thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

Since the global financial crisis (GFC) started in 2008 (or was it ’07) it has become more obvious that business as usual is one of the first casualties.

Some of us have been working on more sustainable business ideas as it has been clear for a long time that the “growth at all costs” mantra has run out of room. Looking back over this blog it has become a recurring topic as various economic, social and cultural indicators have started to redline.

However it takes a long time to change the culture around many of these driving ideas and so the GFC in many respects is now acting as a kind of circuit breaker to make businesses and consumers rethink out attitudes to all kinds of resources and business activities.

It is pleasing to see more sustainability projects gaining momentum. In the words of the Sustainable Future Institute project 2058

“The world is changing and, as New Zealanders, we need to think about what this means for us and our future.

Often strategic thinking only occurs in terms of the three-year election cycle, but this does not prepare us well for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Promoting long-term thinking, leadership and capacity-building to manage an uncertain future is critical.

To help address these challenges and opportunities the Sustainable Future Institute is developing a vision of what a sustainable New Zealand may look like in the year 2058 and an overarching strategy to reach this vision – this is known as Project 2058.”

The italics and bolding above are mine but I certainly agree that we need to take a longer term view on all kinds of projects. In my neighbourhood I’d like to give a great big hat tip to GreyLynn 2030 which is part of the transition towns movement.

Some of you know that from August this year I have been lecturing part time on digital marketing at Unitec. It has been a great pleasure to be part of a 50 person cohort of students from NZ and many from overseas who are looking at business futures with fresh eyes.

In reading essays and assignments on future business from the students it has become apparent that many of us are unclear on where NZ makes its money and where our economic future lies.

We also just had an election campaign that was knee deep in platitudes and backslapping from a presidential style beauty contest. No surprise to see that the best looking pony won but the prime Minister is in lala land is he thinks an increase of 2-3% of votes is really a mandate for asset stripping and idealogy driven changes to education.

The Greens have won 14 seats and in some electorates got more than 20% of the vote. The National Party will ignore that at their peril. The rise of the Green party and what it represents is far more significant that any other demographic changes in the last election.

From the official results it is also clear that voter disillusionment with the parliamentary process is at an all time high for something like 1m voters not bothering to vote at all.

• The number of seats in Parliament will be 121.
• The National Party has lost one list seat compared to election night, and now has 59 seats in total.
• The Green Party has gained one list seat compared to election night, and now has 14 seats in total.

What we need now is for citizens to really examine some of the myths around the NZ economic and business future from a factual basis.

New Zealand is in a global economy and we need to rethink where our investments of time and resources go in the future. We need to build a more sustaining business culture that recognises that the same old, same old isn’t going to work.

The presentation by Sir Paul Callaghan offers some ideas for a way forward -(see video above) or link here if that embed doesn’t work  We need more innovation and smarter use of technology in business. We also need to stop perpetuating some of the old myths about NZ business and stop throwing good $ after bad.

It is time to look part the political posturing of yesterdays men ( politicians that is you) who are still thinking short term for the most part. Last week I was delighted to have a look around Fisher & Paykel Healthcare which is a $500m company that New Zealand needs more of.

It is time to reframe the debate and understand where NZ has real competitive advantage come from. Lets go there instead of leaving it to commodities markets and bankers who really are still stuck in a zero sum game. Time to remap and reinvent the future.

The other week I was dropping a neighbours kid home from an after school programme. He asked me why my car wasn’t a flash new one.

I wanted to say that I’m trying to reduce the size of my carbon footprint and I’m hoping this is the last petrol powered car I will ever own – but that seemed like wishful thinking.

However this week there was a new video release from TED’09 of a bold new plan for electric cars. What is intriguing and significant is that the car industry themselves could miss this new direction (with some notable exceptions.)

Only yesterday I was reading about how Holden in Australia could be the first local car industry to go bust.

”Australia’s car plants are losing money faster than a drunk at a casino and there’s no feasible way of turning this around.

”The Australian car industry can re-focus on small cars, green cars, blue cars or red cars. None of this will make the slightest difference.”

Mr Clive Matthew-Wilson (NZ) believes the government money would have been better spent by giving it to the affected car workers

I wondered what would happen if AU car industry started putting electric motors into their cars but the view seems to be that globalisation of manufacturing costs just makes Australia non-competitive.

I’d still think that higher tech approach for electric cars is worth pursuing and maybe Renault and Holden should be talking?

 In fact Australia is part of the Better Place electric car project already. The car 2.0 is avery bold plan for Australia that will make a difference. Obviously Clive missed all the news about Better Place in Australia.

Shai Agassi’s  plan offers a huge ray of hope for the future of modern civilisation and energy futures generally.

What I love about this story is that the innovation happens around the business model. That is: separating the batteries from the cars in terms of the overall cost model.

Shais thinking is bold and clear and his actions have prompted backing from governments who can see the future. Check Shai s background here. A very impressive career at SAP prior to his Better Place project.

New Zealand Transportation policy is firmly oriented towards supporting electric cars. To quote from some of that report.

5% market share (for electric cars) is way too conservative and NZ has an opportunity to do better. We have one of the cleanest electricity generation systems in the world.  We should be on the phone to Mr Agassi  ASAP.

“Major vehicle manufacturers (17) recently made a commitment to commercially develop electric cars, with reports suggesting that these may be available from as early as 2010. Our scenario assumes electric vehicle sales reach five per cent of market share in 2020, followed by a period of rapid growth that reaches a plateau of 60 per cent by 2040. “

However the practicalities and other logistics of the cars have been difficult until this project.

“Shai Agassi wants to put you behind the wheel of an electric car — but he doesn’t want you to sacrifice convenience (or cash) to do it.

When horrific climate-change scenarios elicit little but endless chatter from governments and entrenched special interests, the difference between talk and action represent an embarrassing gulf. Meet Shai Agassi, who has stepped fearlessly into that gap. His approach to solving the puzzle of electric automobiles could spark nothing short of an automotive revolution.

Agassi stunned the software industry in 2007 by resigning from SAP to focus on his vision for breaking the world’s fossil-fuel habit, a cause he had championed since his fuse was lit at a Young Global Leaders conference in 2005. Through his enthusiastic persistence, Agassi’s startup Better Place has signed up some impressive partners — including Nissan-Renault and the countries of Israel and Denmark.

“Shai Agassi has only one car, no charging stations, and not a single customer—yet everyone who meets him already believes he can see the future.” – Wired”

Here is the best video you will see ever on the future of electric cars.

The NZ government should be rolling out the red carpet for Shai. More background on Shai’s plan.

So will we get electric cars anytime soon?

I’m much more hopeful than before. We need to look at energy futures much more seriously than we have been doing and Shai’s vision is a very good place to start.

By the time this comes out I should be in the wilds of Central Otago or Dunedin. One of the joys of being online is that you can remote link from almost anywhere. (The local internet guy has gone whitebait fishing! so access is somewhat limited though.)

It is school holidays again and time to visit family and recharge the batteries 1000km to the South. It is also a great time to catch up on the reading.

These quotes from The Necessary Revolution: Creating a Sustainable Future by Peter Senge and Bryan Smith (download the summary PDF here.) caught my eye. Plenty to think about.

“The Industrial Era is ending.

Its extraordinary successes–advances in literacy, life expectancy, human rights, and technology–have propelled us headlong into a myriad of side effects: food and water shortages, cyclonic destruction, prolonged drought and rising sea levels.

To delay acknowledging the need for lifestyle and business changes–’The Necessary Revolution’–risks our very survival.

What only a couple of decades ago was still a vigorous scientific debate has become as close to a consensus as scientific communities ever achieve: human-induced climate change from greenhouse gases concentrating in the atmosphere has reached a threshold of significant social and economic impact–and we are only now at the start of experiencing the effects.

Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide will require a profound reversal: a 60-80% reduction in growing worldwide emissions in the next twenty years.

This is the ’80-20 Challenge,’ and this manifesto presents inspiring, real-life examples of how this is starting to happen.”….

“No one had a master plan for the Industrial Revolution; no ministry was put in charge; no single business led the way. Rather, countless acts of initiative and daring created a critical mass of unstoppable changes. So it must be with the next epoch.

What would an economy look like that, in Buckminster Fuller’s words, operated entirely on “our energy income rather than our energy capital?” Or that generated no waste, where “all waste equals food for another system,” as green designers William McDonough and Michael Braungart put it?

Or one in which Marshall McLuhan’s image of the “global village” was not merely a clever metaphor, but part of our conscious understanding of a world of ever greater interdependence—where none of us is secure if all of us are not secure?

But there are two big differences from earlier times of profound change:

• Today, these changes are happening around the world, as new ideas and innovation spread rapidly from one place and one system to another.
• Nature has provided us with a time clock in the form of rising levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

Thanks to ChangeThis for making them available. Feel free to download the 23 page Creative Commons based PDF to review this discussion and see where you might join the debate / do your bit.

In New Zealand you might like to check out the Sustainable Business Network.

Over to you?

Related articles

• Quote of the Day: Michael Braungart on Population
• We’ve Been Changing the Climate for Eons, and That’s Reason for Hope
• Cradle to Cradle: Design for the FutureEmail from 6.19.08

Update: Andy Lark added a diagram from the bookover here