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 …
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 – …
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 …
At least two interesting principles at play here: Regenerative Business Principle #2: There are NO wastes Regenerative Business Principle #7: Think smart, small and local. Gundersen Lutheran Hospital, in La Crosse, Wis., aims to be energy independent by 2014. Hospitals use a ton of energy, so that’s a tough goal to meet. But Gundersen is getting there by piggybacking on …
Here’s a great example of the Regenerative Business Principle #2 “There are no wastes” combined with Principle #7 “Think small, local and smart”. Harvard professor Dr. David Edward is developing an edible packaging technology he calls a WikiCell. Imagine your single serve yoghurt packaged in a soft foam membrane of raspberry sauce. The yoghurt is packaged inside its sauce – particles of the sauce are …
I got seriously interested in sustainability years ago, during post-graduate studies. I was fortunate to be introduced through great books like “Natural Capitalism”, “Cradle to Cradle” and “Biomimicry”. Along with a mass of detail and lots of “reasons why” sustainability was important, I found a set of straightforward strategies that challenge out-of-date 20th century assumptions about the “how” of doing business. I …
Great initiative in Seattle, documented on Grist recently. A great example of smart local approaches to environmental sustainability: “There’s a stretch of arterial in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood that I’ve traveled probably thousands of times without giving a second thought to the empty, grassy hillside it parallels. When I heard about plans to create a seven-acre urban food forest there, I …