Counting the cost

Puma is one of the largest business brands to date to publish the estimated cost to nature of a year's trading - which they've estimated as EUR94 million for water and CO2 and an additional EUR51million for land use, pollution and waste.

It's a bold, important move that they've taken, and one that in time, must be followed by many if not most large businesses as we start to count the true cost of living the way we do. As Wales develops the Natural Environment Framework, Accounting for Sustainability and TEEB publish their data, the legislative and operational frameworks needed to make change will become clearer, stronger and more compelling.

Tomorrow's Natural Business

Co-running Tomorrow's Natural Business at ICAEW in London, with Tomorrow's Company and Atos. Currently on is Michael Bremans, Chairman of Ecover International - currently used by around 1.2m households in the UK.

'80 - founded

'92 - first ecological factory

'93 Roll of Honour UNEP

All of these were part of the evolution of consciousness of toxicity of products on our environment, that probably started with the publishing of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in the '60s

Our work on sustainability started with our products, and we relied on our own staff. We learned the hard way about who needs to do the measurement - half of our lab staff are now biologists, and we've developed our own model as we couldn't find what we needed in the market. The Ecover Diamond model looks at:

1. Sourcing, 2. Usage, 3. Absorption 

Usage is important but 7 out of the 13 elements are part of the Absorption phase, not the other two. One key element is CDV - critical dilution volume - the theoretical minimum level to neutralise the effect of the amount of product that you've just used. A standard 60g of Ecover washing powder needs 2500 litres of water to neutralise; the standard for the European eco label it's 4500, and the standard is 10-15000 litres. 50,000 litres of water needed to neutralise one dose of shampoo, as the minimum European standard.

Fermentation using naturally occurring bacteria to create surfectants is the process we use to get the products we need. Ecover are using bottles made out of 'Plantastic' sugarcane derived PET. 

Ecover give triple travel benefits to people who travel by bike, double to those who car share. They've used social media a lot to get a voice out to the market that would have been too expensive within traditional comms channels.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future" JFK

Sunshine State of Mind

In 2007, California committed to install 3 gigawatts of solar power by the end of 2016. Halfway through that time window, the state is close to installing 1 gigawatt worth of solar panels on rooftops alone, according to a report [PDF] by nonprofit group Environment California. The rate of installation is growing exponentially too, and the state should easily meet its 3 gigawatt goal. By then, the cost of installation will have dropped so much that government subsidies for solar projects will no longer be necessary.

Via www.good.is 

Creative challenge

The team at McKinsey's MIX lab are coming up with some useful challenges, including this one - work your way through practical solutions to the following situations:

• You can only interact with your customers online
• You can only serve one type of consumer
• The price of your product is cut in half
• Your largest channel disappears overnight
• You have to charge a 5x price premium for your product
• You have to offer your value proposition with a partner company

And then, try the same with much more real, sustainability challenges:

• You have to reduce carbon emissions by 10% a year
• None of your by-product can end up in landfill
• Your business model must build community
• Biodiversity benefits from your existence
• Transparency and governance increase by an order of magnitude
• Your primary resource cost increases threefold overnight

Have fun working it out for yourself...

Final Hay on Earth short list

Projects selected for the 2011 Hay on Earth Green Dragon's Den are listed below; the Hay Festival site is buzzing and there's already a high level of excitement about the forthcoming workshops and competition. For the Green Dragon's Den entrants who didn't get through, commiserations as well as congratulations are in order as every single project submitted had clear sustainability benefits; a few lacked the spark of innovation that was needed, a few lacked the leadership asked for and a couple, racing for the extended deadline places, were simply too late to be considered.

The Welsh Government's new Minister for Environment & Sustainability, John Griffiths, visited Friday's Sustainable Development Charter workshop, and we're hoping to see him back at Hay this Friday to congratulate the winners. 

The short listed projects are:

Clever Stuff (31 May)

Sustain IT (The ARC Project)
Rebound Books (L’Arche Brecon)
Packet In (Bron Afon)
Cleanstream (Cleanstream Carpets)
The Wood Shed (Crucorney Energy Group)
Zero waste in a box (Cwm Harry Land Trust)

Food to fork (1 June)

Revolution Forks (Bridgend)
Riverside Mobile Shop (Riverside)       
Food for the Future (Blaenau Gwent)
ACE Rainwater (Ashfield Community Enterprise)
FEAST (This is Rubbish)

Home and hearth (2 June)

Low Carbon Communities (Sustainable Wales)
Informed Energy Descent (EcoBro)        
Watery Heat Snake (Llangattock Green Valleys)   
Tŷ = Welsh Tree Squared (Coed Cymru)   
The One Million Person Sharing Plan for Wales (Bid and Borrow)
                       
Connecting Communities (3 June)

Blaen Afon Flower Gardens (Bron Afon Housing Assn)     
Making Litter Pay (Llangattock Green Valleys)  
Living Diaries (Kirsty Morris)
Open Swansea (ThinkARK/Wales Coop)
Pots, tubs, troughs and tucker (Co-operative group)