Rare earth

This week I was privileged to go to a brilliant presentation on sustainable design by a man called Mark Shayler. He highlighted why the pressure on resources is forcing more and more companies to address the topic of environment and design.

For example, the issue of water availability is rapidly moving up the corporate agenda and Mark gave the best vindication I have yet heard as to why.  He said that being an alcoholic vegetarian is a good environmental choice by pointing out that it takes 2,400 litres of water to make a beef-burger and only 300 litres to make a pint of beer.

It is not just water that is an issue. To make electric cars, wind turbines and other environmentally friendly technology we need ‘rare earth’ metals. Over 90% of these minerals are found in China who is now saying that they need to keep them for their own needs. The announcement presents a looming industrial crisis.

The search is on for new sources with mining planned in Vietnam, California, Australia, the Arctic and Greenland. If the experience in China is anything to go by these new mines will have huge environmental implications scarring the landscape and polluting water. 

As Mark highlighted, a better option is to change the design in the first place so that fewer materials are needed to meet our needs – it was a highly compelling and well made point.

The art of behaviour change

On Wednesday, I was asked to give one of the keynote presentations at a conference in Durham. As usual, the conference organisers wanted the moon on a stick with a summary of the latest climate change science linked to what we could do about it - all within the space of 20 minutes. It's a tricky balance.

The scientific review can be depressing and boring while the practical bit can seem frivolous and inconsequential when compared with the scale of the problem. 

Whenever I give this type of presentation it is always the solutions element that creates interest and enthusiasm. It is not surprising. As I travel around the country I come across more and more creatively ingenious ways that people succeed in getting others around them to positively change their behaviour.

This week I learnt of a village shop-keeper who was so fed up with children dropping sweet wrappers outside her shop that when children bought sweets from her she wrote their name in indelible ink on the wrapper. The amount of littering dropped almost immediately as it suddenly became easy to identify the guilty party.

I also learnt of a scheme in the London Borough of Hackney. They were spending a fortune trying to stop fly-posting in the Borough until they came up with the idea of simply adding a sticker to all the bill posters with the word ‘Cancelled’ written on it. Very soon it was the people who put up the posters who were rushing around trying to take them down.

These examples, combined with the many that Global Action Plan has helped to create over the years, demonstrate that with imagination and a sense of cheekiness even the most intractable behaviours can be changed quickly.

My name is Trewin and I am a CEO of a charity.........

On Thursday I went to a roundtable discussion with other Charity Directors to discuss the impact of the recession on the sector.

Running a charity can be a fairly lonely, stressful existence at the best of times. In a recession when you are wondering how on earth you are going to be able to keep paying everybody’s salaries each month, that stress rises considerably. This became obvious at the Roundtable, which ended up as being a fairly cathartic experience of sharing experiences and frustrations.

A couple of themes emerged from the discussion.

The first is the enormous creativity and determination there is within the sector to address seemingly insurmountable problems.

The second is that there is a growing level of investment available from people who are looking to get a small return from their money whilst at the same time making a positive contribution to society.

This ‘impact investment’ is definitely a growing trend and I am sure that many charity leaders will be able to use it to help them through the difficult times ahead.  

The environmental impact of Second Life

I know I am knocking on a bit and can’t understand why people have moved on from the simple pleasures in life such as ferret-legging but some trends do baffle me. One is the obsession certain people have with Second Life. Why – when there is so much to be gained from our daily existence – do people feel compelled to escape to a completely fictitious world?

My sense of bafflement has now been added to with a healthy sense of liberal disgust, after being told that the amount of carbon required to keep a second life persona alive for a year is the same as that currently required by a Brazilian family.  Where is the logic and fairness in that?

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Trewin has been blogging for Global Action Plan for the past few years. If you enjoyed this week's blog you can find more here.

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