Heads Down

We've neglected our blog while we've been working heads-down to get a first version of our product shipped. We should have some exciting news soon. Stay tuned!

Spreading Ideas at Ignite

Last week most the eCO₂Labs team headed down to a Oxford St. for Ignite Sydney. I (Soren) gave a talk "How Indie developers will save the planet" available on the IgniteShow. This is just one event in Ignite Week, which ran last week in over 60 cities around the world. Each Ignite event has around one dozen speakers talking for 5 minutes using 20 slides that rotate automatically every 15 seconds.

I had to learn how to focus. I spent about 30 hours preparing. I started over three times! I can only imagine the how many long hours the Ignite organisers put in. It is a massive effort. In many ways it is similar to TED, except that it is much more distributed, the format is tighter and normal people — not just super people, like Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee, both mentioned in my talk — can get their ideas out there. Ignite is about parallel processing ideas and packaging those ideas so that they resonates locally.

Yet can then be catapulted around the global, like a haikugami airplane. While I love blogging, with a talk you can make an emotional as well as rational connection. You can more effectively build common experience through stories.

Why are events like this important? We don't have much time to transition to a sustainable future. Fortunately, a locally-grounded global culture is emerging that gets us beyond the prisoners dilemma we are in. Building a global culture requires creating common experience and spreading ideas. I saw that happening at Ignite.

The GRI framework

Due to growing concerns about the legitimacy and viability of business practices, businesses were more and more solicited by NGOs and administrations to not anymore only report on their financial health but also on the environmental impact of their activities and the respect of the Human Rights. The first strong international stimuli came from the Brundtland commission in 1987.

The first company to comprehensively report on the environmental impact of its activities was the Norwegian aluminium producer Norsk Hydro in 1989. The following decade saw an outburst of Triple Bottom Line reporting framework standards muddying up the water and clouding the issue for stakeholders. To provide a more readable picture and further enhance responsible decision-making, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was created in 1997, with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the aim of producing an harmonized framework as scalable and routine as financial reporting frameworks are. In 2000 it became a permanent institution, headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Although the GRI is independent, it remains a collaborating centre of UNEP and works in cooperation with the United Nations Global Compact.

The GRI reporting framework is now recognized worldwide as being one of the most prevalent standards for Sustainability Reporting or Triple Bottom Line reporting. This acceptance stemming from the way it was established and devised, that is through a multi-stakeholder, consensus-seeking approach. Thanks to this approach, a broad cross-section of the society – business, civil society, labour, accounting, investors, academics, governments, and others – from all around the world agreed on what the guidelines should contain and what the sets of indicators should be, subsequently paving the way for its large acceptance. Indeed, in January of last year, more than 1,500 organizations spanning 60 countries were using its guidelines to release their sustainability reports, be it corporate businesses, public agencies, smaller enterprises, NGOs and/or industry groups.

Guidelines have been upgraded three times to allow for an always broader coverage of environmental impacts and social aspects. The G3 guidelines standing for “Third Generation” and launched in October 2006 thereby build on the G2 guidelines (released in 2002) themselves being an evolution of the initial guidelines, initially set up in 2000. A comprehensive version of the G3 GRI guidelines are available here.

On environmental performances, companies have the opportunity to report upon a 16-core-indicator suite along with an extra 19-additional-indicator suite formulated in the G3 GRI. These two indicator suites encompass nine core aspects as depicted in the following table:

The comprehensiveness of a GRI TBL report can be of three levels: A, B or C; A being the most thorough. In addition, a report can either be self-declared, third-party-checked or GRI-checked. In the two latter cases, the declaration is annotated with a "+". For instance, a B+-compliant G3 GRI report is a third-party or GRI-checked B-level compliant report. The difference between the three different levels is summed up in the figure below.

The GRI framework being a UN-backed programme, eCO2labs fully acknowledge its reliability and transparency. Some of our data points will thus be sourced from GRI-checked reports with the objective to provide you with an even more readable overview of environmental practices across a wide cross-section of businesses around the world.

RW

Triple Bottom Line aka People, Planet, Profit

Profit has always been the bottom line shared and pursued by each and every businesses since the dawn of time. Consequently, with the nascent development of long-haul transportation and the deployment of large-scale communication infrastructures in the post world-war era, businesses were looking to outsource their production activities to developing countries so as to benefit from their low-wage workforce to, in turn, decrease their operating costs and increase their profits. The break-even point of this shift having occurred when the incurred costs due to transportation and communication was counterbalanced.

However, some of the developing countries wherein assembly lines are outsourced do not necessarily respect the Human Rights, and that’s a euphemism. Therefore ethical issues were and are still raised by customers on the legitimacy of these practices. Seemingly, the daunting spectrum of pollution, global warming, as well as biodiversity and resource depletion due to energy- and material-intensive industries worldwide also led customers to put at doubt the legitimacy of these industrial activities.

Consequently, profit could not possibly be anymore the only pillar against which a company had to report the success of its activities. People and planet were to also be included in the equation. It has to be noted here that the main driving force of this shift were the customers.

Heightened awareness on the necessity to encompass all of these three pillars to measure the success of a business came in 1987 from the Brundtland Commission, known by the name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland (former prime minister of Norway), which was convened by the United Nations in 1983. This commission was created as a result of growing concern "about the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development." Seven years later, the concept of the Triple Bottom Line and its underlying 3P (planet, people and profit) was coined by John Elkington.

From then on, corporations were to be liable not only to the financial health of their activities but also to their environmental footprint and their respect of human rights. More recently, with the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, it became the prevailing approach to public sector full cost accounting. In other words, no longer (at least in theory) a company is allowed to pursue its activities without reporting on its impact on the environment and its respect of the Human Rights.

We, at eCO₂labs, are blatantly concerned by all these three pillars, be it as a company or as individuals, and we are totally in compliance with each and every of them (see our previous post on how we walk the talk). However our aim is not only to walk the talk but also to share our knowledge on doing so by providing you, through apps and guidelines, with best practices so that you can work on your Triple Bottom Line and measure your performance not only in terms of profit, which is now an outdated and obsolete vision, but also in terms of environmental footprint; this, that you are an individual or a company.

“He who does nothing for fear he can do too little is guilty of complicity” (René Wable)

RW

Vive la France

Google has a nice ability to search across public data sets. Okay, René, I have to give credit where it is due: France is doing quite well. Both Germany and the UK have brought down per capita emissions quite a bit. When will China, which was still considered a developing country in Copenhagen, surpass France in per capita emissions?

The US and Australia are clearly Carbon Hogs. It's even worse when you think that much of those Chinese emissions comes from producing goods going straight into American malls. Oink.

Soren

Sustainability News Round-Up

I've put together this round up of sustainability news particularly as it relates to our efforts to adopt a sustainable lifestyle and make green choices.

Bill Gates gave a great talk on TED, touted as the biggest talk of the year. It pulls a whole new demographic into the camp calling for serious steps to combat climate change. Gates states that the developed world needs to move to zero emissions by 2050. He explains emissions as CO2 = P x S x E x C — People, Services, Energy and Carbon per energy unit. A critique from Alex Steffen tweaks this formula as CO2 = P x S x E x C / N, where N stands for nature. Another critique and another critique. These critiques raise valid points about Gate's focus on technology and research, ignoring the role of social change and biodiversity. Still I think Gates is on the money on Zero Impact, and this being his number one priority is powerful stuff. An energy miracle is necessary. It's just not sufficient. I see plenty of practical solutions that are available and economical today but are not getting deployed. Solving the deployment problem requires social change. On this note, this article suggests that cracking the nut on sustainable behaviour change requires understanding how people behave socially.

Amazon finds that the sustainability rating service from the GoodGuide can drive sales. While GoodGuide is currently mostly about consumer goods, this article suggests the GoodGuide will move into the business space as well. Also in this article, Walmart warns suppliers about transparency, "You're going to be naked". Intel is also making a transparency push. The GoodGuide is pretty useless to us here in Australia. Fortunately, there is Shop Ethical! for Aussies from the Ethical Consumer Guide. The GoodGuide also gets a mention in this article on the state of green economy.

Transparent reporting of climate change risk to investors is also a hot topic at the moment, as described here. Among other things, they need to report on the impact of potential or pending legislation to their business.

A UN report is coming out that profiles the environmental impact of the largest companies. There is more in the Guardian. The damage estimate for the 3000 largest global companies is estimated to be $2.2 trillion in 2008. Climate change is roughly half that number. If these companies are forced to pay the full costs, it would account for 6-7% of revenues, putting a good dent in their profits.

AMEE is also making a data play as a search engine for data needed in carbon calculators. They closed a $5.5 M Series B. Also in this article, the report on BetterPlace (swappable electric batteries cars) and AeroFarms (urban agriculture) is also interesting. This article on AMEE's carbon accounting engine has a great video from the AMEE CEO on the need for systemic change.  These guys have a great vision.

This article examines Seth Griffith's approach to a low watt lifecycle. I'm been tracking my wattage on Wattzon.com for while. It's worth watch Seth's talk on the Wattzon video. There is also an API integration between Wattzon and tweet-a-watt, which just won a green gadget award. Another interesting web resource is this site for asking green questions and getting green answers.

18% of Americans are alarmed about potential consequences of Climate Change. 7% are dismissive, and there is a range in between. There are some really interesting findings on the cognitive dissonance of sceptics. The green consumer movement continues with 30% of consumers make decision based on sustainability and CSR. Here are tools for marketers on how consumers respond to green messaging. Here is a good twtpoll from the WWF on what people would like. I'd sum it up as tools and access to take action at home, school, work and in the community. Interesting Apps are coming that help provide these tools in a social context.

In software news, SAP eats is own dogfood and drops CO2-e emissions 16% in 1 year. An Australian energy management software company BuildingIQ gets some coverage. Picking up the green IT theme from earlier posts, here is more on how Google, Facebook and others are reducing damage from their massive data centres.

eBay is an accidental green giant. As this article describes, ebay helps people reduce through reuse. eBay sells $2000 worth of used stuff per second. Check out the eBay GreenTeam site, e.g. "Buying a pre-owned smart phone on eBay saves 94 percent of the carbon associated with going to the mall and buying a new one. That's like not driving 186 miles, or over 880 hours of laptop use". Now that's what we like. Before you buy new, check eBay, craigslist or a freecycle site first. I'm glad to see car sharing getting some love. This article estimates a savings through carsharing of $435 per month. Carsharing is likely to be a good early market for electric cars as well, which, when coupled with fewer cars being produced is a double savings.

Sustainability is a big topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year.  Among other topics, this article discusses how we buy and sell products with a view towards sustainability and what we can learn from open source. They look at how consumers can be encouraged to make sustainable choices. In the disappointment around Copenhagen, this article hopes that Davos can get some commitment from influentially people and add momentum. Another article examines how a Davos style meeting may be more effective than a Copenhagen style. And another on how businesses are asking for certainty and targets; hopefully, these sessions can set us up for real targets in Mexico so we can get out of this prisoners dilemma.  This video on the Global Redesign Website makes the case that we're at an inflection point with sustainability, the global financial crisis and asks how can we design systems to solve truly global problems, bringing together a truly global group of constituents from different backgrounds.

We've had a bad 12 months with cancer. We had a big scare with my Dad when a skin cancer on his face metastasized into neck cancer. Fortunately, he's made a great recovery. Sylvia's brother-in-law is undergoing aggressive chemo after his melanoma metastasized into his lungs. We're concerned but optimistic. In September, I lost a good friend, Jeffrey Walker, to cancer. My Dad strongly recommends Anticancer. It is guiding him towards lifestyle changes, many of which are more sustainable as well as more healthy. It takes a holistic approach — mixing traditional and alternative medicine — to cancer prevention and guides us towards healthy choices.

Since no news update would be complete without information on the iPad, check out this green scorecard for the ipad. It gets a "B" when compared to eBook readers, yet given all that it can do, the reviewers describe it as a "pretty green little machine". Ops, I forgot to consume less. Must have one.

People are starting to think in whole systems and tools, at Davos, fighting cancer, with data centres and even permaculture inspired plans to build sustainable organisations. That's good news! My brain is toasted, and it was 40 C (104 F) in my office today. Cold spell, my ass. Sen. Inhofe: Can I share Al's Igloo for a bit?

Walking the Talk

Nothing predestined Soren, Sylvia and I (René Wable), founders of Eco2labs, to pair up except a shared unconditional acceptance of the environmental challenge our generation and the following is and will be facing, as well as an unswerving commitment to heighten public awareness that everyone needs to improve their ecological footprint.

I am quite keen on figures, which is a good prerequisite to tackle life-cycle assessment (LCA) and input-output analysis (IOA), two techniques that underpin calculating an ecological footprint. Indeed, hardly can you possibly find a field more data-intensive than these. But no worries, we’ll do the maths for you. You will only need to interpret and ponder over your results in the light of recommendations we’ll provide you with!

So atop of these LCA and IOA calculations I am carrying out hand in hand with Soren in order to share it with you, I reflected upon the odds that led us to first be in the same city at the same time, meet up and then share what we have in common. After having read the following you’ll have no choice but to agree that the likelihood was tiny if not infinitesimal.

I was born and bred in the old continent whilst Soren comes from the other side of the Atlantic. He is a reference in IT while I am a newbie in environmental science. We both travelled half a planet to migrate to the land Down Under and besides in the very same city, Sydney; this after having knocked about several countries. In addition Sydney is big, actually it is massive, well Sydney is gigantic....

A green-ups party (my only one so far) played the trick. It also has to be noted that two third-parties were involved in our encounter lowering even more the odds... It seems that Fate knows what it's doing.

But well, saying that destiny has gently paved the way for us to easily set up what we independently craved for and planned to achieve before meeting up — a web and mobile platform to assess one’s carbon footprint — is an easy and long fallacious shortcut. Indeed, despite this fortuitous but fortunate encounter, despite having been put on the same path by some random concourse of circumstances, and despite having clicked instantaneously, we have, as every man jack, a couple of pitfalls to sort out to line up with who we want to be and who we do not specifically want to be.

We, at Eco2labs, want to lead the change and show the example; not simply preach the good word without ourselves being fully committed as is sometimes (too often) the case. Ultimately, we want to achieve carbon neutrality in our operating phase and supply-chain. Quite ambitious for a company. Well, when there is a will there is a way. Ours, at Eco2loabs, is to acknowledge our carbon hotspots, which are those of everyone else, and work on them to reduce their environmental load insofar as possible. Transport, power, stationery and food.

And here’s how we walk the talk.

We meet up thrice a week for full-day work sessions in the spacious loft in Soren's home, which the harbour breeze keeps cool through opposing windows on either side. Here is Soren hard at work on 100% scavenged and used furniture, including the nice Cinema display:

The rest of the time, we remotely work via dedicated web-platforms.

I live in the South shore while Soren lives on the other side of the harbour. Driving is not even an option as neither Soren nor I would accept owning a car, this 25%-(in)efficient oil furnace. Public transport is, but if we are not hard liners, how can we be credible? I bicycle. Despite a discouraging 12-km ride, with laptop and lunch stuffed in my backpack, it’s faster, cheaper, more reliable and flexible, and, cherry on the cake, it keeps me fit. I of course bring some extra clothes to spare Soren the fragrance of my ride. And if sometimes Sydney turns out not to be a safe haven for bicycles — the great mountain bike my flatmate used to generously lend me was stolen last week, and I thus hereby pay a last tribute to it after a year of true and tried services — the ride is fantastic, especially when crossing over the Harbour Bridge under the dual sensation of the sunset warming the skin and the sea breeze cooling it (not the sunrise, we are hard workers but not Stakhanovists either!).

What about our electricity? How do we power our machines? Soren subscribed to green electricity to power out our office and his home. We cannot of course be sure that the flux of electrons coming into our plugs are indeed stemming from green power, but we at least know that somewhere in the Australian grid, a basket of electrons equating the quantity of electricity we use emanates from green power. As we wrote early, the web-based products and services we use run mostly on the Google and Amazon cloud, which is much more efficient than having dedicated servers but not carbon free. To cover these odds and ends as well as occasional business travel, we have a monthly carbon credit subscription with Carbon Planet. We are even carbon-free in the use phase!

When it comes to stationery, inasmuch as possible we do not print out. Rather we use electronic versions which allows us to significantly decrease our environmental footprint (e.g.: carbon footprint stemming from the energy used to produce paper, land use stemming from the forests required to manufacture paper, water use required by the pulp industry etc...).

What about our lunch? We eat local foods and purchase our goods by bike so that the quantity of carbon embodied in our meals is minimal. In addition we avoid every ingredient and aliment that are tangibly known to cause a substantial carbon footprint (e.g.: meat, imported fruits and vegetables from one hemisphere to the other to deny the laws of seasons etc...). At the end of our lunch, organic residues are thrown away in the compost bin (see Soren’s previous post) while plastic wraps, if any, are disposed of in the adequate recycling container.

Does that bother us? Do we spend hours doing those simple daily-life gestures? Do we feel like Amish or other remote settlements? Well, riding my bike is faster than if I was to take public transportation especially at rush hours. And, as I've said, it keeps me fit and offers me every time a beautiful journey. Ah and it’s free and carbon-free! I win upon the Triple Bottom Line (a post will soon be coming on this notion, which is, in short, a benchmarking based upon social, economical and environmental aspects). What about the electricity? Well, the subscription to green power was done once for all. It is indeed more expensive, but we are willing, at Eco2labs, to not only provide best practices but also to walk the talk and show the example. Note that we still win upon the social and environmental pillars of the Triple Bottom Line. Indeed, decentralized renewable energy plants generate more jobs (social aspect) than centralized coal- gas- or nuke-powered plants (with their installed capacity sometimes reaching up to 1 GW). And obviously green power is way more environmentally-friendly than their fossil-fuel-based counterparts. As for the stationery? I love reading hard-cover books, cannot really stand e-books, but when it comes to scientific manuscripts, articles, and papers, I do prefer electronic versions thanks to their indexation and search functions that spare me a substantial amount of time. At last, when it comes to food, once again it’s faster to purchase it by bike than by car or public transportation (for the aforementioned reasons), and sorting it in the correct bin might only take me a few extra seconds which I am willing to spend (and not waste!) as a trade-off with the time saved while purchasing my goods.

This was a long post, quite personal besides, but I give you my word, next time I will be less of a chatterbox. The fact is that at Eco2labs, we insist on and will always strive to achieve transparency and comprehensiveness. “It takes a planet to preserve the Earth.” Walk the talk, with us, for you, now. (René Wable).

RW