Sustainable Management

Teacher: Hunter Lovins TA: Will Semmes Tutor: Toby Russell TA: Patrick Macnamara

Background

• natcapsolutions.org

Goal

• Broad overview of the principles of sustainable management and especially the business case around it.

Memorize

• Natural Capitalism:
  • Buy time by radically increasing resource productivity
  • Redesign for sustainability: Biomimicry: close loops, no waste, no toxicity
  • Manage for restoration of human and natural capital

Logistics

• All classes will be filmed and posted
• Multiple forum posts ok, but only one will be graded
• Hunter likes Talisker 57’ North

Quotes

• Resist assigning blame. There are very few bad guys.
• “You are entitled to have your opinions but you are not entitled to make up facts.”
• At some point it is necessary to tone down the rhetoric and start working together to solve the problem.
• “It is not the science, it is not the facts, it is how you implement the change.”
• “Always inquire about the data.”
• Dave Brower “Reasonable people have never accomplished everything”
• Dave Brower “If you have a positive bank balance, you haven’t grasped the seriousness of the problem.”
• “The science does not matter”
• Markets allocate scarce resources efficiently in the short term.
• “Real leadership is extraordinary courage by ordinary people.”

Dune Ives

• Affiliated with “Climate Project”
• One of the 1300 trained by Al Gore
• “Debate has diminished”, “Science is settled”
• Historic CO2 and temperature not really determined which came first, but CO2 was always lower than it is now
• Nine of out ten hottest hears on record have occured in the last 10 years (no)
• Heat deaths in India and Pakistan in 2005 ?
• In US July 2005 to Jun 2006 saw record temperatures in many states (?)
• Declines in polar bear population because of , swimming 60 miles ?
• (Her arctic ice graph was different than http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png)
• Permafrost melt may release methane
• 40% of the worlds population depends on the Himalayan watershed (but if there is global cooling, wouldn’t these glaciers produce no water?)
• Hurricanes impact
• Mosquitos moving to higher elevations (no)
• Ocean acidification
• Greenland ice melt
• 100 million will be relocated due to sea level change in the next few years
• As a global economy, where is the balance point?

Question

• Lot of big problems brought up – how many will go away if we can stabilize CO2? Answer: will just be a start

Hoelgren ? Equation

• I = P x A x T

Presentation

• Talib: Society’s winners will be those that are prepared to face Black Swans, to be exposed to them, to recognize them and to exploit them
• Recommended Schumaker “Small is Beautiful”
• New Voice of Business

What is Sustainability?

• Ask ourselves:
  • Where do I want to go?
  • What is it that I truly care about?
  • What do I believe?
• Signs of non-sustainable systems
  • Current shortage or impact
  • System cost
  • Future shortage
  • Long term damage
  • External unassigned costs
• UN: Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• We all talk about “saving the world”. But it might be more useful to figure out what we can do that day to make a difference where we are.
• Think globally, act locally.
• “Sustainable development is a process which enables all people to realize their potential and improve their quality of life in ways which protect and enhance the Earth’s life-support systems.” Jonathan Porritt
• The Natural Step – a scientific definition, a framework for sustainability
• Best – Center for Holistic Management: Quality of life, what needs to be produced, project it into the future
• Walter Stahel: There is no such thing as short-term sustainability
  • Stone cutter: putting in 8 hours, cutting a limestone block, building a cathedral
• Five pillars of sustainability
• Paul Hawkens 10 principles
• Natural Capitalism: 4 principles in first chapter (maybe 3: solutions economy not principle but a tool)
  • Buy time by radically increasing resource productivity
  • Redesign for sustainability: Biomimicry: close loops, no waste, no toxicity
  • Manage for restoration of human and natural capital
• “Wealth” comes from old English meaning “well being”
• Since natural capital is not on the balance sheet, we are liquidating it.

What is the problem?

• Loss of services a stable economic system gives, like pollination
• Hard to value externalities like pollinating by hand
• One estimate: $35 trillion a year come from eco-systems (value of Earth’s systems)
• Sometimes you only know the value of something once you lose it: Yangtze flood in 1998 caused by deforestation

How did we get here?

• Before industrial revolution, humans lived pretty sustainably
• First industrial revolution: tax use of people, subsidize the use of resources – dramatically improve productivity of people
• Next industrial revolution: efficiency, biomimicry, restoration – dramatically improve productivity of resources
• Split incentives

How to get out?

• 1% of materials still there 6 months after sale – we don’t use resources very efficiently
• Edwin Land: “Invention is just the sudden end of stupidity”
• Optimize the whole, not individual components
• The science doesn’t matter: even if it is wrong, we know how to solve these problems at a profit
• Find low hanging fruit, save the savings, and use it for additional efficiency measures
• The only way we have been able to lift people out of poverty is through growth. Need to get people in the developing world low-carbon energy
• Carbon Disclosure Project
• Chicago Climate Change
• Live Neutral -> Climate Check
• Investing in renewable produces 10 times more jobs than coal plant
• McKinsey Curve shows cost or savings implementing Co2 reduction
• How?
  • Buildings: existing buildings can be made 3x to 4x more efficient, new ones 10x, even net-zero
  • Renewable
• 2 out of 3 renewables (wind, solar, hydro) are more stable than classic coal system