An expert, informed opinion is always useful – so here’s one I discovered recently. Paul Hawken has been working on deeply sustainable business since the 1990s. His list of achievements is massive. His most recent project was the first ever research into REVERSING global warming with existing, scalable technology. At the end of a detailed (and awesome) podcast about the …
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 …
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.
Yes, another post about Drawdown – but this time about the fundamental mindset Paul Hawken brings to the challenge. Here’s someone who’s been working on solutions for 40 years – and who is still constructive, positive, engaging and inspiring.
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” …
“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.
I’m a writer by inclination, so getting behind the microphone on a regular basis is still on my to-do list. Fortunately, I hooked up with podcaster Mark Spencer from Climatic.fm a little while ago. He’s demystified the process and featured me in a recent Cimactic podcast.
“…as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself”. NUDGE, 2008. Richard Thaler with Cass Sunstein Richard Thaler’s 2017 Nobel Prize for Economics “nudged” me into finally reading …
Are you looking for business development opportunities? If you’ve been ignoring sustainability because you’ve been sold the “cost” myth, here are some recent reports that could give you new insights and innovation possibilities:
The first ever research on shifting to an economy that consumes greenhouse gases was released in April 2017. As well as listing 80 current, commercially scalable action opportunities, Project Drawdown‘s first report included 20 high-potential “Coming Attractions”.
While most of the mainstream media on climate change focuses on cars, coal and consumption, there’s a whole range of opportunities to make a constructive, money saving difference in other spaces that few people think of as “green”.
To most people getting on with their lives and listening to the mass media debates about climate change, ocean plastics and deforestation, “this sustainability thing” can seem overwhelming, frustrating and hopeless. But concern about climate change and environmental damage has been growing for decades (if not centuries – the problem of climate change was identified back in the 19th century). …
I’m loving the recently released book “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming” – but friends have found it a bit overwhelming. So now when I give it to them to look at, I guide them through it this way: I open it at the back, starting them with the section “What do the numbers tell …
(Updated occasionally to include extra links. Most recently 07 April 2019)Have you been avoiding thinking about global warming because it’s just too scary? Have you been hoping that someone, somewhere would come up with some answers? Well, they have…The research fellows of Project Drawdown started identifying and evaluating solutions in 2013. Four years on, they’ve identified the Top 80 solutions …
Update 28 April 2017: Well worth the investment, just for a cogent explanation of key issues and options. Biggest surprise (so far): How high up the list Refrigerant Management sits. I’ve loved Paul Hawken’s work ever since I read both Natural Capitalism and The Ecology of Commerce alongside Ray Anderson’s Mid Course Correction. (In sustainability units of a Graduate Diploma.) …
Last week I read yet another social media post bemoaning “the lack of government action” on sustainability and wondered: What government specifically the writer was wanting to act? (From context, it was probably Australia’s federal government) What magic bullet solution he thought that a change in government action might deliver? Was his complaint going to perpetuate the myth that federal …
What can we do differently when we realise that climate change solutions don’t REQUIRE government policy action? What else is possible when we recognise that expensive consumer frugality isn’t “the big answer”? (NOTE: I’m not saying that these aren’t useful – I’m asking “is this the only powerful source of innovation?“) I listened to the same old conversation on my …
… to design regenerative supply chains. Back in the 20th century, “sustainable” products, processes and services were expensive, difficult and unreliable. But that was then….
A good friend loaned me the book “This Changes Everything” by social activist Naomi Klein. It’s a massive book and I’m still processing a lot of its content. One thing that I’m always on the lookout for in sustainability is to understand the triggers that enable people to engage with something so potentially overwhelming. So the bit of the book …
(Originally posted June 2013. Most recently updated December 2018) I read a recent blog post which made the claim that “In the past 25 years, only lip-service has been paid to SD, particularly around the use of fossil fuels.” I don’t agree – I believe that we’re much further down the track than most people know. To me, the past 25 …