Manufactured Landscapes

We went to see Manufactured Landscapes this afternoon - a powerful documentary about Edward Burtynksy's photography of industrial landscapes. His work in this area started off with photos of mines, landfills in the like in North America, but most of the work lately has been in China. It is a great illustration of what we all know, but often forget, and can rarely truly grasp: the scale of China's growth, which is being driven in large part by our consumerism.















The film does a great job of communicating one of the key characteristics of they system "global society within the biosphere": interdependence. The film does a nice job of showing this in a such a way that it is not obtuse.

It's often hard to think about China's development, following in our footsteps, and not get depressed. The issue is complex, as clearly this development is also benefiting hundreds of millions of people in certain ways. It is not easy to say "don't develop like we did" - especially when all of the corporations are licking their chops waiting for the Chinese market to mature to the point where they can consume like us. To help understand it all, I find the Threshold Hypothesis to be very useful. The jist of it is as follows:

“For every society there seems to be a period in which economic growth–conventionally understood and measured-brings about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point-the threshold point-beyond which, if there is more economic growth, quality of life may begin to deteriorate.” (Max-Neef, Ecological Economics, 1995).

Clearly, China's going through that first period (though on an unprecedented scale) - and it's quite clear that we are in the second stage, although we are slow in realizing that and adapting accordingly. Still, more and more people are waking up to this reality, stepping back and asking themselves why a few times, with regard to our careers, plans, dreams, life in general. To paraphrase Janine Benyus, more and more we're creating eddies along side the massive river of unsustainable growth, reflecting and looking for ways to create a steady-state, circular, sustainable global economy.

An incredible recent example of this is the Tallberg Forum going on in Sweden right now - that link will bring you to great videos of each day's events - very inspiring. On the China front, an Chinese interviewee from day 2 gives some great hope with a simple statement picking up on JFK vibe: it's time to stop asking what the world can do for China and start asking what China can do for the world. Great question for all of us, especially here in the US, as we come into my favorite holiday of the year, meant to celebrate the principles upon which this great country was based, and from which we unfortunately often drift too far. Stay going.

The film's website: http://www.mercuryfilms.ca/ML_intro.html

Edward Burtynsky's photography: http://www.edwardburtynsky.com

ACUPCC in DC

So, the reflective, thoughtful life of a grad student ends, and the flow of blog posts slows to a trickle…! But the excitement of creating a sustainable society certainly has not. I’ll likely turn to writing more on the Greenland Enterprises site once we get a better blog set-up going, but I’ll continue to post here from time to time.

Aside from staying busy with business development, networking and exploring new project ideas, most of our time has been dedicated to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. It’s been going very well, with over 312 presidents so far pledging their institutions to a path towards climate neutrality.

We had a very successful public launch of the initiative in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago at the ACUPCC Leadership Summit. It was incredibly inspiring to hear some of these presidents speak about what they’re doing on their campuses and why, what it means for the future of the US and the world, and how it will benefit their institutions and stakeholders now and in the long-run. We were also treated to some talks by rock-stars in the space, including James Hansen (NASA Goddard Space Institute), Eileen Claussen (Pew Center), John Kerry (MA), Bernie Sanders (VT), Jay Inslee (WA), and Steve Johnson (EPA Administrator).

But in my opinion the presidents stole the show – Michael Crow (Arizona State), Tim White (U of Idaho), Kathy Schatzberg (Cape Cod Community College), David Hales (College of the Atlantic), David Shi (Furman), and many others – are all doing amazing things. A quick Google search will bring up some good info on them if you’re interested – especially Crow and ASU, they are shifting the paradigm in a big way, and as a result are going to be well positioned to meet the coming demands from applicants, employers, funding bodies, etc.

I also got a chance to facilitate a dialogue session amongst the presidents about implementing the commitment, sharing a definition of leadership I heard recently, which says leadership is stepping into that which you have not yet mastered. It’s safe to say that no one has yet mastered a long-term shift to climate neutrality on a large scale, so in that sense, and in many others, making this commitment is a tremendous show of leadership by these presidents and their institutions.

Our fantastic partners at ecoAmerica wrote up a summary for their blog, if you’re interested in more details (they also have some links to the excellent press coverage the event received). And we finally got to meet the rest of the team in person, after months of emails and conference calls - a great group to work with:

All in all, it’s been an interesting to see the reactions to this initiative as we go through this amazing time when the US is waking up to the global warming challenge. The resistance to signing has for the most part come from misunderstanding what the Commitment actually entails, or getting hung up on details (for example, it includes picking 2 short term actions from a list of 7, and people will take issue with one of the options on the list). Also, as with anything new, some believe it cannot be done, but I think they’ll sign on as they see the successes of the others. Another piece that’s often overlooked is the power of collective action – some schools figure they’ll be better off going it alone – but they’re missing a tremendous opportunity to send a powerful message to the rest of society about the need to collaborate for this common cause (they’ll also miss out on some great technical support, the development of a common framework and standards, and opportunities to learn from each other along the way).

Finally, and most importantly, a common reason for resistance is not seeing the larger picture, which is that ACUPCC is not just about reducing GHG emissions from campus operations, but much more about (1) educating our next generation of leaders so they’re prepared to solve this problem, by being able to deal with the complexity and communicate with each other across disciplines and (2) promoting research to develop the solutions we will need – both the physical and social technologies we are lacking. As ASU’s Crow said at the Summit, “The higher ed. community may only have about 3% of the carbon footprint, but we have 100% of the educational footprint.” As I’ve discussed before on this blog, creating a sustainable society will require not a magical new technology or set of laws, or by improving efficiencies or making incremental improvements, but with a change in our thinking, an evolution of consciousness. As Marcel Proust said, “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Stay going.

5 things for global warming

Check out this recent piece by NASA Climate scientist James Hansen - it touches on (once again) the gap between what the scientists know, and what the public and policy-makers understand.

This gap lies at the heart of why we need to move away from reductionism, where we study and address everything in isolation in separate disciplines /departments /silos / sectors / drill holes, to a whole-system approach where policy makers and scientists, engineers and biologists, economists and consumers, businessmen and school teachers, can understand eachother because they have a shared, relevant view of the whole-system. This is the first step in taking a strategic appraoch to sustainability.

But I digress, Hansen's article offers 5 things we need to do, now, to address global warming. I think there are more inspiring ways we could go about addressing the challenge - and people are starting to do that, finding synergistic solutions through sustainable urban planning, green building, sustainable product design, permaculture, and the like - but these would certainly help, and are straight forward, necessary actions, regardless if they come about through transformational change of global society or through regulation:

1) Put a moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants until we have the technology to capture and sequester the CO2
2) Put a price on emissions
3) Establish and enforce energy-efficiency standards (buildings & vehicles)
4) Study and report on ice-sheet stability (not sure how knowing more about the symptom helps us cure the root cause, but it's certainly important research, especially as we are forced to focus on adaptation as well as mitigation)
5) Reform of communication practices (so we can avoid the disasters of reductionism)

The full piece is brief, and available here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/hansen

Stay going.

Changing Fortune

Picked up the Fortune 'green issue' on the way to Atlanta last week for the SoL Sustainability Forum (more on that soon), and I highly recommend it. There is some good stuff in there & it represents another big (though still very preliminary) milestone for the movement toward sustainability - last year Vanity Fair this year Fortune....

The issue covers 10 companies and their sustainability initiatives, leaving out the already heavily covered GE and WMT stories they look at Honda, Continental, HP, Tesco, Suncor, Alcan, PG&E, S.C. Johnson, Goldman, & Swiss Re - for the most part usual suspects for people following the scene (with the exception of Continental, I didn't realize how much they've been doing) - but still a great rundown for the mainstream business types. Also focus pieces on the good, bad, & ugly at DuPont, the inspiring passion at Patagonia, and the muscle of the Governator.

Check out the stories here: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/goinggreen/2007/index.html

But one of the most intriguing pieces in the issue is not in the 'green section'. It is a one-pager called "Opening the Capitalist Mind" and it lays out a scenario for shifting the $500 billion per year health care burden from corporate America to government It would be financed with a carbon tax - thus relieving business of big burden without taxing them directly for it (all carbon consumers would share the burden), without increasing the deficit, and all the while sending a huge signal for a carbon-free economy and helping Americans realize the dream of universal healthcare. It has the potential to make both Republicans and Dems happy and apparently has the support of some of those conservative think-tank analysts. I think it has the potential to be another small but powerful example of how pursuing sustainability can bring disparate forces together for our common good and that of the biological systems upon which we all depend. Stay going…

SoL Foundations for Leadership

Last week I attended the Society for Organizational Learning’s (SoL) Foundations for Leadership course. It was three days long, run by Peter Senge and Robert Hanig, and incredibly effective at promoting a lot of deep learning in a very short time.

The concepts of organizational learning are a core aspect of the MSLS program, and we worked with them a lot last year – they were essentially the backdrop for everything we did. Still, it was really helpful to spend three intensive days delving deep in the concepts with a new group of people and facilitated by the folks that developed and articulated the ideas.

What organizational learning is, exactly, can be difficult to put into words. Essentially it describes an ongoing process of profound change within an organization (business, school, NGO, government agency, etc.) Senge’s The Fifth Discipline is a central book in the field, exploring five disciplines of a learning organization: team learning, mental models, personal mastery, building shared vision, and systems thinking. These are interrelated concepts, each with a lot behind it. Most are to some extent self explanatory – mental models refer to the “deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and take action.” Systems thinking I’ve talked a lot before – it is “the fifth discipline” and also the basis of the framework for strategic sustainable development (SSD).

One of the basic tools in the field of systems thinking and systems dynamics are causal loop diagrams (CLDs). The field also identifies some common patterns, or archetypes, that often play out in various ways in different systems. These archetypes are quite intuitive, as they are common patterns we have experience with, and the CLDs help clarify these patterns, bring them before us so we can get a better sense of what’s happening.

Here are two basic archetypes – Shifting the Burden and Limits to Success – as well as an example of each:

Another central theme in the field of organizational learning, which is also an integral part of the framework for SSD, is the concept of building a shared vision amongst a group of people, giving an honest analysis of the current reality. The gap between the vision and the current reality results in a creative tension. This is the basis of backcasting and enabling a strategic approach to sustainable development.

In the 5^th Discipline, Senge points out that MLK Jr. once said: “Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind, so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths…so must we... create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism.” The same is true for creating a sustainable society, and navigating the enormous transformational change that is accompanying that creative effort.

The book and the program explore the two basic motivators for sparking change: aspiration and desperation. The latter is responsible for the phrase “no change without crisis” and in the context of sustainability it is a motivator we see a lot, when organizations hit the funnel walls. When Wal-Mart feels the pain of consumer boycotts, or when Greenpeace campaigns against PVCs, dumps old washing machines on Electrolux’s parking lot, companies are motivated to make some changes towards sustainability.

However, when the conditions that created the desperation are no longer there, when enough has been done to relieve the outside pressure, the change toward sustainability often subsides. This can lead to frustration within the organization and from outside groups, as well as to many books and papers on why sustainability efforts fizzle out.

When organizations are motivated by an aspiration, on the other hand, when they are pulled towards a compelling vision of a successful, healthy, sustainable future, they often have a better chance of sustaining their efforts, and making more dramatic progress towards eliminating their contributions to unsustainability. It’s usually only through a real aspiration to move towards sustainability can a company reap all of the benefits like greater employee attraction and retention, increased productivity, meaningful innovation, dramatic cost savings, etc.

Bob Willard’s concept of 5-stages of corporate development with regard to sustainability highlight this concept:

Put into the context of the funnel, this idea shows how as companies move up through the stages they can reduce risks associated with unsustainable behavior:

We’re getting excited to head down to Atlanta for the SoL Sustainability Forum, where we’ll keep the learning going as we meet with those pioneering the shift to a new way of doing business and using organizational learning concepts to move towards sustainability. Stay going.

American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment

Greenland has been busy gearing up and helping out with the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment (PCC). This is an exciting initiative galvanizing college & university presidents in the US and Canada to commit their institutions to the goal of climate neutrality. We hope to have 200 institutions sign the commitment by June 2007, and at least 1,000 by 2009.

Working closely with Second Nature, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and ecoAmerica, Greenland is facilitating the process of making the commitment for Presidents and others at their institutions.

To date 54 institutions have made the commitment and 34 have agreed to join the Leadership Circle. Members of the Leadership Circle will assist in recruiting more signatories, and will send out an invitation to over 4,000 institutions.

Higher Education is a key leverage point in the move towards a sustainable society for many reasons. First, they are large institutions, and as such, like most organizations today, emit a lot of greenhouse gases, both directly and indirectly. Also, in the US it is $320 billion per year industry, which means it is a potentially market-moving force. When these institutions make the commitment, and put their purchasing power towards more sustainable alternatives, this will bring down the costs of these technologies for everyone.

More importantly, research institutions use this commitment to leverage new innovations, create new solutions, and put into practice many of the theoretical ideas that are already being explored.

But it is on the educational side that I think this initiative has the most potential. The problems around greenhouse gas emissions, and unsustainability more generally require transdiciplinary learning create solutions and move towards a sustainable society. By infusing these ideas into the curriculum at higher education institutions, where our best and brightest can dig into them, we give ourselves hope that the next generation of societal leaders will be able to carry on and improve upon the good work that has been done to date in the effort to create a sustainable society.

The framework for strategic sustainable development is designed to facilitate transdisciplinary learning and co-creation of solutions across sectors, industries and specializations. Hopefully, the PCC is another early step in the process of breaking through the thick walls of disciplinary compartmentalization, so we have a better chance of understanding one another and the root causes of unsustainability in an increasingly complex world.

Check out more about the Presidents Climate Commitment here: www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org.

For more info on sustainability in education (mostly higher education), check out the expanded list of links and resources to the right under “Sustainabiilty Education”. Stay going.

Nothing new here, but a good run through of the before & after images of glaciers, coast lines, etc... set to a great tune: