The new year has arrived with a renewed hope for the environment as the private and public sectors direct their attention to the growing shift from “business as usual” to renewable energy technologies. Sustainability initiatives and climate change garnered mainstream attention following last year’s increase in natural disasters. It also positioned 2012 as the most extreme weather year on record for the lower 48 states, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

In the months following Sandy, the second costliest hurricane following Katrina with an estimated $62 billion in damage, many neighborhoods are still reeling in the after affects. Natural disasters have provided the needed catalyst for sustainability initiatives as great turmoil resulted in a newly discovered interest in the growing climate problem. The extreme weather events in 2012 summarize what scientists are predicting to be the “new normal” as the climate continues to warm. As city officials in New York and New Jersey focus on rebuilding, the Clean Tech Revolution is gaining relevance. An example of one opportunity that is focused on smart growth is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Cleaner Greener Communities Program. Launched in 2011, the program has established $100 million in competitive grants and plans to use innovative technologies to improve its economic, energy and environmental development while building sustainable communities.  

With the advancements in clean technology, comes a need for greater social responsibility and increased stakeholder engagement. In the past months, we at Tradepal have engaged with various corporations, agencies and institutions to explore best practices to bridge the sustainability gap between consumers and businesses. The greatest disconnect we have noticed following the influx of social media and technological advancement, is how to accelerate consumer behavior change. According to psychologists Wendy Wood and David Neal, consumers often “act like creatures of habit, automatically repeating past behavior with little regard to current goals and valued outcomes.” When considering the adoption of new behaviors, it seems to come down to the intent and behavior of the individual.

In an effort to ignite behavior change, former President Bill Clinton appealed to advertising agencies last June at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France. He asked advertisers to leverage the power they have to transcend their messaging and assist in shaping the future of our planet. In the digital age, sustainability is no longer a tree hugger concept. Organizations including start-ups, large corporations and state and local governments are embracing renewable energy, green transportation, electric motors, recycling and reuse initiatives as a means to create efficiencies while reducing our environmental footprint.

As we embark on 2013, the following concepts offer suggestions for transitioning consumers toward positive behavior change:

• Engaging consumers in a circular economy instead of a linear economy where infrastructure and technology provide and reward incentives that replace the make-use-dispose mentality.
• Provide education, skills and real life business examples to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
• Create an opportunity for brands to highlight consumers as part of the solution.
• Identify ways to reframe consumers view of ownership to change consumers behavior.
• Support and inspire change agents to put into action new initiatives.  
• Engage employees to spill over their green choices from work to their homes and communities.
• Explore ways companies can leverage their potential to deepen customer loyalty by involving them in closing sustainability loops through reusing and repurposing.
• Promote local sustainability initiatives via reuse by fostering partnerships between citizens and businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations.

Video: The Ellen MacArther Foundation

Author: Tamar Burton

(Source: tradepal.com)

We are all familiar with the terms climate change and global warming, yet the process of identifying the cause and then effectively agreeing on best practices to reduce the issue has been an ongoing dialogue for over three decades. While commitments to reduce environmental impacts vary, it is important to achieve a declining average carbon intensity, or amount of carbon emitted per unit of energy consumed, from primary energy over time. These primary energy sources include fossil carbon fuels, solar energy, gravitational and rotational forces of tides and oceans, geothermal heat and wind energy are converted into energy carriers and then energy services. A major contributing factor to decarbonization is the substitution of cleaner fuels with low carbon content, with fossil fuels having a high carbon content.

How to limit warming to 2ºC

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) newly-published fourth edition of the Low Carbon Economy Index, we have not taken the necessary steps globally to increase the rate of emissions cuts in major emerging economies to effectively slow down the warming trend. The PwC points out the brevity of the situation in a world that is far from being on target to achieve a sustainable or resilient energy future:

“Our Low Carbon Economy Index evaluates the rate of decarbonisation of the global economy that is needed to limit warming to 2ºC. This report shows that global carbon intensity decreased between 2000 and 2011 by around 0.8% a year. In 2011, carbon intensity decreased by 0.7%. The global economy now needs to cut carbon intensity by 5.1% every year from now to 2050. Keeping to the 2ºC carbon budget will require sustained and unprecedented reductions over four decades. Governments’ ambitions to limit warming to 2ºC appear highly unrealistic.”

Each year the global carbon budget is evaluated to assess the amount that has been ‘spent’ and how much emissions reductions are needed to achieve below the 2 target. The internationally agreed upon warming target of 2ºC above the pre-industrial levels which, according to analysts, is the threshold that could prevent the world from experiencing ‘at least six degrees of warming’ by the end of this century. The critical issue is that the 2º scenario is no longer valid. The PwC research stated that even if we achieve an improvement in our rate of decarbonization by six-fold, we still gain only a 50% chance of avoiding the 2 degree threshold. Note that an increase by 6ºC of warming is the equivalent to 10.8ºF.

An area of concern stems from the growing energy demands of emerging economies such as Russia, Mexico, and India. The rising GHG emissions from emerging economies have far exceeded the record decarbonization levels of industrial countries such as France, Germany and the U.K. According to the International Energy Agency, its figures published in May stated that CO2 emissions in 2011 rose to 31.6 gigatons, an increase of 3.2 per cent from 2010. Although many countries have stepped up their efforts to reduce emissions, without a radical policy shift we are on track for a warmer planet.

Opportunities for Low Carbon Technologies

For countries seeking new sources of economic growth, the next wave of growth could be derived from investment in low carbon technologies such as solar panels, electric cars, carbon capture and storage and innovation in biofuels. According to Reuters, in late 2010, China has committed to an investment of $1.5 trillion toward the advancement of seven strategic sectors through 2015. They identified several emerging sectors that accounted for approximately 3 per cent of the GDP at the end of 2010 which outpaced the growth of traditional industries. The strategic sectors include low carbon technologies, renewable energy, new-energy vehicles, bio-technology and next-gen IT.

The Reality

PwC concluded that business-as-usual is not an option and cites the need for more urgency on climate policy. Much of the reporting on climate change is calmly described through published studies and scientific journals hoping to garner the attention of those who will change the predicted outcome. Upon reading the Rolling Stone article, Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, one feels a jolt to reality and thinks beyond the daily bubble where we filter out the negative realities of life. What rings true is we have only one planet. As extreme weather events become more and more common, it is no longer someone else’s problem or experience we are reading about. Climate change has hit home and is the responsibility of consumers, policy makers and business as we enter a new age of uncertainty.   

Tamar Burton

At this year’s Leadership Keynote, at Dreamforce ‘12, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt and Gen. Colin Powell spoke with Marc Benioff in the packed Moscone conference hall. The candid talk offered attendees an opportunity to hear the vision of the two leaders regarding the future of job creation, entrepreneurship, cleantech and their views on climate change. 

The following offers some takeaways from the hour-long talk:

On job creation:

Gen. Colin Powell:

“What we need is super people who will start examining the issues. Businesses create jobs, and the jobs that have gone aren’t necessarily coming back. We need to go up the ladder of sophistication and educate our kids for the jobs that will be in the United States.”

Jeff Immelt:

[Regarding GE] “We’ve moved all the appliance production from Mexico and other countries back to Kentucky. A combination of the new manufacturing technologies plus better labor management relationships are going to open up another era of competitiveness for the United States.”

I think owning your own supply chain is a huge competitive advantage. The era of inexpensive labor is basically over. Today it’s all about markets. Being infront of your customer, having short cycle times, better speed, that’s what wins. Chasing low cost labor is yesterdays playbook.”

Toward the last quarter of the keynote, Marc Benioff directed the conversation to the topic of the environment by stating a big issue on everyone’s mind is the topic of global warming.

Jeff Immelt:

On the topic of Green Technology:

Jeff Immelt:

“We invest more now in Ecomagination than we did before. We think over the long term this is a winner and we are long term players. Innovation is the power.

Entrepreneurship is the power. Identify the need, create one or two market mechanisms in between, let’s go!”

Directing the question to Jeff Immelt, Chairman of The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Benioff asked, “What does the evolution of the economy look like?

Jeff Immelt:

“The U.S. can completely own its energy future - it will be the shame of a lifetime if we don’t do it.

This great resource that we have, I view it as a national strength, a job creator and an economic driver for the next decade.”

(Source: dreamforce.com)

As Rio+20 quickly approaches, the Colbert Report shed some light on global warming. According to NOAA measurements, in May, the carbon cycle reached a new alarming ‘milestone’: CO2 levels reached 400 parts per million in Arctic sites. This increase is in contrast to global averages of 390 ppm last year, and 280 ppm preceding the Industrial Age in 1880. 

Colbert provides a satirical take on our latest benchmark by coining the skit: “Sink or Swim”. Here’s what Stephen Colbert had to say about it: “What does 400 parts per million mean? Air has two parts: the breathy one and the part that makes balloons go up.” 

Watch more of Colbert’s take on global warming below. 

On May 5th, we are invited to Connect the Dots between the rise in weather related catastrophes and climate change. This day serves as a ‘wake-up call’ for everyone to stand in solidarity with the communities in the front lines who have experienced the severe floods, droughts and storms that are no longer a prediction of the effects of Global Warming, but are now a reality.   

The risks of climate change have been categorized into five “reasons for concern” by the International Panel of Climate Concern (IPCC). These are described as:

- threats to endangered species and unique systems

- damages from frequent and extreme climate events

- a global distribution of effects that fall most heavily on developing countries and the poor within countries

- global aggregate impacts (reflecting the various measurements of total social, economic and ecological impacts)

- large-scale high-impact events

(Source: tradepal.com)