Article 6

For this report, I created a website outlining what I want in my dream home. This doesn't have much to do with Leadership, but I really wanted to spend some time on this. It gave me an excuse to learn CSS and HTML. It was also a fun brainstorming process, and got me to think outside the box - a good exercise at this time in the semester.



Click here to go to the site

Audience Consideration

One city in Brazil show leadership in urban planning by considering the needs of its inhabitants. It seams obvious sometimes that we must consider the needs of the user for which we are creating. Teachers must consider their students in their teaching form. A writer must consider the workings of the audience's mind. Considering our audience is crucial to our success, yet it often goes unnoticed.

Curitiba has proven very successful in the planning of its city specifically for its inhabitants. The city planners of Curitiba created space in the beginning for low income housing, public schools, public transportation routes, and protected open space. They then recruited non-polluting industry. This provided inhabitants with lower traveling costs and allowed them to have a higher income. The non-polluting industries, the reduced travel, and the protected open space created a high quality of life in that area.

Everything is recycled in Curitiba. A quarry was converted into a famous amphitheater. A garbage dump was converted into an 11-acre Botanical Garden, home to over 200,000 species. An old glue plant became a Creativity Center where children make crafts to sell in tourist shops. Old buses (with a life-span of only 3.5 years) become job-training centers, where courses are less than a dollar and tough by rotating teachers offering their knowledge on over forty trades and disciplines. Other buses become clinics, classrooms, baby-sitting centers, food markets, and soup kitchens.

This innovations are said to be owed to the city's municipal departments. These departments are said to be composed of "professional problem-solvers -- rather than by the more traditional sorts of bureaucrats skilled at explaining why problems can't be solved." These people take risks, expecting that mistakes will happen. When they believe in a program, but don't have all of the funding, they go ahead with it anyway working to gain the resources along the way. They constantly seek to improve the system.

Mindset Shift
Why is it that the municipal departments of Curitiba are such good problem solvers? Why are they so willing to take risks while ours are clearly not? Does the unwillingness to change or try stem from fear? Pride? Is there a mindset shift that needs to happen here? How do we bring that about?

What can I do? - Personal Challenge:
Take conscious steps to increase the efficiency of YOUR system. If you've never waited tables, I strongly suggest that you do at some point in your life. Everything about that job is efficiency - how many orders can I take, which glasses and dishes can I grab on my way to the kitchen to turn in this ticket?

Identify one system in your daily life that is inefficient. (dishes, mail sorting, anything) and find a way to make it work better. Document time and cost before and after. Note the changes. What were your reasons for doing it inefficiently before?

Please write your results as a comment to this post.

Musical Report

My Music - Apples Falling From Your Head

For my musical report, I wrote a song and played it in the student center. You can listen to / download it here.

Lyrics:

I will not be intimidated,
No one's less afraid than me to fall.
Though my strength is underrated,
Oh my size will never make me small.

And I'd try to tell you something,
But I cannot know as well as you.
No one needs to move a mountain,
Cuz you're smart enough to just get through.

Da da da da.

Do not be intimidated,
No one said you had to know it all.
Sat inside your house and waited,
For the apples in your head to fall.

All you ever wanted lies inside your unencumbered potential.

All you've ever wanted you will meet it,
So get up get down get tall.

Da da da...

Collaboration and the Real Change Research Programme

This is the first in a series of articles that will examine world-wide leaders in the shift towards a sustainable way of life.

The claims we've made on the resources of this planet have become excessive. The resources of the planet are unable to replenish themselves in a rate equal to the demands we are making on them. A growing population is consuming fuel, water, trees, and food sources at such a devastating rate that we can no longer ignore it, hoping that it will fix itself. It will not. We have been depleting non-renewable resources for years, and are just now beginning to see the catastrophic effects the world in the form of destructive and irregular weather and projected quality of life reductions of never before experienced proportions.

The good news? We are finally realizing that something must be done. A number of successful efforts have effectively communicated the necessity for a change in our ways of life. Our generation holds the responsibility of reversing the harmful effects of our past thoughtlessness.

This is not to speak negatively on the ways of the past, but to motivate those of the future to do better, to think, to create solutions that are not easy to find.

Are we up to the challenge? Yes. We have been given communication methods that far surpass those of the past. We can find instant information and collaboration is easier than ever. We are allowed to understand that which interests us and are free to express ourselves in any way we wish. Along with this ability to instantly communicate with anyone we wish comes the understanding that we are all in this together. This age of global communication has finally brought to our attention the necessity of working together to sustain the way of life we have created for ourselves.

These articles will show examples of groups of leaders who have accepted this challenge and the tactics they have employed to accomplish their goals.

The Natural Step and Real Change

Who are they?
The Natural Step - "Since 1988, The Natural Step has worked to accelerate global sustainability by guiding companies, communities and governments onto an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable path. More than 70 people in eleven countries work with an international network of sustainability experts, scientists ,universities, and businesses to create solutions, innovative models and tools that will lead the transition to a sustainable future."

What do they do?
They are also a member of the Real Change research programme which serves to organize and propagate the collaboration of major businesses, scientists, and political officials in order to propagate change towards a sustainable future. Along with the Blekinge Insitute of Technology, Lund University, and mandators of the Swedish Energy Agency, and others, members of the Real Change programme work to "co-ordinated the development of theory, metohodology, and practice for strategic sustainable development, with scientists and policy-makers from all over the world taking part." On May 9th of 2008 members of the Real Change programme gathered to discuss goals, share past accomplishments, and kick off the programme. (1)

"A new research programme, Real Change, is now being launched. It aims to support the
world’s decision-makers in their promotion of sustainability and at ensuring that their
decision-making will rest on scientific foundations leading to – real change." (5)


Real Changes uses the resources it has gathered in its organization to create an effective methodology for sustainable measures world-wide. "The experiences of hundreds of thousands of people the world over who have practised different versions of this methodology, parallel to and integrated with its scientific thrust, make a good foundation for the further development and gearing-up which are now to take place." (1) Real Change attempts to highlight best practices that can be used by other businesses and organizations and ultimately serve as a tool in applying the same sustainability-centered methodology to all companies of the world.

"The users of this methodology are not waiting for political decisions to adjust to, they are leading developments and benefiting from the competitive advantages and cost savings which the pursuit of sustainability gives them. They are showing others the way and opening the way for political demands."

“With the scientists and policy-makers in the programme sharing the same basic competence, synergies will be created, and system solutions across disciplinary and Sectoral boundaries,” says Göran Broman, Professor at the Blekinge Institute of Technology and Real Change Programme Director.

Business members of the Organization include:

Interface
In 1996 the American Interface carpeting corporation set itself the target of full sustainability by 2020. Half the time has now passed and their CO2 emissions are already down by 82 per cent.

Ineos ChlorVinyls (formerly Hydro Polymers)
Ineos, the worlds 3rd largest chemical company recently acquired the former Hydro Polymers business which has united its suppliers and customers in a bid to make PVC sustainable. (4)

Aura Light
The Aura Light company, which produces long-life light sources, is committed to quality and, by the same token, to the environment. Unlike its competitors it thinks of fluorescents as installations, not disposables. Their light sources outlast the standard products by at least three years, and with 67 per cent fewer products needing to be manufactured, transported and installed, there are substantial environmental savings involved.

Aura Light has been working in the best interests of the environment for 25 years now. In the 80s their commitment played a vital part in building up the recycling of light sources, and 98 per cent of all fluorescents in Sweden are now being recycled.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics
Car carrier Wallenius Lines has built a model of its sustainability vision. The concept vessel E/S Orcelle, a ship with no funnels, is powered by a hybrid solution of renewables – solar cells, fuel cells, wind power and wave power. (3)

Solutions in Stages

The sustainable solutions are being introduced by stages, focusing on five different areas: reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions, reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions, plus ballast water purification using a non-chemical purification method which Wallenius has developed together with Alfa Laval and which is now commercially available, and fourthly, use of non-toxic anti-fouling paints, which have been tested on a number of vessels in the Wallenius fleet. The fifth area is concerned with reducing CO2 missions, a mission based on close collaboration between ship owners, technical designers and operators.

How was this done?
The creation of this program employs one of the key principles that will come to be necessary in our progress towards a sustainable future -- Collaboration. This organization serves to unify public officials, scientists, businesses, and any other individual or organization that may be able to contribute towards solutions in this challenge.

The members of this organization are established in their fields, but understood the necessity of collaboration in this global challenge. Many were business leaders who found that by implementing forward thinking, they have made their business processes more efficient by understanding that a good business model uses and reuses resources to ensure its own sustainability.

The Natural Step program started with the intent of linking sciences, desicion making, and implementation. The difference is that Real Change has aimed to create a concrete structure for the implementation of sustainable practices. The program has been broken down into three "layers"

1. The Core 2. The Petals 3. The Natural Step activities that go beyond the Core and Petals

Core:
The core will further develope and refine the Natural Step five level Framework in order to create hands=on tools for analysis, management, monitoring, and decision support. The idea is that these tools can be used by all existing businesses and organization to make shift towards sustainable business practices.

A number of Agencies have joined forces to fund the program.

Petals:
A number of universities are leading research programs on a number of projects. Some of these projects include:

Sustainable Product Development at BTH, Sweden
Scrutiny of "eco-efficiency", Abo University in Finland
Inovation and life cycle modeling of mircoalgae systems for sustainable energy and material

The Natural Step activites beyond Core and Petals:
On this level of "research" solutions will be tested, and problems will be sent back to the Core and Petals for further development and solutions. This creates a system that will eventually yield an efficient process to shift towards sustainable practices world-wide.

"Never before have we had such a huge
opportunity to apply our framework for a systematic trans‐disciplinary and cross-sector approach." (2)

What can I do?

Personal Level
Collaborate. Share your skills with others and ask others to share their skills with you. Learn and teach each other. Take time to research topic you are interested in and find out who has made headway in that area. Don't be afraid to contact those people yourself. People who are passionate about the same things will nearly always be willing to talk about the things they've found.

When you feel you have knowledge to offer, find ways to share it. Find people to work with. Involve yourself with an online community. Create an organization at school or within your work place or neighborhood. Do not forget that you have value to add to the conversation. Research, learn, assess, and then create solutions.

Company / Organizational Level
Learn about organizations and companies that interest you. Think about your interests and involve yourself in companies that may share your values. If you'd like to be involved in sustainable product design, first learn about the product design process, then join a company that propagates sustainable design. Ask questions at all times. Things that may seam unrelated may help you move towards your goals in the future.

After finding an organization you are interested in, find ways to become involved. Perhaps there is a way to become a member. Find out what ways you can help, how your skills can be applied, and who you need to talk to in order to apply your talents. If an organization is comprised of a number of businesses, consider becoming involved with one of those businesses if you are interested enough.

To learn more about Natural Step in a visual way, visit their online media center at http://www.naturalstep.org/com/Video/. You will find explanations of The Natural Step Framework, a video entitled "How everyone has to cooperate to make a difference" and more.

It is the responsibility of our generation to take advantage of the endless knowledge available to us and use it to create the solutions we know we're capable of creating. We have the resources to be knowledgeable, the capability to understand, and the ability to communicate, stragegize, and solve. We will not cower from this large task, but accept it as a challenge and join to stand up to it.

1. Press Release from the Natural Step. Found Here
2. About the Real Change Research Program. thenaturalstep.org, Found Here
3. About the Companies Involved. thenaturalstep.org, Found Here
4. Forum for the Future, The Sustainability of the Chemical Industry. August 2002. Found Here
5. Launch of Real Change. Found Here

Supply Chain

Now that we've established one of the largest players in the shift towards a sustainable lifestyle, industry, we must determine where the problem areas are and how to fix them.

The Supply Chain

The supply chain is the system by which goods are changed from natural resources to products bought by consumers. The supply chain is the mechanism by which a cell phone, for example, is created and sold:

1. Mining of the copper, lead, and nickel
2. Creation of plastic through the processing of crude oil and natural gas
3. Manufacturing of the circuit board, LCDs, and batteries
4. Final assembly and packaging
5. Transportation to manufacturing plants and retail stores
6. Sale to consumer

Companies strive to make their supply chains as efficient as possible. There have been many studies and models made exacting this process.

After a consumer has purchased the product, there are few options for the future use of the product.

1. Product is used for a while and discarded.
2. Product is taken to a land fill or burned in an incinerator
3. Product is recycled into lower grade materials which can be reused in some products, but not returned to its original state. For example, the natural metals in the phone such as nickel, zinc, and gold are mixed with lower grade materials during the recycling process and will never again be the same quality of metals as were originally.

Recycling is currently the best option we have, but even that does not often occur.

"Between 1999 and 2003, 2.5 million phones were collected to be recycled or reused, accounting for less than 1 percent of the millions of phones retired or discarded." (1)

Imagine the amount of money businesses stand to make from finding a way to retrieve those items from consumers and use them to create the same products. The customers pay for the assembly, convenience of sale, and use of the product, then give it back to be disassembled in to the same materials. This is one of the main ideas that compose a sustainable business strategy.

Service and Flow

In a service and flow system, consumers pay for the use of a product, then return it to the distributor. This helps businesses by allowing them to reuse outputs to create more inputs and make more money. This also helps to sustain the world's natural resources and ensure that they are available for use, because the idea is that they can always be turned back into what they once were. This poses a particular challenge for industrial designers and engineers. How do you design and create so that the entire product can be taken apart and restored to its natural elements?

Another question that must be asked is: How do we ensure that consumers will return the product to the manufacturer or distributor? Consumers must be given some sort of incentive, and the transaction must be easy to complete. Perhaps all products that are able to be disassembled into their original parts are given a particular form of identification. Free mail carriers for these items could be found at post offices and local stores, and customers could easily send them back for a discount on their next purchase or a rebate. Even by giving consumers this "discount" companies stand to gain a great amount from their effective reuse of materials. (2)

There are many possibilities for how this could work. The role of the postal service could change entirely. The postal service could be commissioned by companies to retrieve products from consumers and bring them back to manufacturers. This challenges the postal service to be present in a paperless society. Perhaps small identification chips could be installed in products that can be disassembled. These chips could then contain the purchasing information of the consumer, and when they are returned for disassembly, the buyer could be automatically credited a portion of their original cost. Security issues would have to be overcome.

Simple forms of the service and flow system already exist. There are shoes you can buy made of sustainable materials designed with disassembly in mind that come in a pre-addressed box for the user to send back to the manufacturer. Businesses are catching on to the value of this system of operation. The challenge becomes making the system work.

This brings us to another principle of sustainable business practices - simplification and micro-sites.

Simplification and Micro-sites

A book called Natural Capitalism illustrates the idea of a business model in which multiple businesses work together in a single location to produce a single product. The book uses the example of the production of glass windshields which employs a typical Economics-of-scale thought pattern in which things are created in bulk and distributed to smaller vendors. It looks like this:

1. A giant float-glass furnace produces giant sheets of glass.
2. That glass is cut into pieces a bit larger than a car windshield.
3. Glass is cooled, packed, crated and shipped 500 miles to the fabricator.
4. 47 days later it is unpacked and cut to shape, wasting 25% of the glass in the process
5. Reheated and curved to different shapes
6. Cooled, repacked, crated and shipped 430 miles to the encapsulator.
7. 41 days later it's unpacked, fitted with seals, repacked, crated and shipped 560 miles to the car factory.
8. 12 days later, it's unpacked and installed in the car.

Do you notice how many times the same things are being done in this situation? Cooled, packed, crated, shipped, unpacked, heated, cooled, repacked, etc. etc. Could there be a way to do all of these things at once?

What if, instead of outsourcing and shipping all of these products thousands of miles to different locations, they could all be done within the same area where the product was being made? What if that car company had someone to cut the glass and shape it in house?

Businesses could offer their services within the production area of a specific product. Fabricators could "lease" out their services and equipment and hold a semi-permanent residence within the production area of the product manufacturer.

Of course the immediate reaction to this is that this is the less efficient way to work. Having micro-sites doing the same thing in different locations can't possibly be more efficient, can it? But business models and natural systems have proved over and over that outsourcing services is never as effective as completing an entire system. You don't see a large tree producing hundreds of leaves, shedding them to plants who cut them up and send them off to a different plant for photosynthesis. Each plant is its own complete system.

Aside from the fact that our current system of constant transfer creates wasted energy in the form of fossil fuels and scrap waste, a complete system solves business problems as well. An efficient system in which one process is completed from start to finish will reduce the time it takes for a product to be produced. Thus, the business creating the product can have more accurate information about product demand, and can create less wasted product.

Of course there are many issues that need to be worked out, and new working systems must be created. The challenge falls on each of us to push our thought boundaries and to find innovative solutions to these issues.


1. United States Environmental Protection Agency. August 2004 www.epa.gov/osw
2. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism. pg 140
3. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism. pg 128

Industry Responsibility

Where does waste come from?

In the life-cycle of a plant, it takes energy from the sun, carbon dioxide from the air, and water from the earth. It uses these resources and energy to grow and expels oxygen. When the plant is done living, its parts decompose and are used to feed other plants. The system of a plant is clean and efficient. All that is used is converted, and nothing is wasted.

The life-cycle of humans has become vastly different. For all our ability to organize information and create, we have yet to master the system of our own living process. Hypothetically, humans should have a life-cycle similar to that of a plant. We should eat, gather energy from the sun, convert oxygen into CO2 and then we should decompose and feed other organisms. But in our boundless exploration of our own abilities, we have forgotten to keep our living systems to a responsible level. We are just now beginning to realize the effect of this broken system.

"94 percent of what American industry does is waste. Only 6 percent of what we process winds up as products."

Population has nearly tripled in the last 50 years. To satisfy demand, farmers are plowing eroding fields to try and "scrape up" what they can to survive (1). The growth in population has lead to the genetic altering of crops for a higher yield, which has led to adverse health effects including mutated virus strains to which we have no natural antibodies. (2) All of these problems stem from a cultural system where the amount of waste created is twenty times that of the material used in an actual product.

All of the ants on the entire planet have a bio-mass greater than that of humans, have been around for millions of years, and have created no waste, while since the industrial revolution, 94% of what humans create has been waste. (3)

Lying parallel to this failed and wasteful system is the unhide-able truth that the resources we're using to create all these products and waste are quickly dwindling.

What we failed to realize during the height of our product development and technological advancement was the short amount of time we'd have to use these irreplaceable resources.

Lying parallel to this failed and wasteful system is the unhide-able truth that the resources we're using to create all these products and waste are quickly dwindling. What we failed to realize during the height of our product development and technological advancement was the short amount of time we'd have to use these irreplaceable resources.

We can use the classic game Lemmings as an example. In the game you control mindless workers and move them over, under, and around traps in order to complete the level. One character in the game lays 13 bricks, and then runs out. Without proper action, the lemming puts his arms up in the air, gives up, and plunges to his death. Throughout the industrial revolution and up until this point, we have been playing the roll of a brick-laying lemming - excited to lay the bricks for all of these new, fast paced developments, but not considering (or not wanting to consider) what will happen when our bricks run out.

Time is up. The bricks are running out.

Ok so there's a problem. What do we do about it?

Personal

When the "green movement" first began, recycling was highly promoted. It was on TV commercials, flyers, public service announcements. But the current recycling system is also flawed. When plastics are recycled, they are actually downgraded to a lower quality of plastic. This plastic can then not be used to create the same type of bottle it was originally. The same thing happens with irreplaceable resources. High quality steel, for example, is used in the making of cars. When a car is disposed of, the steel covered in car paint is mashed up along with other metals and wires, creating a lower grade of steel that can never again be used for its original purpose. (This is a non-circular cycle and leads to depletion. Imagine if the human respiratory system worked in this manner. Every time a breath is taken in, the exhale produces a lower grade of CO2. Then a plant "breathes in" the lower grade of CO2 and produces a lower grade of Oxygen, no longer able to be used by humans. This non-circular system would lead to the depletion of oxygen fit for humans and would suffocate all of us. In the same way, the current system of recycling is leading to the depletion of natural resources.


In addition, relying on individuals to recycle their items leads to more work for the recycling company and does not ensure that individuals will actually do it. When given the choice, the majority will still always choose convenience and immediate reward over futuristic thinking - especially when they cannot see immediate consequences or results.

A system must be created wherein the waste associated with a product can remain the same quality and be used for the same purpose. In a book called Natural Capitalism the idea of a Service and Flow Economy is introduced in which all products are the property of the company selling them. When a user buys a pair of shoes, for example, they are actually just buying the use of the shoes. When they are finished, the must send the shoes back to the company, at which point the company will disassemble or repair them to be sold again.

Business

The main responsibility, then, relies on businesses to create a working system at the very roots of the problem - the source of all the waste - where products are made.

1. Changing the roots changes the branches

Imagine a world where consumers had no choice but to use products that created no waste. Where consumers buy their products with the knowledge that they are leasing the items. Where products are created out of resources that are easy to disassemble and return to their original quality.

Imagine a system where product design focuses on simplification, ability to be disassembled, and where the resources used in production are not harmful to users or the environment. Products would be cheaper to make because resources could be reused. The payment by consumers, then, would be for the work involved in production and for the parts of the product that they use up.

Imagine a circular system where the production of cars was systematized in such a manner that they are used for a number of years, and returned to the manufacturer. Perhaps the steal is not painted or molded to other metals in order to preserve its quality. Parts of similar metal types are kept together to ensure ability to re-use.

A circular system where there is no waste, but only resources being used and changed for different applications.

This is what businesses and technologies must strive for.

2. Good for businesses

In addition to creating no waste, this will be good for businesses. Many businesses already understand the nature of the situation. They know their resources are becoming limited and are already feeling the financial burdens that occur when you consume without concern for depletion.

By thinking ahead, understanding which resources will soon no longer be available, and by reusing those resources, businesses can ensure their own sustainability. What good is a tire factory when there is no more rubber to be found? How will a lumber yard sustain itself if there are no trees, and no where to plant more? Businesses need to recognize this inevitability and start to think about alternatives now. This will make them financially stable, and by being one of the first businesses to offer alternatives, they will serve to gain a lot of profit when other less consciences businesses go under.

What's the next step?

Knowledge groups. Sustainability teachers. System creators. Groups of people must be formed with extensive knowledge of efficient business systems, sustainable advancements, new technology and materials, and natural systems. The solution to this problem lies in the hands of Sustainability Consultants who can help businesses along the process of ensuring the sustainability of their company and of the way of life we now know.

These consultants would be constant researchers in new technology. They would bridge the gap between science and industrial implementation. They would serve as facilitators to action. They would be teachers and work with industry professionals to implement a plan of action to ensure positive results.




1. Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2003. page 6
2. William McDonough & Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle 2002.
3. Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D. Cultural Creatives 2000. page 327
4. William McDonough & Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle 2000. pages 56-57