How economic growth has become anti-life | Vandana Shiva. Limitless growth is the fantasy of economists, businesses and politicians. It is seen as a measure of progress. As a result, gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves. The concept of growth was put forward as a measure to mobilise resources during the second world war. GDP is based on creating an artificial and fictitious boundary, assuming that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce.
Thus nature’s amazing cycles of renewal of water and nutrients are defined into nonproduction. Water available as a commons shared freely and protected by all provides for all. In the same vein, evolution has gifted us the seed. Poverty is also further spread when public systems are privatised. Why the word 'sustainability' should be banned | Doug King | Environment.
While the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that became all the rage some time ago initially had worthwhile aims, it is now more commonly used by corporations to out-worthy their competitors. Originally CSR encouraged corporations to consider the impact of their business on society, which provides their consumers and clients, their staff, and – certainly in the case of bankers – pays for their mistakes. So when was Corporate Social Responsibility replaced with Corporate Sustainability Rhetoric? As with many aspects of business, the innovators and early adopters have a clear understanding of what they are doing and why. However, by the time that new practice features in business handbooks, it has become a fad that must be followed in order to maintain market share. At this point all that is desired is the easiest route to demonstrate compliance. Thus CSR has gone the way of Quality Assurance (QA). Once CSR and QA were business improvement activities. Sustainability key for growth and development.
Dubai: Businesses can no longer grow by just selling products and services, they can only grow with people, economies and societies, business leaders say. Businesses will have to grow by empowering people and supporting economies. Companies will have to engage in responsible business — by taking care of the people, societies, economies and environment. “Businesses will have to become sustainable, equitable, if we have to overcome global challenges of poverty, hunger and unemployment,” Paul Polman, Global Chief Executive Officer of Unilever who was in Dubai this week, said.
“Companies will have to create economies by helping tap hidden potentials and create opportunities. “More than 200 million people are unemployed and 40 million people are entering the job market every year. “I’m not against people making money. “Walking away from social problems won’t help businesses. Unilever currently supports 1.7 million smallholder farms that supply raw materials for its products. GTS Mid-year Update August 2013.
For immediate release Green Transition Scoreboard® Shows Dramatic Mid-year Surge August 30, 2013, St. Augustine, FL –The Green Transition Scoreboard® tally jumped from $4.1 trillion reported in February to $5.2 trillion as of July 2013. The Green Transition Scoreboard® tracks private investments, since 2007, in creating cleaner, greener economies globally. Models show that investing at least $1 trillion per year until 2020 will lead from the fossil fueled industrial era to a technologically advanced solar age based on ethical principles of equity, efficiency, biomimicry and earth systems science. Hazel Henderson, president of Ethical Markets Media and creator of the Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS), focuses research into substantial capital investments in Renewable Energy, Efficiency, Green Construction, Corporate R&D and Cleantech technologies based on her years of experience as a science advisor in Washington, DC.
Study reveals 'true' material cost of development say researchers. 2 September 2013Last updated at 21:02 ET By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News The way we measure exports from China at present doesn't account for all the raw materials that are used in production says the study Current methods of measuring the full material cost of imported goods are highly inaccurate say researchers.
In a new study, they found that three times as many raw materials are used to process and export traded goods than are used in their manufacture. Richer countries who believe they have succeeded in developing sustainably are mistaken say the authors. The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many developed nations believe they are on a path to sustainable development, as their economic growth has risen over the past 20 years but the level of raw materials they are consuming has declined.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End QuoteDr Tommy WiedmannUniversity of New South Wales Heavy footprints Cutting at source. S. Korea tests 'electric road' for public buses. A South Korean city has begun testing an "electrified road" that allows electric public buses to recharge their batteries from buried cables as they travel. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), which developed the system, said Thursday it would be tested over the next four months on a 24-kilometre (15-mile) route in the southern city of Gumi. Pick-up equipment underneath the bus, or Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), sucks up power through non-contact magnetic charging from strips buried under the road surface. It then distributes the power either to drive the vehicle or for battery storage As a result it requires a battery only one-fifth the size of conventional electric vehicles.
The system also eliminates the need for overhead wires used to power conventional trams or trolley buses. The technology does not come cheap, with each OLEV costing around 700 million won ($630,000). Explore further: Wireless Online Electric Vehicle, OLEV, runs inner city roads. Eat Your Bugs! - July/August 2013. Sierraclub.org - sierra magazine - july/august 2013 - eat your bugs!
By Peter Frick-Wright A watershed hydrologist by training, Crowley was born in Phoenix and has spent most of his life in the Colorado River Basin. He has a beach bum's blond mane and a laid-back comportment left over from a stint as a surfing instructor, but he's also the type to measure trail runs in hours. After graduate school, his work quantifying agricultural water use and helping cities hash out water rights left him feeling increasingly frustrated with the prospects for changing the country's water management systems. Then, one day in June 2011, he was riding Salt Lake mass transit and listening to a TED Talk by Dutch entomology professor Marcel Dicke. Give a cow 10 pounds of feed and you get 1 pound of cow, Dicke explained. Something clicked. The crispy layer of chitin burst open, exposing a soft but not quite gooey interior. Each bar costs $3, but the ingredients aren't exactly cheap, Crowley noted. Small Bites. Global Ponzi Scheme: We're Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It.
By Jeff Spross "Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It" Last week, David Roberts over at Grist flagged a report carried out by the environmental consultant group Trucost, at the behest of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity over at the United Nations. The idea behind the report was simple. Tally up all the world’s natural capital — land, water, atmosphere, etc. — that doesn’t currently have a dollar value attached to it, and figure out the price. This brings up what economists call “negative externalities.” But getting the theory of markets to map onto the real world is difficult. What Trucost found is that when you scale this problem up globally — all the river, air, and land and air pollution that isn’t paid for, all the water and land use that isn’t paid for, and especially all the carbon emissions dumped into the atmosphere that aren’t paid for — the numbers get very big: What We Can Do About It.
Science Committee. Mark Stafford Smith - Chair Dr Mark Stafford Smith is the Science Director of CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship in Canberra, Australia, where he oversees a highly interdisciplinary programme of research on many aspects of adapting to climate change. He has more than 30 years experience in drylands systems ecology, management and policy, including senior roles such as Program Leader of CSIRO’s Centre for Arid Zone Research in Alice Springs, and then CEO of the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre. During this time he was a task leader under the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). He was also a key contributor to the AridNET international network of drylands researchers that devised the Dryland Development Paradigm. In the past decade his research focus has turned more to adaptation to climate change. Belinda Reyers - Vice-chair Melissa Leach - Vice-chair Bina Agarwal Xuemei Bai Eduardo Brondizio Eduardo S.
Priorities for developing sustainability-oriented foresight. A number of priorities – and associated opportunities – for sustainability-oriented foresight need to be better understood and addressed. Each also requires successfully addressing related barriers and challenges. The following are four areas where ‘foresight methods’ can assist: 1) Enabling greater ‘anticipatory learning’. The opposite of anticipatory learning is ‘learning-by-shock’ (see this paper which defines anticipatory learning as forward-looking learning that is based on anticipatory thinking).
A great example of learning-by-shock is the sudden collapse of fisheries, such as the collapse of Atlantic northwest cod fishery which led to a sudden moratorium due to the slow response. Anticipatory learning may have prevented this by enabling earlier responses. 2) Assisting problem reframing, where there is deep, persistent conflict over sustainability problems. 4) Developing corporate sustainability strategies (or ‘corporate sustainability foresight’).
Green & Away. Welcome to the Green & Away website. We provide inspirational and fully serviced conference facilities for organisations looking for a new kind of experience for their participants. We are currently taking bookings for our 2013 season and beyond. At the moment we have the following bookings: ACT! Alliance (July 12-14) Sherlock Holmes - performance (July 17) Resurgence Summer Gathering (July 25-28) Ecopsychology Gathering (August 1-4) Friends of the Bees unConvention (August 9-11) A Midsummer Night's Dream - performance (August 11) Private Event (August 16-18) Other bookings will be posted here shortly. Read a report on the 2012 Natural Beekeeping Conference held at Green & Away in the Star and Furrow, the magazine of the Biodynamic Association (see pages 18-24) Download our Spring 2013 newsletter (pdf, 364K) See footage of our volunteers in action setting up Green & Away in 2012 (4 minutes).
See our latest news and blog. See press coverage of Green & Away's 21st Birthday. Sustainability Audits. Barclays, the UK megabank, has been making waves recently in the mainstream press after allegations of wrongdoing surfaced with a hefty multi-million dollar fine for manipulating Libor, a key London benchmark for setting interest rates within international financial markets. While the full extent of alleged collusion within the financial industry remains under investigation by government regulators, the revelations to this point have already resulted in contentious legislative hearings on both sides of the Atlantic.
This massive breakdown in corporate governance at Barclays in fact cost the CEO his job and exposed the cozy axis supporting the modern hierarchy of central banking. But the Barclays-Libor case illuminates another questionable axis that has not attracted as much attention, namely, the one between Barclays and the outside accountant charged with reviewing its record on corporate citizenship. For more – click HERE. A World without Landfills? It’s Closer than You Think by Jen Soriano. Two recipients of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize are working to abolish the practice of sending trash to landfills and incinerators. And the idea is catching on. posted Apr 17, 2013 Goldman Prize recipient Nohra Padilla at a recycling facility. Photo by the Goldman Prize. There is a growing global movement to significantly reduce the amount of trash we produce as communities, cities, countries and even regions.
It’s called the zero-waste movement, and it received a major boost this week as two of its leaders were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. Nohra Padilla and Rossano Ercolini are two of the winners of this year’s Goldman Prize, which awards $150,000 to each of six grassroots environmentalists who have achieved great impact, often against great odds. What is zero waste? Here in the United States zero waste is often thought of as a lifestyle choice, if it’s thought of at all. Taking on Europe’s incineration industry Rossano Ercolini. Grassroots recyclers unite. The Self-Hating State. Devolving policy to “the market” doesn’t solve the problem of power. It makes it worse. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 23rd April 2013 In other ages, states sought to seize as much power as they could. Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. This self-mutilation is a response to the fact that power has shifted.
Just as taxation tends to redistribute wealth; regulation tends to redistribute power. But the interchangeable middle managers who call themselves ministers cannot wholly dismiss the wishes of the electorate. To justify the policy of marketisation, they invest the market with magical capabilities. Last week the European Emissions Trading System died. The scheme collapsed on Tuesday, after the European Parliament voted against an emergency withdrawal of some of the carbon permits whose over-supply had swamped the market(1). To make a significant impact, the price of carbon needs to be in the region of €30 or 40 per tonne. Www.monbiot.com References: 4. 5. 6.
None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use. The notion of “externalities” has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs. While the notion is incredibly useful, especially in folding ecological concerns into economics, I’ve always had my reservations about it.
Environmentalists these days love speaking in the language of economics — it makes them sound Serious — but I worry that wrapping this notion in a bloodless technical term tends to have a narcotizing effect. To see what I mean, check out a recent report [PDF] done by environmental consultancy Trucost on behalf of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) program sponsored by United Nations Environmental Program. Here’s how those costs break down: Pee all and end all: Nepal posits new approach to the compost question | Global development. The Benefits of Sustainability-Driven Innovation. The Positive Psychology of Sustainability – David Cooperrider. How Much Electricity Comes From Renewable Sources - Graphic. Dutch clothing brand offers its jeans for rent.
5 Lessons From The Companies Making Sustainability More Profitable Than Ever. Rainwater Harvesting during Reconstruction | Practical Answers. Nourishing People and the Planet: Time to Act.