I love blogspot! It has served me well for many years.
Now it's time for me to integrate my two blogs into my new website. All my old posts from this blog and my training blog have been moved over.
Please visit me there - http://www.clarefeeney.com/blog/.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Sustainable enterprise and social enterprise - complementary approaches to the triple bottom line
I've been thinking lately about sustainable enterprises and realised I was getting muddled with "social" enterprises. What's the difference?
Going to that font of all knowledge, the Internet, I found a definition of "sustainable enterprise" from the Financial Times Lexicon that said, "Sustainable business or sustainable enterprise are terms that are now being used by firms who are integrating sustainable business practices into their corporate and brand strategies whilst seeking to address both shareholder and stakeholder interests." After noting that "Sustainability is rapidly emerging as a critical element of business strategy, driven by a convergence of factors — increasing regulation, changing customer expectations, competitor and technology advances, value chain partner requirements, brand equity protection, and global risk management", Deloitte said that "The ‘Wholly Sustainable Enterprise’ (WSE) is defined as a company that generates continuously increasing value through application of sustainable practices in the entire base of activity — products and services, workforce, workplace, functions/processes, and management/governance."
For "social enterprises", I found that while there is no accepted international definition, the European Commission noted that "their key distinguishing characteristics are the social and societal purpose combined with an entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector." They may take the form of a business, non-profit, co-operative or charity in order to become what Wikipedia defined as "an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximizing profits for external shareholders."
It seems to me from these and the many other definitions I found, that "sustainable enterprise" refers to companies that are improving their environmental and social performance, while "social enterprises" are set up from the start with environmental and social outcomes in mind, which their activities are dedicated to achieving.
That is, sustainable enterprise reflects the changes - even radical transformations - that existing organisations want and need to make in order to meet internal and external expectations around people and the environment, while social enterprises are new organisations that are set up on that basis.
That's why I like the European Commission's definition - it highlights the creative, entrepreneurial attributes of the founders of new social enterprises. And many of them are set up by young people whose creative flair and business acumen allow them to think up the most wonderful - and often profitable - ideas.
That said, within a period of about six months, a friend of mine in her early 60s spawned about four viable ideas for social enterprises, all totally different and all meeting a real social and environmental need that no-one else seemed to be doing anything about. Clearly a field for the innovative thinkers of all generations!
I'm sure that in the real world, these terms (and others) are used interchangeably - and rather than sustainable or social enterprises being better than the other, we need both processes to gain more and more traction, with existing organisations adapting to the social and environmental needs of their communities of interest, and creation of new ones that challenge our ideas of what business is and what it's for.
We could look at it as being approaches from along a spectrum meeting in the middle, where all organisations become sustainable social enterprises. We can also look at it as perhaps the two movements, both new and existing organisations, making their way up the same peak by scaling different flanks.
It's the ascent of Mount Sustainability.
Here are the links to the sources listed above:
Deloitte on The ‘Wholly Sustainable Enterprise’
The Financial Times Lexicon definition of "sustainable enterprise"
The European Commission's definition of "social enterprise"
Wikipedia's definition of "social enterprise"
Interface's description of its sustainability journey and the ascent of Mount Sustainability
Going to that font of all knowledge, the Internet, I found a definition of "sustainable enterprise" from the Financial Times Lexicon that said, "Sustainable business or sustainable enterprise are terms that are now being used by firms who are integrating sustainable business practices into their corporate and brand strategies whilst seeking to address both shareholder and stakeholder interests." After noting that "Sustainability is rapidly emerging as a critical element of business strategy, driven by a convergence of factors — increasing regulation, changing customer expectations, competitor and technology advances, value chain partner requirements, brand equity protection, and global risk management", Deloitte said that "The ‘Wholly Sustainable Enterprise’ (WSE) is defined as a company that generates continuously increasing value through application of sustainable practices in the entire base of activity — products and services, workforce, workplace, functions/processes, and management/governance."
For "social enterprises", I found that while there is no accepted international definition, the European Commission noted that "their key distinguishing characteristics are the social and societal purpose combined with an entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector." They may take the form of a business, non-profit, co-operative or charity in order to become what Wikipedia defined as "an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximizing profits for external shareholders."
It seems to me from these and the many other definitions I found, that "sustainable enterprise" refers to companies that are improving their environmental and social performance, while "social enterprises" are set up from the start with environmental and social outcomes in mind, which their activities are dedicated to achieving.
That is, sustainable enterprise reflects the changes - even radical transformations - that existing organisations want and need to make in order to meet internal and external expectations around people and the environment, while social enterprises are new organisations that are set up on that basis.
That's why I like the European Commission's definition - it highlights the creative, entrepreneurial attributes of the founders of new social enterprises. And many of them are set up by young people whose creative flair and business acumen allow them to think up the most wonderful - and often profitable - ideas.
That said, within a period of about six months, a friend of mine in her early 60s spawned about four viable ideas for social enterprises, all totally different and all meeting a real social and environmental need that no-one else seemed to be doing anything about. Clearly a field for the innovative thinkers of all generations!
I'm sure that in the real world, these terms (and others) are used interchangeably - and rather than sustainable or social enterprises being better than the other, we need both processes to gain more and more traction, with existing organisations adapting to the social and environmental needs of their communities of interest, and creation of new ones that challenge our ideas of what business is and what it's for.
We could look at it as being approaches from along a spectrum meeting in the middle, where all organisations become sustainable social enterprises. We can also look at it as perhaps the two movements, both new and existing organisations, making their way up the same peak by scaling different flanks.
It's the ascent of Mount Sustainability.
Here are the links to the sources listed above:
Deloitte on The ‘Wholly Sustainable Enterprise’
The Financial Times Lexicon definition of "sustainable enterprise"
The European Commission's definition of "social enterprise"
Wikipedia's definition of "social enterprise"
Interface's description of its sustainability journey and the ascent of Mount Sustainability
Monday, June 2, 2014
Clearing mangroves: don't blame the tree - look to the land uses
They're calling it the Mangrove Chainsaw Massacre. Over-enthusiastic locals inadvertently clearing mangroves beyond the permitted area was one of today's hit stories on the national news. Local environmental interests were shocked, the regulatory body was embarrassed and the locals were delighted.
Mangroves - you either love 'm or hate 'em, it seems. But despite their polarising effect, the poor old mangroves are the innocent victim. Weak competitors on land and unable to withstand deep sea water, they can only grow where the sea floor and tidal levels are in their Goldilocks zone - the narrow band around estuarine margins where the water is not too shallow and not too deep.
It's human land uses that maintain the higher-than-natural rate of sediment inflow that extends their Goldilocks zone by building up the beds of our estuaries. It's our love of causeways like those that cut across so many of Auckland and Northland's estuaries that provides calm backwaters for the sediment to settle into.
While there are growing community initiatives to remove mangroves, these people who have every right to want their sandy shores back again are playing King Canute with the tide of sediment flowing into our estuaries and our habit of putting roads where they will cut them off from fully interacting with their open harbour waters.
Farmers, urban developers, utilities and transport operators all need to play their part in making sure that mangroves grow their fish in areas where they would naturally be found - and reducing the sediment problems that encourage them to extend their range.
Below is a very old tongue-in-cheek essay of mine on "How to grow a mangrove forest". Still topical, it seems!
Here is the radio interview and there are more of my short articles like this one here.
How to grow a mangrove forest: A recipe for losing beaches and filling in estuaries
Ingredients
Take:
• 1 sheltered coastal water body in any tropical to temperate zone
• a rolling to steepish surrounding catchment (1 metric catchment = 1 imperial watershed)
Add:
• a large quantity of forest clearance
• quite a bit of farming
• a few areas of forest, ideally on the steepest land
• a concentrated area of urban development
• several major roads and causeways
Method:
Start by removing the original forest – this gives you a good start by releasing a pulse of sediment into your estuary or embayment before you add your farmers.
Add your farmers. For best results, use cropland farmers – this will give you a steady supply of sediment from the land into the water (this is where you want your mangroves) that can equate to around 200 times the rate from the original forest. Grassland is fine if you can’t get crops, but in many places, will only yield about 10 times more sediment than the forest.
Once the farmers are settled in, sprinkle your forestry up in the steeper areas to maximise runoff. While the sediment yield is only intermittent, it’s not bad at around 500 times more sediment than we started with, so this will make a good contribution to your mangroves.
Now, add your urban development. Each new subdivision will only expose the soil for a short time, but you can have two bites of this cherry: firstly, make sure the major construction works expose as much soil to rain as possible and don’t add too much in the way of erosion and sediment controls. This should yield quite a decent dose of sediment to your waterway that could get up to around 2,000 times the rate from the original forest (which of course we have already carefully removed). While this will tail off as the area is grassed down and the individual lots go on sale, you will get another quite good dose of sediment once the builders come in and open up each site for house foundations, driveways and services.
Over this time, gradually put in your highways all the way around your waterway, and make sure to put causeways across your estuarine inlets – they are just great for keeping in all that lovely sediment we’ve just added.
Let stand for some time. You will see results within two or three years as mangrove seedlings start springing up on the areas where your fine sediments have settled out on the intertidal flats. However, the best results are obtained over a hundred or more years, by which time you could have a mangrove forest that has crept over your sandy beaches and extended well out into your harbour and over the shellfish beds further out.
Extra for experts:
This recipe is simple enough for all to use. Advanced chefs – follow the tips below for more!
Farmers
Farm tracks are a great sediment source. Widen them periodically and don’t put too much aggregate on them: runoff will pick up more sediment if they are bare. Races are pretty good sources, too – and if you keep long grass well away from the downhill side, especially at the lowest point, sediment will be able to get straight into the stream where it can head off down to the harbour very quickly.
Croppers –regularly cultivate your soil to a great depth – this will dry it out and break up larger clods, making it easier for runoff to mobilise soil particles and get them down to the harbour for your mangroves. And wherever you can, run your machinery downslope so runoff can speed up.
Pastoral farmers – the simplest way to get good sediment runoff is to get your stock into your waterways – on no account should you fence them off or plant the stream banks. A good bit of overgrazing will also help, especially when grass growth is poor over winter or in dry weather.
Foresters
While you may only fell every 20-30 years, you can still make a great contribution if you use minimal erosion and sediment controls on your roads, haul routes, skidders and platforms, especially if you don’t use cables on your steep land, fell right to stream edges and put your machinery through them.
Urban developers
As indicated in the main recipe, you have two chances to maximise sediment runoff from your developments. However further variations are possible by sticking to the good old-fashioned methods of land development with major land recontouring and cut to fill. Try to avoid the new trend for water sensitive urban design and low impact development – it just doesn’t give the yield we want.
Roading engineers
Opt for long causeways around your harbour wherever you can: they are not only cheaper than bridges, they will restrict the tidal flow much more, creating sheltered areas where sediment runoff from the whole catchment can more easily settle. Take a look at an air photo to see the difference they can make. Rural roads in particular are also great sources of sediment when you don’t re-gravel them too often. Avoid armouring or putting check dams in your roadside drains, so that the water can build up speed: this helps it erode out more soil and transport it more rapidly into the harbour.
Seriously, though –
Estuaries are vital coastal ecosystems that support significant inshore and offshore commercial, customary and recreational fisheries. In the temperate to tropical waters where they are found, mangroves play an invaluable role, providing shelter in a nutrient-rich environment for many species of fish, including residents that spend all their life there, mobile fish that come and go between ocean and estuary, transitory fish that enter estuaries for short periods of feeding or breeding, and migratory fish passing out to sea from streams or up to streams from the sea.
But this is little consolation to people who live on or use estuaries and who over time have seen the loss of sandy or shelly beaches and offshore shellfish banks as fine sediment smothers them, enabling the mangroves to establish. It is even less consolation to know that the spread of mangroves is our own fault, the result of poor land use practices arising from past ignorance and the drive for development.
Environmental regulators are becoming more receptive to community desires to halt mangrove spread or remove them to restore swimming beaches – but locals, picking up isolated brand-new seedlings is very different from picking up a chainsaw: do get the approvals you need before doing anything major.
Call to action for communities and catchment managers
There is no point removing mangrove seedlings or trees unless we also cut off the artificially elevated supply of sediment that allows them to establish. The work starts from the ridge tops down, and it is the role of every land user to keep soil on the land where it belongs. Every catchment management plan needs to set up or beef up soil conservation and erosion control programmes in the watershed to progressively reduce the loads of sediment to the harbours, to support the community’s removal efforts.
Find out more: go to the Auckland Council website at http://bit.ly/1pAMPUo to find Technical Publication325, ‘The New Zealand mangrove: review of the current state of knowledge’.
Mangroves - you either love 'm or hate 'em, it seems. But despite their polarising effect, the poor old mangroves are the innocent victim. Weak competitors on land and unable to withstand deep sea water, they can only grow where the sea floor and tidal levels are in their Goldilocks zone - the narrow band around estuarine margins where the water is not too shallow and not too deep.
It's human land uses that maintain the higher-than-natural rate of sediment inflow that extends their Goldilocks zone by building up the beds of our estuaries. It's our love of causeways like those that cut across so many of Auckland and Northland's estuaries that provides calm backwaters for the sediment to settle into.
While there are growing community initiatives to remove mangroves, these people who have every right to want their sandy shores back again are playing King Canute with the tide of sediment flowing into our estuaries and our habit of putting roads where they will cut them off from fully interacting with their open harbour waters.
Farmers, urban developers, utilities and transport operators all need to play their part in making sure that mangroves grow their fish in areas where they would naturally be found - and reducing the sediment problems that encourage them to extend their range.
Below is a very old tongue-in-cheek essay of mine on "How to grow a mangrove forest". Still topical, it seems!
Here is the radio interview and there are more of my short articles like this one here.
How to grow a mangrove forest: A recipe for losing beaches and filling in estuaries
Ingredients
Take:
• 1 sheltered coastal water body in any tropical to temperate zone
• a rolling to steepish surrounding catchment (1 metric catchment = 1 imperial watershed)
Add:
• a large quantity of forest clearance
• quite a bit of farming
• a few areas of forest, ideally on the steepest land
• a concentrated area of urban development
• several major roads and causeways
Method:
Start by removing the original forest – this gives you a good start by releasing a pulse of sediment into your estuary or embayment before you add your farmers.
Add your farmers. For best results, use cropland farmers – this will give you a steady supply of sediment from the land into the water (this is where you want your mangroves) that can equate to around 200 times the rate from the original forest. Grassland is fine if you can’t get crops, but in many places, will only yield about 10 times more sediment than the forest.
Once the farmers are settled in, sprinkle your forestry up in the steeper areas to maximise runoff. While the sediment yield is only intermittent, it’s not bad at around 500 times more sediment than we started with, so this will make a good contribution to your mangroves.
Now, add your urban development. Each new subdivision will only expose the soil for a short time, but you can have two bites of this cherry: firstly, make sure the major construction works expose as much soil to rain as possible and don’t add too much in the way of erosion and sediment controls. This should yield quite a decent dose of sediment to your waterway that could get up to around 2,000 times the rate from the original forest (which of course we have already carefully removed). While this will tail off as the area is grassed down and the individual lots go on sale, you will get another quite good dose of sediment once the builders come in and open up each site for house foundations, driveways and services.
Over this time, gradually put in your highways all the way around your waterway, and make sure to put causeways across your estuarine inlets – they are just great for keeping in all that lovely sediment we’ve just added.
Let stand for some time. You will see results within two or three years as mangrove seedlings start springing up on the areas where your fine sediments have settled out on the intertidal flats. However, the best results are obtained over a hundred or more years, by which time you could have a mangrove forest that has crept over your sandy beaches and extended well out into your harbour and over the shellfish beds further out.
Extra for experts:
This recipe is simple enough for all to use. Advanced chefs – follow the tips below for more!
Farmers
Farm tracks are a great sediment source. Widen them periodically and don’t put too much aggregate on them: runoff will pick up more sediment if they are bare. Races are pretty good sources, too – and if you keep long grass well away from the downhill side, especially at the lowest point, sediment will be able to get straight into the stream where it can head off down to the harbour very quickly.
Croppers –regularly cultivate your soil to a great depth – this will dry it out and break up larger clods, making it easier for runoff to mobilise soil particles and get them down to the harbour for your mangroves. And wherever you can, run your machinery downslope so runoff can speed up.
Pastoral farmers – the simplest way to get good sediment runoff is to get your stock into your waterways – on no account should you fence them off or plant the stream banks. A good bit of overgrazing will also help, especially when grass growth is poor over winter or in dry weather.
Foresters
While you may only fell every 20-30 years, you can still make a great contribution if you use minimal erosion and sediment controls on your roads, haul routes, skidders and platforms, especially if you don’t use cables on your steep land, fell right to stream edges and put your machinery through them.
Urban developers
As indicated in the main recipe, you have two chances to maximise sediment runoff from your developments. However further variations are possible by sticking to the good old-fashioned methods of land development with major land recontouring and cut to fill. Try to avoid the new trend for water sensitive urban design and low impact development – it just doesn’t give the yield we want.
Roading engineers
Opt for long causeways around your harbour wherever you can: they are not only cheaper than bridges, they will restrict the tidal flow much more, creating sheltered areas where sediment runoff from the whole catchment can more easily settle. Take a look at an air photo to see the difference they can make. Rural roads in particular are also great sources of sediment when you don’t re-gravel them too often. Avoid armouring or putting check dams in your roadside drains, so that the water can build up speed: this helps it erode out more soil and transport it more rapidly into the harbour.
Seriously, though –
Estuaries are vital coastal ecosystems that support significant inshore and offshore commercial, customary and recreational fisheries. In the temperate to tropical waters where they are found, mangroves play an invaluable role, providing shelter in a nutrient-rich environment for many species of fish, including residents that spend all their life there, mobile fish that come and go between ocean and estuary, transitory fish that enter estuaries for short periods of feeding or breeding, and migratory fish passing out to sea from streams or up to streams from the sea.
But this is little consolation to people who live on or use estuaries and who over time have seen the loss of sandy or shelly beaches and offshore shellfish banks as fine sediment smothers them, enabling the mangroves to establish. It is even less consolation to know that the spread of mangroves is our own fault, the result of poor land use practices arising from past ignorance and the drive for development.
Environmental regulators are becoming more receptive to community desires to halt mangrove spread or remove them to restore swimming beaches – but locals, picking up isolated brand-new seedlings is very different from picking up a chainsaw: do get the approvals you need before doing anything major.
Call to action for communities and catchment managers
There is no point removing mangrove seedlings or trees unless we also cut off the artificially elevated supply of sediment that allows them to establish. The work starts from the ridge tops down, and it is the role of every land user to keep soil on the land where it belongs. Every catchment management plan needs to set up or beef up soil conservation and erosion control programmes in the watershed to progressively reduce the loads of sediment to the harbours, to support the community’s removal efforts.
Find out more: go to the Auckland Council website at http://bit.ly/1pAMPUo to find Technical Publication325, ‘The New Zealand mangrove: review of the current state of knowledge’.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Reflecting on levels of change
Recently I've been reading a series of threads about climate change in which people are asking questions about what it would take for their international organisation to develop a shared understanding of the significance of climate change and a collective sense of appropriate actions to take.
It's been fascinating.
At present I'm just ruminating about the many different levels on which action can take place - and where it is and where it isn't taking place. It seems to me at this stage of my ruminations that actions can be individual and collective, and also at different scales.
At the individual scale, the scale of ordinary people, plenty of committed individuals are already taking action, whether it's on one front like cycling in preference to using a private car, or on many fronts, such as also growing their own vegetables, being as energy and water efficient as they can, reducing their purchase of new items and minimising the amount of solid waste they create. These actions do make a difference and better still, they also encourage others to do the same - not least in the sense of overcoming the all-too-human tendency to apathy, cynicism and despair in the face of an issue that just seems too big. In many places we see groups of such individuals coming together in collective action like creating farmers markets and setting up Transition Towns. These also can make a substantial difference in reduced carbon emissions.
At the institutional scale, again we see that growing numbers of institutions both public and private, are doing everything they can to reduce their own carbon footprint and be as socially, ecologically and financially responsible as they possibly can. They might also take some form of collective action by joining a responsible business association, working along their own supply chain or working with other institutions in their local geographical community.
At the sector scale, we can see examples of collective action by institutions working together with others in their sector, for example, green offices, green retail, green paper manufacturing, green shipping and the rest - each sector working with others to address the issues and opportunities they all face. This magnifies the results of their members' individual efforts.
Still larger groups of institutions form at the global scale, with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and many, many more.
One major sector that seems to be missing in action at both the individual and collective scale is government. Some individual governments are looking at using indicators of sustainable development and happiness indices - but for the vast majority, it's GDP and growth-focused business as usual. And of course we repeatedly witness failures of governance at the international scale when it comes to climate change treaty efforts.
This is immensely frustrating when it's clear that governments can make a difference: when they raise the bar for environmental compliance, the result is innovation. As Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde said in a 1995 Harvard Business Review article, "How an industry responds to environmental problems may be a leading indicator in its overall competitiveness ... Only those companies that innovate successfully will win. A truly competitive industry is more likely to take up a new standard as a challenge and respond to it with innovation."
Perhaps after all Paul Hawken was right when he famously said, in his 1992 book, The Ecology of Commerce, "Business is the only mechanism powerful enough to reverse global environmental and social degradation."
Individuals and institutions are doing it. When will our governments catch up, and bring the groundswell of unwilling players up to the peak of the wave that the best of us are surfing?
It's been fascinating.
At present I'm just ruminating about the many different levels on which action can take place - and where it is and where it isn't taking place. It seems to me at this stage of my ruminations that actions can be individual and collective, and also at different scales.
At the individual scale, the scale of ordinary people, plenty of committed individuals are already taking action, whether it's on one front like cycling in preference to using a private car, or on many fronts, such as also growing their own vegetables, being as energy and water efficient as they can, reducing their purchase of new items and minimising the amount of solid waste they create. These actions do make a difference and better still, they also encourage others to do the same - not least in the sense of overcoming the all-too-human tendency to apathy, cynicism and despair in the face of an issue that just seems too big. In many places we see groups of such individuals coming together in collective action like creating farmers markets and setting up Transition Towns. These also can make a substantial difference in reduced carbon emissions.
At the institutional scale, again we see that growing numbers of institutions both public and private, are doing everything they can to reduce their own carbon footprint and be as socially, ecologically and financially responsible as they possibly can. They might also take some form of collective action by joining a responsible business association, working along their own supply chain or working with other institutions in their local geographical community.
At the sector scale, we can see examples of collective action by institutions working together with others in their sector, for example, green offices, green retail, green paper manufacturing, green shipping and the rest - each sector working with others to address the issues and opportunities they all face. This magnifies the results of their members' individual efforts.
Still larger groups of institutions form at the global scale, with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and many, many more.
One major sector that seems to be missing in action at both the individual and collective scale is government. Some individual governments are looking at using indicators of sustainable development and happiness indices - but for the vast majority, it's GDP and growth-focused business as usual. And of course we repeatedly witness failures of governance at the international scale when it comes to climate change treaty efforts.
This is immensely frustrating when it's clear that governments can make a difference: when they raise the bar for environmental compliance, the result is innovation. As Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde said in a 1995 Harvard Business Review article, "How an industry responds to environmental problems may be a leading indicator in its overall competitiveness ... Only those companies that innovate successfully will win. A truly competitive industry is more likely to take up a new standard as a challenge and respond to it with innovation."
Perhaps after all Paul Hawken was right when he famously said, in his 1992 book, The Ecology of Commerce, "Business is the only mechanism powerful enough to reverse global environmental and social degradation."
Individuals and institutions are doing it. When will our governments catch up, and bring the groundswell of unwilling players up to the peak of the wave that the best of us are surfing?
Monday, June 17, 2013
Honour well-deserved for Nganeko Minhinnick, environmental champion
Māori, New Zealand's indigenous people, are often both the first and last to stand for environmental values in this country. Let me share one of my earliest experiences of the immense value for everyone in this country of Māori environmental kaitiakitanga (guardianship or stewardship).
Every June on the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, the New Zealand government recognises citizens whose work has made a difference in some positive way to the community. This year, Ngāneko Minhinnick of Waiuku was appointed to be a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori and conservation.
It's an honour that is richly deserved. I first encountered Dame Nganeko back in the 1980s when I was a very junior water resources scientist with the then Auckland Regional Water Board, now part of the new Auckland Council.
In 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act set up the Waitangi Tribunal as a commission of inquiry to provide formal legal and political opportunities for Māori to seek redress for breaches by the Crown of the guarantees set out in the Treaty of Waitangi.
On behalf of all the hapu of Waikato–Tainui, Nganeko Minhinnick brought what became known as the Manukau claim, concerning the Manukau Harbour and its environs. The claim, Wai-8, alleged that, by failing to protect the Waikato–Tainui hapu in the use, ownership, and enjoyment of their lands and fisheries, the Crown had not met its Treaty responsibilities. And, further, that Crown policies in regard to discharges and water rights had caused ‘a serious and continuing deterioration in the quality and quantity of seafoods available to the Waikato–Tainui hapu’. The claim sought recommendations that the bed of the Manukau Harbour and the control of its waters be revested in the hapu; that a moratorium be imposed with respect to the granting of water rights affecting the harbour until such time as the ancestral and Treaty rights of the hapu had been investigated and protected; and that the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 be repealed and replaced by legislation that acknowledged, protected, and enhanced the rights of Maori people with respect to water and soil conservation matters.
The decision was released in July 1985, and among its findings were recommendations that that legislation of the time be amended forthwith to enable Regional Water Boards to take into account Maori spiritual and cultural values when considering water rights applications, to provide specific reference to Maori fishing areas and the values pertaining thereto in the laws affecting water rights, to provide for the review and reformulation of existing water right discharges that have not been approved by Regional Water Boards to bring them into line with current standards and to require that Maritime Planning Schemes and Regional and District Planning Schemes have regard to the relationship of the Maori people, their values, culture and traditions to any land, waters or resources. These and many other recommendations vindicated the claim.
Another recommendation was to the Ministers for the Environment and Works and Development, that following the release of the Manukau Harbour Maritime Planning Scheme, the Commissioner for the Environment be asked to advise on the formulation of a Manukau Harbour Action Plan with definite commitments to take positive measures for the restoration of the harbour having regard to the Tribunal's finding that the deterioration of the harbour seriously prejudiced the enjoyment of fisheries protected by the Treaty of Waitangi, and that positive action was needed more than policies of containment to remove that prejudice.
The Auckland Regional Water Board didn't wait for the completion of that Planning Scheme - it set about scoping what a Manukau Harbour Action Plan might look like and gaining funding for a three-year Action Plan to “set up a comprehensive water quality management framework for the Manukau Harbour and catchment to ensure the quality of the Harbour and its tributaries are suitable for a wide variety of uses for present and future generations".
With the support of Pat Clapham, then Chair of the Water Board, and the other Board members, the project started in 1987 and finished in 1990. The Water Board took on specialist staff to look at urban and rural pollution, teamed up with Tainui and a range of research, government, community and business interests, and blitzed the entire Harbour and its contributing watersheds.
The final report documented the state of the Harbour and its contributing streams at the start and end of the project and such was its success that it kept on its by then highly expert temporary staff and mainstreamed the Manukau approach into its work over the rest of the Auckland Region.
Dame Nganeko was then enterprising enough to get herself elected onto the Water Board, and was able to carry on her mission of environmental improvement. I saw many people of goodwill who had previously been sceptical of Māori aspirations for the environment (but were too polite to say so to her face) realise that such improvements were not only technically and financially possible, but also widely beneficial to the community as a whole.
Dame Nganeko's work in the Manukau is by no means her only achievement and she remains active in environmental protection. The Māori verb to "praise, pay tribute to, congratulate, eulogise, greet, thank, commend, acclaim, compliment, praise, acknowledge" is "whakamihi". Dame Nganeko has well-earned all such praise.
Click here to find out more about the Manukau Claim and see the decision.
Click here to see the newspaper article about Dame Nganeko's award.
Click here to find out more about the Treaty of Waitangi.
Click here for the online Māori dictionary.
Every June on the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, the New Zealand government recognises citizens whose work has made a difference in some positive way to the community. This year, Ngāneko Minhinnick of Waiuku was appointed to be a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori and conservation.
It's an honour that is richly deserved. I first encountered Dame Nganeko back in the 1980s when I was a very junior water resources scientist with the then Auckland Regional Water Board, now part of the new Auckland Council.
In 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act set up the Waitangi Tribunal as a commission of inquiry to provide formal legal and political opportunities for Māori to seek redress for breaches by the Crown of the guarantees set out in the Treaty of Waitangi.
On behalf of all the hapu of Waikato–Tainui, Nganeko Minhinnick brought what became known as the Manukau claim, concerning the Manukau Harbour and its environs. The claim, Wai-8, alleged that, by failing to protect the Waikato–Tainui hapu in the use, ownership, and enjoyment of their lands and fisheries, the Crown had not met its Treaty responsibilities. And, further, that Crown policies in regard to discharges and water rights had caused ‘a serious and continuing deterioration in the quality and quantity of seafoods available to the Waikato–Tainui hapu’. The claim sought recommendations that the bed of the Manukau Harbour and the control of its waters be revested in the hapu; that a moratorium be imposed with respect to the granting of water rights affecting the harbour until such time as the ancestral and Treaty rights of the hapu had been investigated and protected; and that the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 be repealed and replaced by legislation that acknowledged, protected, and enhanced the rights of Maori people with respect to water and soil conservation matters.
The decision was released in July 1985, and among its findings were recommendations that that legislation of the time be amended forthwith to enable Regional Water Boards to take into account Maori spiritual and cultural values when considering water rights applications, to provide specific reference to Maori fishing areas and the values pertaining thereto in the laws affecting water rights, to provide for the review and reformulation of existing water right discharges that have not been approved by Regional Water Boards to bring them into line with current standards and to require that Maritime Planning Schemes and Regional and District Planning Schemes have regard to the relationship of the Maori people, their values, culture and traditions to any land, waters or resources. These and many other recommendations vindicated the claim.
Another recommendation was to the Ministers for the Environment and Works and Development, that following the release of the Manukau Harbour Maritime Planning Scheme, the Commissioner for the Environment be asked to advise on the formulation of a Manukau Harbour Action Plan with definite commitments to take positive measures for the restoration of the harbour having regard to the Tribunal's finding that the deterioration of the harbour seriously prejudiced the enjoyment of fisheries protected by the Treaty of Waitangi, and that positive action was needed more than policies of containment to remove that prejudice.
The Auckland Regional Water Board didn't wait for the completion of that Planning Scheme - it set about scoping what a Manukau Harbour Action Plan might look like and gaining funding for a three-year Action Plan to “set up a comprehensive water quality management framework for the Manukau Harbour and catchment to ensure the quality of the Harbour and its tributaries are suitable for a wide variety of uses for present and future generations".
With the support of Pat Clapham, then Chair of the Water Board, and the other Board members, the project started in 1987 and finished in 1990. The Water Board took on specialist staff to look at urban and rural pollution, teamed up with Tainui and a range of research, government, community and business interests, and blitzed the entire Harbour and its contributing watersheds.
The final report documented the state of the Harbour and its contributing streams at the start and end of the project and such was its success that it kept on its by then highly expert temporary staff and mainstreamed the Manukau approach into its work over the rest of the Auckland Region.
Dame Nganeko was then enterprising enough to get herself elected onto the Water Board, and was able to carry on her mission of environmental improvement. I saw many people of goodwill who had previously been sceptical of Māori aspirations for the environment (but were too polite to say so to her face) realise that such improvements were not only technically and financially possible, but also widely beneficial to the community as a whole.
Dame Nganeko's work in the Manukau is by no means her only achievement and she remains active in environmental protection. The Māori verb to "praise, pay tribute to, congratulate, eulogise, greet, thank, commend, acclaim, compliment, praise, acknowledge" is "whakamihi". Dame Nganeko has well-earned all such praise.
Click here to find out more about the Manukau Claim and see the decision.
Click here to see the newspaper article about Dame Nganeko's award.
Click here to find out more about the Treaty of Waitangi.
Click here for the online Māori dictionary.
Monday, March 11, 2013
The nature of cities - a collective blog on cities as ecological spaces
Friend and colleague Mark Hostetler recently posted a blog about Conservation Developments with a unique web site called the Nature of Cities. It is a blog space that hosts the thoughts on urban ecological spaces of a collective of writers from all over the world.
Mark's recent contribution asks, "How functional is a conservation development in terms of conserving biodiversity?" He defines conservation development as "an approach to the design, construction, and stewardship of a development that achieves functional protection of natural resources, while also providing social and economic benefits to human communities."
But how well do they work? Mark poses four key evaluation questions - and as someone who (it has to be said) almost nags her clients about monitoring and evaluation, I believe he's making an important contribution.
Even better, his blog is lengthy enough to give a really thorough answer to his four questions. They are:
I've taken a good look at Mark's blog and the list of other postings - they look excellent.
What questions can we ask about the ecological functionality and effectiveness of our own development projects?
Click here to read Mark's blog and on the links below to find out more about Mark's work.
Mark's recent contribution asks, "How functional is a conservation development in terms of conserving biodiversity?" He defines conservation development as "an approach to the design, construction, and stewardship of a development that achieves functional protection of natural resources, while also providing social and economic benefits to human communities."
But how well do they work? Mark poses four key evaluation questions - and as someone who (it has to be said) almost nags her clients about monitoring and evaluation, I believe he's making an important contribution.
Even better, his blog is lengthy enough to give a really thorough answer to his four questions. They are:
- What kinds of tree protection and natural area conservation strategies have been employed?
- Is there a long-term environmental education program for residents in the conservation development?
- Do the Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) address any environmental issues?
- What types of plants are used for landscaping within the conservation development?
I've taken a good look at Mark's blog and the list of other postings - they look excellent.
What questions can we ask about the ecological functionality and effectiveness of our own development projects?
Click here to read Mark's blog and on the links below to find out more about Mark's work.
- Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation: see http://www.wec.ufl.edu
- Wildlife information: see http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/
- Program for Resource Efficient Communities: see http://www.buildgreen.ufl.edu/
- Solutions for Your Life: see http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Setting up the conditions for creativity
A couple of weeks ago I spoke on innovation at a conference on that theme for the civil construction sector. One of the many fascinating things about creativity is its need for the right conditions before it can emerge - both in our brain and in our organisations.
The brain is a very energy-hungry organ: just 2% of our body weight, it appropriates 20% of our energy intake to fuel its work. Yet oddly, when we're daydreaming or even just staring vacantly into space, its energy use is much higher than when we're intensively focused on a task. This intensive focus is important and productive, and when in that project execution mode, we feel satisfyingly efficient - but we're not necessarily being creative, as Gay Claxton noted many years ago in his marvellous book, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind.
By contrast, when we're in "vacant" mode, a number of major areas in the brain start working together in what neuroscientists now call the "default network", when the brain seizes the opportunity to get back to its most important work - sifting, sorting and finding patterns in the vast amounts of sensory input that bombards us every day. It's not surprising, then, that brain science and studies of famous thinkers and modern innovators are leading us to the conclusion that this default mode is a key supporting condition for creativity to emerge.
One example is that of the eminent German chemist Kekule, who for many years had been trying to work out the structure of the benzene molecule. Giving up on his research one winter's afternoon, he left his desk and sat in an armchair in front of the fire. Dozing off in comfort, he envisioned a snake with its tail in its mouth - and awoke to realise he'd solved the problem: the snake represented the benzene ring.
Even with such insights, however, our moments of inspiration can wither and die without the right organizational support. It's too easy to think that bright ideas are all we need, but while they're necessary, they're not sufficient. Stephen Shapiro says that companies wanting to nurture creativity must dedicate a budget and set up supporting processes to bring bright ideas to maturation. Norman Chorn suggests organizations also need a CCO - a Chief Creativity Officer. This person needn't be burdened with the responsibility of being the source of all of a company's creativity, but he or she does need to understand and support the creative and entrepreneurial processes that Chorn and Shapiro talk about.
So after several months of intense work leading up to the Frankfurt Book Fair, I'm about to give my default network some dedicated time by going on a week-long meditation retreat. And I'll be taking a notebook with me....
Find out more about Guy Claxton's thinking here. And click on their names to find out more about the work of Stephen Shapiro and Norman Chorn.
The brain is a very energy-hungry organ: just 2% of our body weight, it appropriates 20% of our energy intake to fuel its work. Yet oddly, when we're daydreaming or even just staring vacantly into space, its energy use is much higher than when we're intensively focused on a task. This intensive focus is important and productive, and when in that project execution mode, we feel satisfyingly efficient - but we're not necessarily being creative, as Gay Claxton noted many years ago in his marvellous book, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind.
By contrast, when we're in "vacant" mode, a number of major areas in the brain start working together in what neuroscientists now call the "default network", when the brain seizes the opportunity to get back to its most important work - sifting, sorting and finding patterns in the vast amounts of sensory input that bombards us every day. It's not surprising, then, that brain science and studies of famous thinkers and modern innovators are leading us to the conclusion that this default mode is a key supporting condition for creativity to emerge.
One example is that of the eminent German chemist Kekule, who for many years had been trying to work out the structure of the benzene molecule. Giving up on his research one winter's afternoon, he left his desk and sat in an armchair in front of the fire. Dozing off in comfort, he envisioned a snake with its tail in its mouth - and awoke to realise he'd solved the problem: the snake represented the benzene ring.
Even with such insights, however, our moments of inspiration can wither and die without the right organizational support. It's too easy to think that bright ideas are all we need, but while they're necessary, they're not sufficient. Stephen Shapiro says that companies wanting to nurture creativity must dedicate a budget and set up supporting processes to bring bright ideas to maturation. Norman Chorn suggests organizations also need a CCO - a Chief Creativity Officer. This person needn't be burdened with the responsibility of being the source of all of a company's creativity, but he or she does need to understand and support the creative and entrepreneurial processes that Chorn and Shapiro talk about.
So after several months of intense work leading up to the Frankfurt Book Fair, I'm about to give my default network some dedicated time by going on a week-long meditation retreat. And I'll be taking a notebook with me....
Find out more about Guy Claxton's thinking here. And click on their names to find out more about the work of Stephen Shapiro and Norman Chorn.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Huffington Post gets a green blog
My friend and colleague Mark Hostetler has started a blog on green development for the Huffington post. Focused on urban environments, where most of us in the world now live, it is chatty, interesting and very informative.
One of Mark's recent blogs is based on his book "That gunk on your car: a unique guide to the insects of North America" and is not only hilarious but very educational - did you know there is a real scientific reason why insects are fatally attracted to cars?
He also reveals how America's suburban lawns can be a major threat to ecosystems - even those far away from urban centres and, as I am a major fan of evaluating the effectiveness of plans and programs, I was delighted to see his recent series on evaluating green communities.
You can read Mark's blogs here. And I think I'll follow them....
One of Mark's recent blogs is based on his book "That gunk on your car: a unique guide to the insects of North America" and is not only hilarious but very educational - did you know there is a real scientific reason why insects are fatally attracted to cars?
He also reveals how America's suburban lawns can be a major threat to ecosystems - even those far away from urban centres and, as I am a major fan of evaluating the effectiveness of plans and programs, I was delighted to see his recent series on evaluating green communities.
You can read Mark's blogs here. And I think I'll follow them....
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Science and sustainability win the day at Ellerslie International Flower Show
The destruction of much of this beautiful city as a result of the devastating series of earthquakes has led to a great deal of community reflection on how to rebuild, and locals have expressed a strong desire for a greener central city. In its exhibition Landcare Research showcased some possibilities for introducing more indigenous plants into urban areas, including pocket parks, living walls, green roofs and natural water treatment. The exhibition showed how people, nature and sustainable urban water management can be drawn together in a way while restoring some of the plants and wildlife that have been lost during the city's development.
Find out more about Colin's award-winning garden here and here.
And another science-based exhibit, also a crowd favorite and winner of the Judge's Supreme Award, was 'Max's Pipe Dream, An Engineer's Garden'. Designed by Paul Roper-Gee of Beca (a major engineering consultancy), the garden won three awards and was the clear-cut winner for the Supreme Award, being fun, innovative and with great styling. Everyone loved the garden for its connection with the Mackenzie Country's hydro engineering landscape. Click here and here to find out more.
These awards are great news for the science of urban sustainability, showing how people, plants and animals can all enjoy attractive urban landscapes.
Monday, February 20, 2012
"Lucky break" - a scientist sings about restoring ecosystems
Art and science are definitely coming closer together, if recent articles in New Scientist magazine are anything to go by. Of course the beauty of the natural world has always inspired painting, poetry, photography and music - and it's great to see scientists themselves contributing to this work.
Dr John Quinn is a principal scientist at NIWA, New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and he specializes in freshwater ecology and biodiversity. A few weeks ago we were swapping good sources of information and he sent me a link. I'd forgotten that John and his guitar are seldom separated, and the link goes to a song he wrote on the plane after attending the 4th World Conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration in Mexico in August 2011. Inspired by hearing Imelda May at the Bunbury Blues and Roots Festival, John penned and performed a great blues number that is also a call for ecological restoration.
Entitled "Lucky break", John's song celebrates the Earth's ecosystems that support us and asks why we're gambling with their health when the stakes are so high. It's a great blues number - click here to see him perform it.
Interestingly, in December last year, three of my friends and colleagues from elsewhere in New Zealand and overseas were in Auckland to attend the 25th International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2011). They were much struck by a discussion about "conservation grief syndrome": scientists are only human and do become despondent about how much is to be done if we are to continue to enjoy the beauty and benefits of nature and the plants, birds, fish, insects and animals that contribute to our emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural and economic wellbeing.
Writing this up now reminds me of an observation from a friend who regularly takes long cycling trips in little-traveled parts of the world: he said that all the biologists he meets are very depressed about the state of the environment, while all the economists are very upbeat.
This happened a number of years ago, so it's great to see a vigorous and spreading discussion all round the world about the need for our economic system to address social, cultural and environmental wellbeing.
Dr John Quinn is a principal scientist at NIWA, New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and he specializes in freshwater ecology and biodiversity. A few weeks ago we were swapping good sources of information and he sent me a link. I'd forgotten that John and his guitar are seldom separated, and the link goes to a song he wrote on the plane after attending the 4th World Conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration in Mexico in August 2011. Inspired by hearing Imelda May at the Bunbury Blues and Roots Festival, John penned and performed a great blues number that is also a call for ecological restoration.
Entitled "Lucky break", John's song celebrates the Earth's ecosystems that support us and asks why we're gambling with their health when the stakes are so high. It's a great blues number - click here to see him perform it.
Interestingly, in December last year, three of my friends and colleagues from elsewhere in New Zealand and overseas were in Auckland to attend the 25th International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2011). They were much struck by a discussion about "conservation grief syndrome": scientists are only human and do become despondent about how much is to be done if we are to continue to enjoy the beauty and benefits of nature and the plants, birds, fish, insects and animals that contribute to our emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural and economic wellbeing.
Writing this up now reminds me of an observation from a friend who regularly takes long cycling trips in little-traveled parts of the world: he said that all the biologists he meets are very depressed about the state of the environment, while all the economists are very upbeat.
This happened a number of years ago, so it's great to see a vigorous and spreading discussion all round the world about the need for our economic system to address social, cultural and environmental wellbeing.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Reflecting on rivers - don't let the engineers talk you out of doing it!
Here I am in the city of Hamilton, in the heart of one of New Zealand's biggest dairying regions, in a hotel room looking down on the magnificent Waikato River. Crossed by a number of bridges in the city centre, it is increasingly becoming a community focal point: it's been lovely watching all the people walking and cycling across it - a steady stream of people walking and cycling home from work, giving way to lots of joggers, cyclists and walkers exercising in sight of the water, then to groups of people more dressed up walking into town to catch a movie or dine out - many groups of friends and couples hand in hand - it's been absolutely delightful.
The 6th Biennial Conference of the NZAEE, or New Zealand Association of Environmental Education, has drawn me here, and we all guffawed when yesterday's keynote speaker, Les Robinson, told us about Saskatchewan (at least I think it was Saskatchewan - anyhow, I just wanted to spell it again - what a great name!) - someone at the conference had pointed out how Hamilton, like so many river cities, had turned its back on its river and was only just starting to turn towards it again. Les told the story of the mayor of Saskatchewan, who took a more revolutionary than evolutionary approach to this and simply sent in the bulldozers.
When asked about the boldness of this move, she apparently said it needed to be done, so why wait - and advised, "Don't let the engineers talk you out of doing it!"
Hilarious! Mind you, most of the engineers I know love bulldozers, and so do I! Any big rigs, in fact. Yesterday I treated myself by buying two children's books to bring along to my training workshops for a bit of light relief - "The Little Yellow Digger" by Betty & Alan Gilderdale and "A Bigger Digger" by Brett Avison, to go with the magnificent yellow dump truck I got from the Caterpillar store in Peoria, Illinois a couple of years ago. (And no, I don't play with it on the floor, but ask people to put their business cards in it!)
Watching the stately Waikato flow under the very high bridge spanning deeply cliffed banks is quite hypnotic - it moves at a fast but steady pace, with endlessly changing whorls and lines that hint at the water's massive power. Being a pounding surf type myself, and a physical geographer to boot, I find big rivers frankly terrifying.
The Waikato reminded me forcibly of one of the upper reaches of the Mississippi at Peoria, also a river town. I walked along the river for some way and gazed at it for ages - it is immensely wide, even that far North, and the cute paddle-steamer reminded me of Mark Twain and all the people working on that enormous river. When I found some steps down to a pontoon, I overcame my trepidation to walk down and stand on it - but the sensation of its movements as the deep, black water coiled its way underneath was too much for me, and after a matter of seconds my nerve failed me and I scampered as fast as I could back onto terra firma.
Many years ago when Mum and Dad were taking us kids on a family holiday, my father pointed out the broken concrete spans of an old bridge in a braided river bed - the protruding steel reinforcing rods had been pointing upstream, but over the years had been curled back like fingers in a fist by the flood flows. "That's the power of water," he said. And I've never forgotten it!
Click here to find out more about the NZAEE and here to find out about this year's conference - there are similar associations in many other countries - here's the Australian one, for a start.
And click here to find out more about the laconic, deceptively funny and very inspiring Les Robinson.
The 6th Biennial Conference of the NZAEE, or New Zealand Association of Environmental Education, has drawn me here, and we all guffawed when yesterday's keynote speaker, Les Robinson, told us about Saskatchewan (at least I think it was Saskatchewan - anyhow, I just wanted to spell it again - what a great name!) - someone at the conference had pointed out how Hamilton, like so many river cities, had turned its back on its river and was only just starting to turn towards it again. Les told the story of the mayor of Saskatchewan, who took a more revolutionary than evolutionary approach to this and simply sent in the bulldozers.
When asked about the boldness of this move, she apparently said it needed to be done, so why wait - and advised, "Don't let the engineers talk you out of doing it!"
Hilarious! Mind you, most of the engineers I know love bulldozers, and so do I! Any big rigs, in fact. Yesterday I treated myself by buying two children's books to bring along to my training workshops for a bit of light relief - "The Little Yellow Digger" by Betty & Alan Gilderdale and "A Bigger Digger" by Brett Avison, to go with the magnificent yellow dump truck I got from the Caterpillar store in Peoria, Illinois a couple of years ago. (And no, I don't play with it on the floor, but ask people to put their business cards in it!)
Watching the stately Waikato flow under the very high bridge spanning deeply cliffed banks is quite hypnotic - it moves at a fast but steady pace, with endlessly changing whorls and lines that hint at the water's massive power. Being a pounding surf type myself, and a physical geographer to boot, I find big rivers frankly terrifying.
The Waikato reminded me forcibly of one of the upper reaches of the Mississippi at Peoria, also a river town. I walked along the river for some way and gazed at it for ages - it is immensely wide, even that far North, and the cute paddle-steamer reminded me of Mark Twain and all the people working on that enormous river. When I found some steps down to a pontoon, I overcame my trepidation to walk down and stand on it - but the sensation of its movements as the deep, black water coiled its way underneath was too much for me, and after a matter of seconds my nerve failed me and I scampered as fast as I could back onto terra firma.
Many years ago when Mum and Dad were taking us kids on a family holiday, my father pointed out the broken concrete spans of an old bridge in a braided river bed - the protruding steel reinforcing rods had been pointing upstream, but over the years had been curled back like fingers in a fist by the flood flows. "That's the power of water," he said. And I've never forgotten it!
Click here to find out more about the NZAEE and here to find out about this year's conference - there are similar associations in many other countries - here's the Australian one, for a start.
And click here to find out more about the laconic, deceptively funny and very inspiring Les Robinson.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Supporting social wellbeing at Christmas time
"Tired of crass consumerism dominating Christmas?"
This subtitle accompanied a New Zealand Herald article by Jan Corbett way back in December 2000.
Jan described how the previous Christmas, PR firm The Dock Street Group had done something shocking: it didn't send a single present to a single client. Instead it sent a gift-wrapped certificate saying that in lieu of a gift, the firm was making a donation to the Fred Hollows Foundation, to support its wonderful work restoring sight to cataract-blinded people in the developing world. The Foundation was one of the firm's clients, so perhaps this was an obvious move - but it has had an ever-widening spinoff.
By the time I saw the article, I'd already bought Christmas presents for my clients - but the following year, 2001, I did some research, found two charities to support, created a certificate and included it with my clients' Christmas cards.
Working as I do in the environmental area, I decided to "balance my portfolio" by supporting two social charities with my Christmas donations, Amnesty International and the then-named "Domestic Violence Centre" in Auckland.
I was a bit nervous about this, because statistically it was probable that of the people to whom I sent cards, some would be more or less guilty of domestic violence. But I plucked up my moral courage and did it anyway.
To my surprise, I got a raft of emails and phone calls from my clients congratulating me on this move - far more than had ever thanked me for my gifts. Over the years, I've seen more and more people do the same, with of course the fantastic opportunities opened up by agencies such as OxFam and other allowing anyone to support more and more good causes.
Other reasons make this a good idea - many of my clients work for government agencies of various kinds, and have very high standards and even rules about accepting gifts from people with whom they have a commercial relationship. So these charity gift certificates are a great way of letting my wonderful clients know how much I enjoy working with them, while still preserving their independance.
A second reason for me is that there are so many worthwhile charities out there and I felt that giving a bigger sum to two of them would be better than giving dribs and drabs of coins to street collectors on a random basis (though I still sometimes do this, especially to surf lifesavers). When I say No and explain why, these people are always very understanding.
Now in 2011, this is the tenth year I have supported my two chosen charities, with the DVC now re-named SHINE, or "Safe Homes In Nz for Everyone". And of course, I've moved to e-cards as well....
I'll take a break from this blog over the holiday season and will resume sometime in the New Year.
Wishing you all the best for the end of year break, be it with snow and skiing or sun and swimming! - and for a very happy and fulfilling new year in 2012.
This subtitle accompanied a New Zealand Herald article by Jan Corbett way back in December 2000.
Jan described how the previous Christmas, PR firm The Dock Street Group had done something shocking: it didn't send a single present to a single client. Instead it sent a gift-wrapped certificate saying that in lieu of a gift, the firm was making a donation to the Fred Hollows Foundation, to support its wonderful work restoring sight to cataract-blinded people in the developing world. The Foundation was one of the firm's clients, so perhaps this was an obvious move - but it has had an ever-widening spinoff.
By the time I saw the article, I'd already bought Christmas presents for my clients - but the following year, 2001, I did some research, found two charities to support, created a certificate and included it with my clients' Christmas cards.
Working as I do in the environmental area, I decided to "balance my portfolio" by supporting two social charities with my Christmas donations, Amnesty International and the then-named "Domestic Violence Centre" in Auckland.
I was a bit nervous about this, because statistically it was probable that of the people to whom I sent cards, some would be more or less guilty of domestic violence. But I plucked up my moral courage and did it anyway.
To my surprise, I got a raft of emails and phone calls from my clients congratulating me on this move - far more than had ever thanked me for my gifts. Over the years, I've seen more and more people do the same, with of course the fantastic opportunities opened up by agencies such as OxFam and other allowing anyone to support more and more good causes.
Other reasons make this a good idea - many of my clients work for government agencies of various kinds, and have very high standards and even rules about accepting gifts from people with whom they have a commercial relationship. So these charity gift certificates are a great way of letting my wonderful clients know how much I enjoy working with them, while still preserving their independance.
A second reason for me is that there are so many worthwhile charities out there and I felt that giving a bigger sum to two of them would be better than giving dribs and drabs of coins to street collectors on a random basis (though I still sometimes do this, especially to surf lifesavers). When I say No and explain why, these people are always very understanding.
Now in 2011, this is the tenth year I have supported my two chosen charities, with the DVC now re-named SHINE, or "Safe Homes In Nz for Everyone". And of course, I've moved to e-cards as well....
I'll take a break from this blog over the holiday season and will resume sometime in the New Year.
Wishing you all the best for the end of year break, be it with snow and skiing or sun and swimming! - and for a very happy and fulfilling new year in 2012.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Carbon taxes add value for smart businesses
Do you think that global climate change is happening?
If you think it is happening, do you think that people are causing it?
Do you follow the news on emissions controls such as cap and trade or carbon tax schemes?
Do you think the answers matter? Because I don’t.
Why? There’s no point squabbling about it – BECAUSE – carbon emissions are what we call a ‘proxy indicator’ of waste: they are one measurement that indirectly measures lots of other things. So if your vehicle fleet is poorly maintained, you’ll be wasting fuel and oil – that is, carbon – and a good fleet maintenance program will save you not only fuel but also wear and tear on your vehicles. Yes, that’s right – it will save you MONEY.
It’s the same for any other form of waste. Everything we do or use has a carbon cost.
Those offcuts in your factory come from goods or materials that were grown, mined or caught, transported, processed, transported again, processed by you – then transported to the landfill. Reduce that waste, and you reduce the amount of carbon you emit whenever you waste goods or materials that you bought from your suppliers. What do you save? MONEY.
Work in an office? Good insulation, more efficient lighting and heating, more energy-efficient equipment and a host of other straightforward measures will reduce the carbon emissions from running the building and providing your services. What do you save? MONEY.
It works for everything from farming cows to cloud computing.
See? Climate change is not the enemy – and carbon is your friend!
It shows you where your use of resources of all kinds is needlessly costly, and how you can run a smarter, more cost-effective organization.
It also means we can leave the science of the debate to the scientists. So, if climate change is happened and we are causing it, reducing our carbon emissions means we’ll have taken some big steps to slowing it down – thereby reducing some very serious (and expensive) risks to people and economies all round the world. If it isn’t happening or we aren’t causing it, our businesses will be more intelligent, efficient and profitable.
Either way, we win - IF we take action.
"What is the worst that could happen?" This is a wonderful book on the topic by Greg Craven. Click here and here to see him talk about that and "How It All Ends" – sensationally good and very funny.
If you think it is happening, do you think that people are causing it?
Do you follow the news on emissions controls such as cap and trade or carbon tax schemes?
Do you think the answers matter? Because I don’t.
Why? There’s no point squabbling about it – BECAUSE – carbon emissions are what we call a ‘proxy indicator’ of waste: they are one measurement that indirectly measures lots of other things. So if your vehicle fleet is poorly maintained, you’ll be wasting fuel and oil – that is, carbon – and a good fleet maintenance program will save you not only fuel but also wear and tear on your vehicles. Yes, that’s right – it will save you MONEY.
It’s the same for any other form of waste. Everything we do or use has a carbon cost.
Those offcuts in your factory come from goods or materials that were grown, mined or caught, transported, processed, transported again, processed by you – then transported to the landfill. Reduce that waste, and you reduce the amount of carbon you emit whenever you waste goods or materials that you bought from your suppliers. What do you save? MONEY.
Work in an office? Good insulation, more efficient lighting and heating, more energy-efficient equipment and a host of other straightforward measures will reduce the carbon emissions from running the building and providing your services. What do you save? MONEY.
It works for everything from farming cows to cloud computing.
See? Climate change is not the enemy – and carbon is your friend!
It shows you where your use of resources of all kinds is needlessly costly, and how you can run a smarter, more cost-effective organization.
It also means we can leave the science of the debate to the scientists. So, if climate change is happened and we are causing it, reducing our carbon emissions means we’ll have taken some big steps to slowing it down – thereby reducing some very serious (and expensive) risks to people and economies all round the world. If it isn’t happening or we aren’t causing it, our businesses will be more intelligent, efficient and profitable.
Either way, we win - IF we take action.
"What is the worst that could happen?" This is a wonderful book on the topic by Greg Craven. Click here and here to see him talk about that and "How It All Ends" – sensationally good and very funny.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Heading past seven billion people on the planet - exploding some population myths
The birth of numbers of symbolic 7-billionth babies round the world has been greeted with both happiness and horror. Joy of course to the parents, accompanied by worry about whether the planet can support its burgeoning population.
Yet already by the 3rd Century, Tertullian was saying “We are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate for us… already nature does not sustain us” - this at a time when world population was some 200 million. 18 centuries later and with 34 times more people, others including Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich have predicted disasters arising from overpopulation.
However as many observers including Jared Diamond and author and journalist Fred Pearce pointed out in the late 20th Century and early 2000s, the biggest threat is not too many people: it's the gross (and ultimately unsatisfying) over-consumption of resources by 20% of the world’s population which leaves depleted and polluted resources for the 80% of the world’s less privileged. In fact David Suzuki said in an interview that if we all lived like the average american, the world could only support 200 million people - maybe Tertullian was onto something!
Compounding this result, we're seeing the number of households increase faster than the number of people: more and more single people or childless couples fill their homes with all the appliances and other things that can service whole families.
In recent decades we've realised (largely by accident) that the best antidote to explosive population growth is female literacy: teach women to read and they will access the family planning they need – provided infant mortality is reduced. If parents know their children will survive to young adulthood, they will reduce their family size.
Where this happens, the rapidity of the resulting demographic transition is startling: it inverts the classic population pyramid – lots of children at the base, a narrow peak of old people and a thin tier in between of income earners supporting them both – into a tower with wider cap of older people supported by a shrinking workforce to be succeeded in turn by an even smaller number of children. This is what we now see in Japan, Europe, Scandinavia and other "developed" economies.
Commentators now believe that if higher living and educational standards spread round the world (before its economy and ecology are toppled by unsustainably high demands on water and other resources) the world’s population is likely to stabilize at about 9 billion people – and it is likely to fall as more and more people enjoy better lifestyles. And it seems that industrial-scale agriculture is not needed over every square inch of the Earth - in developed nations we waste a quarter or a third of our food while in other parts of the world, war, pests and poor storage rob the people of the opportunities to farm their land and of the fruits of their labour when they do.
So we need to focus on getting to a world full of healthy people whose ability to live happily is supported by stable states.
If course this would signal a major re-think of the current growth-based economic model, as we move towards stable or shrinking populations and while some of us on the planet learn how to live more happily by consuming less so as to enable those who need to consume more to enjoy a decent standard of living.
As Jared Diamond points out, "Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required ...because ... much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ [and of course, the rest of us in the developed world] wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures."
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
An oil spill on iconic beaches: time for local capacity-building and shipping to go green
My heart is wrung by the toxic bunker oil killing birds and sea life along the beach where I grew up: the magnificent Bay of Plenty on New Zealand's beautiful East Coast. My friends along the beaches at Mt Maunganui and Papamoa are distraught, and communities on Motiti and Mayor Islands and all along the Bay from the Mount to Maketu are horrified at the damage it will do to traditional, recreational and commercial fisheries, tourism and the hearts and minds of people who use these beaches every day, all year round.
Search for "Rena, Astrolabe Reef" and you will see it all. Many questions remain, notably why a ship should hit a well-charted reef in fine weather, and why it took nearly a week of said fine weather before the first signs of activity took place to prevent the spilling of the 1700 tonnes of oil on board. And why a ship that has had a number of deficiencies identified in New Zealand in September and been detained for in Australia for other deficiencies to be made good should have been allowed to continue plying New Zealand waters. The Captain and First Officer have been arrested and Maritime New Zealand has dramatically stepped up its on the ground response, its level of communication with the affected communities and its training of volunteers to help remove the ghastly globs and dead and dying birds now washing up on the beaches.
More information will emerge over time, but this tragedy got me thinking about two of my passions: capacity-building and the low-carbon economy.
As I understand it, local ports like Tauranga, where the Rena was headed, used to have their own spill response capability, but legislative changes some years ago centralised this function in Wellington, our capital city, which is more or less in the middle of New Zealand at the southern end of the North Island. It appears that at least some of the delay in response was a result of this physical distance - 460 nautical miles.
Why not restore this function to the ports, with Maritime New Zealand taking a strategic analysis and training role? New Zealand has a small population, a tad over 4.4 million, but the length of our coastline gives us one of the world's biggest exclusive economic zones. This makes it hard for us to police the area, so why not re-establish local emergency response capacity in a way that shares roles and resourcing? Inspection, education and where necessary enforcement of cultural, recreational and commercial shell and fin fisheries could be one role; search and rescue another; alongside emergency response capacity. Complement this with outreach and training for the communities who are spontaneously taking on an active kaitiaki and guardianship role and you have a skilled and committed resource. There are already many iwi and marine, dune and beach care groups and many other environmental and community groups of all kinds along the Bay of Plenty and with the right kind of support, their capacity could be further built up in many areas.
But why do we still have ships on the seas with such dangerous and outdated carbon-intense technology?
Ports and their approaches all round the world are vulnerable to maritime mishaps. Yet it's possible to have ships with a mere modicum of lubricating oil on board that are powered by kite sails, solar panels and even solar panels on towers that can be turned to act as sails as well as energy-harvesters. These ships can cut a ship's fuel costs by up to 90% and significantly lower its environmental impact. Even better, they're beautiful - take a look here - reminiscent of the glory days of sailing ships! The solar cells can capture energy for storage, while the kites can be used in overcast weather to conserve battery charges. The batteries can then power electric engines for use in bad weather and maneuvering in and out of harbours and ports.
Electric engines have powerful, energy-efficient variable speed drives. They are nearly silent - a tremendous boon to our marine life now suffering increasing levels of disruption and physical damage from ever-growing levels of human-induced noise. We'd have to think of new ways to warn at-risk animals of imminent collisions - and this is a great opportunity for innovative research and technology that could be applied more widely, for example to underwater turbines and the like.
Yes, batteries are toxic and dangerous things - but they don't escape and float away to kill life in the water and on our coastlines: if they go down with a ship, they are far more readily recoverable than fossil fuels.
Oh, and this would help us on the way to a low-carbon economy - a report by the U.N. International Maritime Organisation said annual CO2 emissions from world shipping reached 1.12 billion tonnes in 2007, about 3.5% of total global carbon emissions, and that growing international seaborne trade and related fuel consumption will raise emissions from ships by 30 % to 1.475 billion tonnes by 2020.
And of course, the fly in the ointment of this particular panacea is.... oil tankers. Not much point having them electric when they carry millions of litres of oil as their cargo. As Greenpeace said in a 25 February 1990 advertisement in the New York Times (I've rephrased it slightly), "It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was ours."
Now that's a whole new conversation!
Search for "Rena, Astrolabe Reef" and you will see it all. Many questions remain, notably why a ship should hit a well-charted reef in fine weather, and why it took nearly a week of said fine weather before the first signs of activity took place to prevent the spilling of the 1700 tonnes of oil on board. And why a ship that has had a number of deficiencies identified in New Zealand in September and been detained for in Australia for other deficiencies to be made good should have been allowed to continue plying New Zealand waters. The Captain and First Officer have been arrested and Maritime New Zealand has dramatically stepped up its on the ground response, its level of communication with the affected communities and its training of volunteers to help remove the ghastly globs and dead and dying birds now washing up on the beaches.
More information will emerge over time, but this tragedy got me thinking about two of my passions: capacity-building and the low-carbon economy.
As I understand it, local ports like Tauranga, where the Rena was headed, used to have their own spill response capability, but legislative changes some years ago centralised this function in Wellington, our capital city, which is more or less in the middle of New Zealand at the southern end of the North Island. It appears that at least some of the delay in response was a result of this physical distance - 460 nautical miles.
Why not restore this function to the ports, with Maritime New Zealand taking a strategic analysis and training role? New Zealand has a small population, a tad over 4.4 million, but the length of our coastline gives us one of the world's biggest exclusive economic zones. This makes it hard for us to police the area, so why not re-establish local emergency response capacity in a way that shares roles and resourcing? Inspection, education and where necessary enforcement of cultural, recreational and commercial shell and fin fisheries could be one role; search and rescue another; alongside emergency response capacity. Complement this with outreach and training for the communities who are spontaneously taking on an active kaitiaki and guardianship role and you have a skilled and committed resource. There are already many iwi and marine, dune and beach care groups and many other environmental and community groups of all kinds along the Bay of Plenty and with the right kind of support, their capacity could be further built up in many areas.
But why do we still have ships on the seas with such dangerous and outdated carbon-intense technology?
Ports and their approaches all round the world are vulnerable to maritime mishaps. Yet it's possible to have ships with a mere modicum of lubricating oil on board that are powered by kite sails, solar panels and even solar panels on towers that can be turned to act as sails as well as energy-harvesters. These ships can cut a ship's fuel costs by up to 90% and significantly lower its environmental impact. Even better, they're beautiful - take a look here - reminiscent of the glory days of sailing ships! The solar cells can capture energy for storage, while the kites can be used in overcast weather to conserve battery charges. The batteries can then power electric engines for use in bad weather and maneuvering in and out of harbours and ports.
Electric engines have powerful, energy-efficient variable speed drives. They are nearly silent - a tremendous boon to our marine life now suffering increasing levels of disruption and physical damage from ever-growing levels of human-induced noise. We'd have to think of new ways to warn at-risk animals of imminent collisions - and this is a great opportunity for innovative research and technology that could be applied more widely, for example to underwater turbines and the like.
Yes, batteries are toxic and dangerous things - but they don't escape and float away to kill life in the water and on our coastlines: if they go down with a ship, they are far more readily recoverable than fossil fuels.
Oh, and this would help us on the way to a low-carbon economy - a report by the U.N. International Maritime Organisation said annual CO2 emissions from world shipping reached 1.12 billion tonnes in 2007, about 3.5% of total global carbon emissions, and that growing international seaborne trade and related fuel consumption will raise emissions from ships by 30 % to 1.475 billion tonnes by 2020.
Which will be the first world port to insist on a sustainable supply chain by accepting only wind and solar-powered vessels?
Hmmm.... how many pluses does all this add up to compared with one giant minus on the beach which I will visit to mourn over next weekend?And of course, the fly in the ointment of this particular panacea is.... oil tankers. Not much point having them electric when they carry millions of litres of oil as their cargo. As Greenpeace said in a 25 February 1990 advertisement in the New York Times (I've rephrased it slightly), "It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was ours."
Now that's a whole new conversation!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Learning to love learning
Over the last few weeks I've been immersed in work on measuring the outcomes and effectiveness of watershed management plans - stuff I've been looking at for some years now. The most common finding is that many plans aren't written in a way that enables their implementation and outcomes to be documented. Among the many other barriers to identifying the effectiveness of our plans are lack of time for overworked staff to look back at their achievements and a widespread culture of fear in public and private spheres. People are scared of 'getting it wrong'.
This is so sad. In both business and government I see people who love their work. Giving them the tools and time to step back and reflect on their organization and its operations is part of the process of developing a form of reflexive awareness, and is a major step on the path to becoming a learning organization that 'gets' continuous improvement. This sets alight a love of learning about our work by way of monitoring, review and adaptive management - something environmental agencies talk about a great deal but find harder to do in practice.
How much time and money to invest in monitoring and evaluation varies between organizations and their function, but I've seen a figure of 5-10% of project budget suggested by Katie Delahaye Paine, and this gives us somewhere to start.
We need a very strategic and holistic yet targeted approach, especially if we are aiming to assess outcomes and effectiveness across the four social, cultural economic and environmental wellbeings. Sometimes minor tweakings of approach can enable us to create benefits across two or more of these wellbeings and we need to track this thinking and doing.
Einstein, it seems, was a genius in more than just physics: one of my favorite quotes from him is 'Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.'
This is so sad. In both business and government I see people who love their work. Giving them the tools and time to step back and reflect on their organization and its operations is part of the process of developing a form of reflexive awareness, and is a major step on the path to becoming a learning organization that 'gets' continuous improvement. This sets alight a love of learning about our work by way of monitoring, review and adaptive management - something environmental agencies talk about a great deal but find harder to do in practice.
How much time and money to invest in monitoring and evaluation varies between organizations and their function, but I've seen a figure of 5-10% of project budget suggested by Katie Delahaye Paine, and this gives us somewhere to start.
We need a very strategic and holistic yet targeted approach, especially if we are aiming to assess outcomes and effectiveness across the four social, cultural economic and environmental wellbeings. Sometimes minor tweakings of approach can enable us to create benefits across two or more of these wellbeings and we need to track this thinking and doing.
Einstein, it seems, was a genius in more than just physics: one of my favorite quotes from him is 'Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.'
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Risky times, risk perception and the sabotage of our own inner kluge
I’ve been writing a lot about risk over the last year or two. My trusty little old Oxford dictionary defines risk as ‘hazard, chance of bad consequences, loss etc; exposure to mischance’ – but also as ‘venture on, take the chances of’.
The online Business Dictionary defines its general meaning as ‘probability or threat of a damage, injury, liability, loss, or other negative occurrence, caused by external or internal vulnerabilities, and which may be neutralized through pre-meditated action’ and its workplace meaning as ‘product of the impact of the severity (consequence) and impact of the likelihood (probability) of a hazardous event or phenomenon’.
Interestingly, most of the definitions of risk are financial – something I’m sure was never a consideration in the risky business of human evolution.
Answers.com offered ‘the possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger’, ‘a factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain danger; a hazard” and ‘exposure to possible harm, loss, or injury’ and ‘to put up as a stake in a game or speculation’ and ‘a venture depending on chance’.
Suggested Thesaurus equivalents at Answers.com include hazard, danger, peril, menace or jeopardy; bet, gamble, stake, venture, wager, chance and speculate; or venture and adventure.
We can see that the negative connotations of risk can blur into some that sound rather more exciting and positive!
Our own perceptions of and attitudes to risk influence the balance that businesses need to strike between timidity and inaction resulting in stagnation, all the way along to irresponsible gambling resulting in failure.
Somewhere in the middle is a path that combines common sense and creativity that is realistic yet strikes the sweet balance somewhere between prudence and innovation.
Risk is a fact of life – and it has upsides as well as downsides. We are always subconsciously weighing the odds all the time in all spheres of our life. Some risks can pay off hugely while others are obviously foolhardy – and few people will exactly agree on which is which.
We need to know what we’re up against, here: our inner kluge. Gary Marcus, professor of psychology at New York University, says the human mind is a kluge - an engineering term for ‘a solution that is clumsy or inelegant yet surprisingly effective’. Our brains are clumsy things, he says - but they handle the tasks life throws at them pretty well. Yet while capable of great things, the haphazard and opportunistic construction of the brain means most of us have a terrible memory and generally poor will power - and often behave irrationally.
How does this manifest? Marcus claims we are much more the ‘rationalizing’ than the ‘rational’ animal: we constantly sabotage our long term goals by poor short term decisions (think getting fit, rich or thin!) then justify them with a rash of retrospective rationalizations. And, he says, we’re much more likely to remember to buy toilet paper when we are in the bathroom than when we’re in the supermarket.
How can we outwit our inner kluge? Scenario-based contingency plans related to risks that threaten our goals are a great help in everyday life, says Marcus: ‘If I see chips, I’ll avoid them, says the dieter’. We can routinely use them in business and environmental management as well: ‘If I see a problem with an environmental control, I’ll fix it or call someone’.
This relates to what David Apgar calls our ‘risk intelligence’ or risk IQ. Apgar insists that risk intelligence is learnable: he says that our ability – as an individual and a company – to understand and learn about risk, compared with that of others, can make or break a project. Nearly everyone can work out how to manage an identified risk – but people or organizations that are better at identifying risks have ‘better raw material in the form of information for managing’ them and this can lead to real competitive advantages. He insists that it is possible for us to compare our abilities and use the information to learn how to make better risk decisions and project choices.
Choosing to become a learning organization via the approaches to risk management outlined by Gary Marcus and David Apgar will allow each of us to develop particular strengths: some of us will become great at assessing risk, others at managing it, and others about communicating what we learn so as to improve our business performance.
Remember – wherever there is a risk, there is always an opportunity to work smarter, do better, meet a challenge, learn something new, build an unbeatable team and have more fun!
The online Business Dictionary defines its general meaning as ‘probability or threat of a damage, injury, liability, loss, or other negative occurrence, caused by external or internal vulnerabilities, and which may be neutralized through pre-meditated action’ and its workplace meaning as ‘product of the impact of the severity (consequence) and impact of the likelihood (probability) of a hazardous event or phenomenon’.
Interestingly, most of the definitions of risk are financial – something I’m sure was never a consideration in the risky business of human evolution.
Answers.com offered ‘the possibility of suffering harm or loss; danger’, ‘a factor, thing, element, or course involving uncertain danger; a hazard” and ‘exposure to possible harm, loss, or injury’ and ‘to put up as a stake in a game or speculation’ and ‘a venture depending on chance’.
Suggested Thesaurus equivalents at Answers.com include hazard, danger, peril, menace or jeopardy; bet, gamble, stake, venture, wager, chance and speculate; or venture and adventure.
We can see that the negative connotations of risk can blur into some that sound rather more exciting and positive!
Our own perceptions of and attitudes to risk influence the balance that businesses need to strike between timidity and inaction resulting in stagnation, all the way along to irresponsible gambling resulting in failure.
Somewhere in the middle is a path that combines common sense and creativity that is realistic yet strikes the sweet balance somewhere between prudence and innovation.
Risk is a fact of life – and it has upsides as well as downsides. We are always subconsciously weighing the odds all the time in all spheres of our life. Some risks can pay off hugely while others are obviously foolhardy – and few people will exactly agree on which is which.
We need to know what we’re up against, here: our inner kluge. Gary Marcus, professor of psychology at New York University, says the human mind is a kluge - an engineering term for ‘a solution that is clumsy or inelegant yet surprisingly effective’. Our brains are clumsy things, he says - but they handle the tasks life throws at them pretty well. Yet while capable of great things, the haphazard and opportunistic construction of the brain means most of us have a terrible memory and generally poor will power - and often behave irrationally.
How does this manifest? Marcus claims we are much more the ‘rationalizing’ than the ‘rational’ animal: we constantly sabotage our long term goals by poor short term decisions (think getting fit, rich or thin!) then justify them with a rash of retrospective rationalizations. And, he says, we’re much more likely to remember to buy toilet paper when we are in the bathroom than when we’re in the supermarket.
How can we outwit our inner kluge? Scenario-based contingency plans related to risks that threaten our goals are a great help in everyday life, says Marcus: ‘If I see chips, I’ll avoid them, says the dieter’. We can routinely use them in business and environmental management as well: ‘If I see a problem with an environmental control, I’ll fix it or call someone’.
This relates to what David Apgar calls our ‘risk intelligence’ or risk IQ. Apgar insists that risk intelligence is learnable: he says that our ability – as an individual and a company – to understand and learn about risk, compared with that of others, can make or break a project. Nearly everyone can work out how to manage an identified risk – but people or organizations that are better at identifying risks have ‘better raw material in the form of information for managing’ them and this can lead to real competitive advantages. He insists that it is possible for us to compare our abilities and use the information to learn how to make better risk decisions and project choices.
Choosing to become a learning organization via the approaches to risk management outlined by Gary Marcus and David Apgar will allow each of us to develop particular strengths: some of us will become great at assessing risk, others at managing it, and others about communicating what we learn so as to improve our business performance.
Remember – wherever there is a risk, there is always an opportunity to work smarter, do better, meet a challenge, learn something new, build an unbeatable team and have more fun!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Company culture: the iceberg effect
Company culture is like PR – it’s something you have whether you plan it or not.
And for many organizations, it’s unspoken and implicit. I’ve seen this in my work on manufacturing and construction sites and on farms. For example, on one site, people will walk past a faulty environmental control while staff on another will call the environmental team or simply fix it themselves. How much harder will it be for an individual to break with the group dynamic in the former case and fix or point out the fault in time to prevent a polluting spill?
Ed Schein shows organizational culture as an iceberg – artifacts like buildings and logos are at the very tip, and the rest of the bit above the waterline is made up of the organization’s espoused values – the things people say in their environmental policies, for example, or on their website and in promotional materials.
But the 80% below the waterline is like the unconscious mind – here lurk the organization’s basic underlying assumptions or values that may only be guessed at by observing people’s everyday actions – the things that send an unspoken signal, “This is how things are done round here.”
So the likelihood of environmental incidents reflects the environmental culture of the organization, because it influences what individual employees actually do.
I’ve become increasingly aware of and truly astounded by the influence of such apparently subtle things like culture and leadership - and have observed companies turn themselves around by simply deciding they have to improve the way they work.
Creating a positive culture is an essential aspect of effective management in any workplace. In the same way, a strong environmental culture means the values and priorities placed on all aspects of the environment are observed by everyone at every level of the organization, aligning everyone's actions towards a common goal. Conversely, if the day-to-day behavior of directors, managers, supervisors and staff does not support good practice, the environmental culture will be weak even where the company has good structural and procedural controls.
Based on his observations of the medical profession, surgeon Atul Gawande says many of the big improvements come not from big technical breakthroughs but from changes to the way things are done. He says doing better requires the ability to recognize ‘better’ when you find it, and for this you need to ‘count things’ – in other words, paperwork is important.
Good documentation allows us to track relations between symptoms and diagnosis, treatment and outcome, says Gawande (and yes, we can do this for the environment), without relying on memory, anecdote and prejudice.
I'm grateful to my friend and colleague Dr Lesley Stone for enlightening me about Ed Schein's iceberg model as part of the training she and our late colleague Greg Brown gave me and others on the Target Zero team. We all worked together for three years on a major waste avoidance/resource efficiency project and continued this work in different forms for many years. Lesley is now the Sustainability Adviser for Auckland University.
And for many organizations, it’s unspoken and implicit. I’ve seen this in my work on manufacturing and construction sites and on farms. For example, on one site, people will walk past a faulty environmental control while staff on another will call the environmental team or simply fix it themselves. How much harder will it be for an individual to break with the group dynamic in the former case and fix or point out the fault in time to prevent a polluting spill?
Ed Schein shows organizational culture as an iceberg – artifacts like buildings and logos are at the very tip, and the rest of the bit above the waterline is made up of the organization’s espoused values – the things people say in their environmental policies, for example, or on their website and in promotional materials.
But the 80% below the waterline is like the unconscious mind – here lurk the organization’s basic underlying assumptions or values that may only be guessed at by observing people’s everyday actions – the things that send an unspoken signal, “This is how things are done round here.”
So the likelihood of environmental incidents reflects the environmental culture of the organization, because it influences what individual employees actually do.
I’ve become increasingly aware of and truly astounded by the influence of such apparently subtle things like culture and leadership - and have observed companies turn themselves around by simply deciding they have to improve the way they work.
Creating a positive culture is an essential aspect of effective management in any workplace. In the same way, a strong environmental culture means the values and priorities placed on all aspects of the environment are observed by everyone at every level of the organization, aligning everyone's actions towards a common goal. Conversely, if the day-to-day behavior of directors, managers, supervisors and staff does not support good practice, the environmental culture will be weak even where the company has good structural and procedural controls.
Based on his observations of the medical profession, surgeon Atul Gawande says many of the big improvements come not from big technical breakthroughs but from changes to the way things are done. He says doing better requires the ability to recognize ‘better’ when you find it, and for this you need to ‘count things’ – in other words, paperwork is important.
Good documentation allows us to track relations between symptoms and diagnosis, treatment and outcome, says Gawande (and yes, we can do this for the environment), without relying on memory, anecdote and prejudice.
I'm grateful to my friend and colleague Dr Lesley Stone for enlightening me about Ed Schein's iceberg model as part of the training she and our late colleague Greg Brown gave me and others on the Target Zero team. We all worked together for three years on a major waste avoidance/resource efficiency project and continued this work in different forms for many years. Lesley is now the Sustainability Adviser for Auckland University.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
'Eco-non-money' growing within the economy
A grab-bag of ideas could be symptomatic of a wider groundswell of support for an economic system that values people and the environment. I've already blogged (e.g. 3 May 2011) about the growing disillusion with unethical practices in the financial sector - hilariously, a report released a year or more ago by the New Economics Foundation called "A bit rich: Calculating the real value to society of different professions" found that for every £1 they are paid, low-paid hospital cleaners generate over £10 in social value. By contrast, by promoting tax avoidance, very highly-paid tax accountants destroy £47 of value for every pound in value they generate. The report is very thought-provoking and impressively well-referenced.
A more recent radio item on the moneyless economy on 7 August noted that we assume goods and services must be valued in monetary terms, but highlighted a growing movement internationally that’s "questioning whether there aren’t more interesting and satisfying ways of exchanging goods and services". People interviewed spoke about the Freecycle Network™, which is made up of 5,000-odd groups with over 8.5 million members around the world. This "grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement" enables people to get and give stuff for free in their own towns in order to re-use good things and keep them out of landfills. Locally in New Zealand and globally there are any number of "green dollar" movements such as the Wairarapa Green Dollar Exchange and the Bay of Islands Community Exchange (BOICE), that facilitates the exchange of local goods and services among Bay of Islands communities using a complementary mutual credit currency, the BOIDOL (BOI$). The Bank of Real Solutions has grassroots solutions on topics as diverse as community gardens, cycling, food, health, reuse, recycling, conservation, education, elders, gardening, local currencies, pest control, sustainability training, tree planting, water weed control, wetland restoration and youth engagement.
Businesses are coming on board, with examples such as the Local Living Economy movement that aims to ensure that economic power resides locally to the greatest extent possible, sustaining vibrant, livable communities and healthy ecosystems in the process.
Whole nations may even be taking control of their economy, like Iceland, where ordinary citizens revolted against their failed banking system and even co-operatively redrafted their constitution!
Such moves are sometimes called "the alternative economy", which one group defines as "an economic structure that is separate from, and operates largely independently of, the traditional economy. It will have its own currency and means of conducting commerce, with the goal of creating a high level of self-sufficiency, as well as ample employment opportunities and a high level of material and spiritual well being for participants, while embracing sustainability principles."
It is fascinating to see these and many more related movements springing up to meet the ongoing academic debate on ecological economics, which provides the theory around environmental and social wellbeing. Let's see how soon this theory and practice can come together to heal our divided societies and wounded ecosystems.
A more recent radio item on the moneyless economy on 7 August noted that we assume goods and services must be valued in monetary terms, but highlighted a growing movement internationally that’s "questioning whether there aren’t more interesting and satisfying ways of exchanging goods and services". People interviewed spoke about the Freecycle Network™, which is made up of 5,000-odd groups with over 8.5 million members around the world. This "grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement" enables people to get and give stuff for free in their own towns in order to re-use good things and keep them out of landfills. Locally in New Zealand and globally there are any number of "green dollar" movements such as the Wairarapa Green Dollar Exchange and the Bay of Islands Community Exchange (BOICE), that facilitates the exchange of local goods and services among Bay of Islands communities using a complementary mutual credit currency, the BOIDOL (BOI$). The Bank of Real Solutions has grassroots solutions on topics as diverse as community gardens, cycling, food, health, reuse, recycling, conservation, education, elders, gardening, local currencies, pest control, sustainability training, tree planting, water weed control, wetland restoration and youth engagement.
Businesses are coming on board, with examples such as the Local Living Economy movement that aims to ensure that economic power resides locally to the greatest extent possible, sustaining vibrant, livable communities and healthy ecosystems in the process.
Whole nations may even be taking control of their economy, like Iceland, where ordinary citizens revolted against their failed banking system and even co-operatively redrafted their constitution!
Such moves are sometimes called "the alternative economy", which one group defines as "an economic structure that is separate from, and operates largely independently of, the traditional economy. It will have its own currency and means of conducting commerce, with the goal of creating a high level of self-sufficiency, as well as ample employment opportunities and a high level of material and spiritual well being for participants, while embracing sustainability principles."
It is fascinating to see these and many more related movements springing up to meet the ongoing academic debate on ecological economics, which provides the theory around environmental and social wellbeing. Let's see how soon this theory and practice can come together to heal our divided societies and wounded ecosystems.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Making decisions in uncertain times
Why do people keep writing books about what’s going to happen in the near and far future, asks iconoclast Dan Gardner, when these ‘experts’ have an appalling track record on the accuracy of their predictions? In his recent book Future Babble, he also asks why the rest of us in droves keep buying these books! His explanation is that we cannot tolerate uncertainty, and demand to know what’s coming next - that wrong certainty feels better than uncertainty.
Yet uncertainty has characterized most of human history: why does it still feel so uncomfortable? In her book The Optimism Bias, neuroscientist Tali Sharot argues that a positive outlook probably helped us survive as a species by enabling us to feel happy in the present despite the uncertainties of the immediate (and even more so the long term) future.
Alas, this can lead us to assume that radical change is unnecessary and that ‘normal service’ will soon resume, say Andrew Campbell and Stuart Sinclair. They attribute this to the ‘human trait of being overly influenced by past experiences and judgments’, which decision making experts call ‘anchoring’. Everything we do and how we do it tends to be anchored in the past: we keep doing the same things in the same way. This mostly works fine when the present is the same as the past. When everything around us has changed, we meet Einstein's famous definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Our certainty that the boom of the two decades leading in to 2008 would carry on forever seems sadly deluded now, as Harvard Business Review editorial director Justin Fox observes. I read his comments to indicate that every company will have to explore its entrepreneurial depths simply to stay in business, and had to chuckle at his acerbic comment that it’s time we got positive and embraced uncertainty instead of just whining about it.
Knowing all these things doesn’t, however, help governments or businesses work out what we should actually do next - especially in light of a growing body of research findings that decisions made when we are tired or anxious are usually bad ones.
One thing’s for sure; businesses these days we need to make some kind of decision or join the dinosaurs. And we need a mental jolt to focus our attention on the need to do so.
‘What will you do when what you do disappears?’ Professional speaker and author Ann Andrews shellshocked her audience at a recent engagement with this question. She left them with three questions to ponder: are you ‘headlighting’ the road ahead and creating your skills for it? Is the road ahead going to ‘work’ for you? And what could ‘working’ actually mean to you?
These are the questions we need to think about - along with those 2am jolts - the worries that wake us up in the night.
Perhaps a picnic in a beautiful spot of nature or a week's team retreat with lots of sleeping and walking will help us relax enough to hatch the ideas we need to come up with to keep our businesses in business.
Yet uncertainty has characterized most of human history: why does it still feel so uncomfortable? In her book The Optimism Bias, neuroscientist Tali Sharot argues that a positive outlook probably helped us survive as a species by enabling us to feel happy in the present despite the uncertainties of the immediate (and even more so the long term) future.
Alas, this can lead us to assume that radical change is unnecessary and that ‘normal service’ will soon resume, say Andrew Campbell and Stuart Sinclair. They attribute this to the ‘human trait of being overly influenced by past experiences and judgments’, which decision making experts call ‘anchoring’. Everything we do and how we do it tends to be anchored in the past: we keep doing the same things in the same way. This mostly works fine when the present is the same as the past. When everything around us has changed, we meet Einstein's famous definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Our certainty that the boom of the two decades leading in to 2008 would carry on forever seems sadly deluded now, as Harvard Business Review editorial director Justin Fox observes. I read his comments to indicate that every company will have to explore its entrepreneurial depths simply to stay in business, and had to chuckle at his acerbic comment that it’s time we got positive and embraced uncertainty instead of just whining about it.
Knowing all these things doesn’t, however, help governments or businesses work out what we should actually do next - especially in light of a growing body of research findings that decisions made when we are tired or anxious are usually bad ones.
One thing’s for sure; businesses these days we need to make some kind of decision or join the dinosaurs. And we need a mental jolt to focus our attention on the need to do so.
‘What will you do when what you do disappears?’ Professional speaker and author Ann Andrews shellshocked her audience at a recent engagement with this question. She left them with three questions to ponder: are you ‘headlighting’ the road ahead and creating your skills for it? Is the road ahead going to ‘work’ for you? And what could ‘working’ actually mean to you?
These are the questions we need to think about - along with those 2am jolts - the worries that wake us up in the night.
Perhaps a picnic in a beautiful spot of nature or a week's team retreat with lots of sleeping and walking will help us relax enough to hatch the ideas we need to come up with to keep our businesses in business.
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