Should you own your own copy of REGENERATION?
What’s in Paul Hawken’s latest book REGENERATION: ENDING THE CLIMATE CRISIS IN ONE GENERATION? Who would benefit from it and how?
Beyond sustainability – the REGENERATION game just levelled up
If you think that climate solutions is for governments and sustainability is boring – think again. Because you’re missing out on a life of regeneration…
Ikigai for climate solutions
Ikigai is commonly known these days as the intersection of your purpose in life with your work in the world. It’s often referenced as a Japanese concept. “…it is said that everyone has an ikigai – their particular intersection of passion, talent, and potential to benefit others. It is only a matter of finding it.” Psychology Today – The Philosophy …
Business – a wholly owned subsidiary of Nature
This is the seventh in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. The first summarised 10 hidden opportunities and the second explored 4 levels of sustainability strategy. Then we started to explore the opportunities. First up was “The trap of one-way business thinking“. Second was delivering value rather than volume. The third looked at new thinking about production. The fourth was …
Plastic upcycled into road surfaces
The book that turned me on to Regenerative Business was Natural Capitalism (it’s free to download and I strongly recommend Chapter 1 The Next Industrial Revolution ) One of the key challenges of Natural Capitalism was to achieve a Factor 10 improvement in resource efficiency – to use 1/10th of the resources used by 20th century Industrial processes. That’s a …
Energy storage reinvented
Most people think of chemically-based batteries when they think about energy storage. Yet energy can be stored in all sorts of ways, depending on the operation using it and the length of time it needs to be stored. An interesting selection of energy storage options that have been showing up recently as the renewables market grows, so I thought I’d …
Optimise systems – don’t just maximise processes
This is the sixth in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. The first summarised 10 hidden opportunities and the second explored 4 levels of sustainability strategy. Then we started to explore the opportunities. First up was “The trap of one-way business thinking“. Then we discussed delivering value rather than volume and looked at new thinking …
Local government – potential One Planet world-changers
I’ve never really been convinced that national government policy change is sufficient to deal with global warming. Any action they take is a long way away from the people designing, building and delivering the products and services we use every day. I’ve found local and regional action to be extraordinary – and the development of the One Planet Cities program …
Who’s #NotWaitingClimate ?
Who’s NOT waiting for “government policy change”? Big business, small business, communities, local government, regional government, individuals, entrepreneurs, industry.
Beyond soap and steam – smarter, cleaner, fairer
This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. The first summarised 10 hidden opportunities and the second explored 4 levels of sustainability strategy. Then we started to explore the opportunities. First up was “The trap of one-way business thinking“. Then we discussed delivering value rather than volume. Today we look at new …
Meet the bottom up revolutionaries of Yackandandah
An emerging regenerative region In country Victoria, near the split city of Albury/Wodonga, sits the electorate of Indi. Within it is the rural village of Yackandandah. I know “Yack” because I have family there – it’s a small community, but it’s a community with a capital “C”. This isn’t a secret or something particularly new – it’s well known in …
Smart reforestation with drones
One of the key messages from Project Drawdown’s research is that human ingenuity has been at work for decades developing solutions for global warming. “millions of people care about this and are trying things – engineers, inventors, people on the land, people on the ocean are inventing extraordinary means to reduce emissions and sequester carbon” -Paul Hawken, Executive Director, Project …
Our Finer Future – a progress report on the Regenerative Economy
If there’s one book that hooked me into the opportunity side of sustainability, it’s Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, published in 1999. When I read it in 2002, I was a Business Systems Analyst working in factories and warehouses around Melbourne – I knew from daily experience that there was massively more to be done than switching my …
Value beats volume for smart business growth
This is the fourth in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. The first summarised 10 hidden opportunities and the second explored 4 levels of sustainability strategy. Then we started to explore the opportunities. First up was “The trap of one-way business thinking“. Today we’re talking volume vs value. Business performance has traditionally been measured in …
The traps of one-way business thinking
This is the third in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. The first summarised 10 hidden opportunities and the second explored 4 levels of sustainability strategy. Now we’re starting to work through those 10 opportunities hidden by 20th century thinking. Neurobiologists have confirmed in the last few years what philosophers have suspected for millenia – …
Power to the people – because now it’s easier than ever
While the Australian government continues to talk about coal and baseload and electricity prices, Australian communities and entrepreneurs are busy delivering on clean energy in innovative new ways. Smart technology and ongoing legal advances are enabling new ways of doing business and making investments – tools that are enabling exciting new projects to be delivered. Crowd-sourced investment The enabling technology …
Entrepreneuring food waste solutions
One of the “who would have thought!!!” solutions for reversing global warming is reducing food waste. It’s not just about the “starving Africans” your mum might have nagged you about when you wouldn’t eat your dinner – reducing food waste could save 70.53 gigatons in reduced CO2 by 2050.
The future of HVAC-R in a post-zero world
The Australian Institute of Refrigeration Airconditioning and Heating gathered in Melbourne in September to discuss “The Future of HVAC”. This industry is a powerful player in reversing global climate disruption, with the ability to deliver on solutions comprising nearly 15% of the action. As I wrote a while ago, these guys could be the hidden “Avengers of climate change” …
Greenhouse Drawdown in the Yarra Ranges
“Think globally, act locally” I’ve been talking about sustainability for years now – and been pretty active online as a commentator. Now it’s time to take the business opportunities to my local community in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges.
Which of these 10 assumptions are blinding you to opportunity?
This is the first in a series of posts exploring the growing opportunities of strategic sustainability. We’ll dig into the 10 alternatives in depth over the next couple of months. Once upon a time, psychologists and scientists used to believe that we see everything in front of us, then decide what’s worth exploring in detail. More recently, neurobiologists have confirmed …