture. But there was little work in ship building in Bangladesh and a career in Naval Architecture would make returning home difficult. With that in mind, Abed joined the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in London, completing his professional education in 1962.
He returned to Bangladesh to join Shell Oil Company and quickly rose to head its finance division. His time at Shell exposed Abed to the inner workings of a large conglomerate and provided him with insight into corporate management, which would become invaluable to him later in life. It was during his time at Shell that the devastating cyclone of 1970 hit the coastal regions of Bangladesh, killing 300,000 people. The cyclone had a profound effect on Abed - in the face of such devastation, the comforts and perks of a corporate executive’s life ceased to have any attraction for him.
Together with friends, Abed created HELP, an organization that provided relief and rehabilitation to the worst affected in the island of Manpura, which had lost three quarters of its population in the disaster. Soon after, Bangladesh’s own struggle for independence from Pakistan began and circumstances forced Abed to leave the country. He found refuge in England, where he set up Action Bangladesh to lobby for his country’s independence with the governments of Europe.
When the war ended in December 1971, Abed sold his flat in London and returned to the newly independent Bangladesh to find his country in ruins. In addition, the 10 million refugees who had sought shelter in India during the war had started to return home. Their relief and rehabilitation called for urgent efforts. Abed decided to use the funds he had generated from selling his flat to initiate his own. He selected the remote region of Sulla in northeastern Bangladesh to start his work. This work led him and his organisation, BRAC, to deal with the long-term task of improving the living conditions of the rural poor.
In a span of only three decades, BRAC grew to become the largest development organisation in the world in terms of the scale and diversity of its interventions. As BRAC grew, Abed ensured that it continued to target the landless poor, particularly women, a large percentage of whom live below the poverty line with little or no access to resources or conventional development efforts.
BRAC now operates in more than 69 thousand villages of Bangladesh and covers an estimated 110 million people through its development interventions that range from primary education, essential healthcare, agricultural support and human rights and legal services to microfinance and enterprise development. In 2002, BRAC went international by taking its range of development interventions to Afghanistan. Since then, BRAC has expanded to a total of eight countries across Asia and Africa, successfully adapting its unique integrated development model across varying geographic and socioeconomic contexts.
Our warmest congratulations.
The address for this blog entry is: http://www.volans.com/2010/01/brac-founder-fazle-hasan-abed-honoured/.
- John Elkington