Gil Friend: Sustainability

This blog has moved.

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:37:31 GMT

I've moved my blog to http://blogs.natlogic.com/friend The new site is still a work in progress, as I figure out all the bells, whistles and chicklets to deploy. So please, come visit, make suggestions, update your blogroll links, redirect your feed subscriptions - and send your friends! Thanks for reading, Gil

Minding your Ps and Qs

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 07:28:25 GMT

The Ps? BP, and now HP.

The Qs? What are these people thinking? Why is this so hard?

Whatever happened to those simple ethical rules:
- What would happen if everyone did it?
- What would your mother think?

Forward looking ethical corporations, socially responsible corporations and all that are worthy commitments, but hey, folks, everything -- whether in business or in life -- starts with the fundamentals. No shortcuts.

"Measuring What Matters" webinars

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:56:05 GMT

(Time for a little shameless self-promotion.) "Measuring What Matters" webinars
Using sustainability indicators to track and drive better performance
August 21, 2006, 12:00-1:00pm Pacific / August 29, 2006, 10:00a-11:00am Pacific

Program Summary
In response to popular demand, Natural Logic will begin offering a series of webinars, to deliver more information, to more people, with less carbon footprint! First up: "Measuring What Matters." Everyone knows that what gets measured gets done. But how do you make sense of the growing mix of sustainability indicators, metrics, and KPIs that are such an essential part of sustainability reporting? How do you select powerful measures˜and compelling goals-- that help track and drive better decisions, and better performance? And how do you actually put those measures to work for your organization: supporting strategy, implementation, and results? Logistics
Monday, August 21, 2006
12:00pm to 1:00pm Pacific (3:00pm - 4:00pm Eastern)
or
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
10:00am to 11:00am Pacific (1:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern)
(Check your own time zone)) Price: $149 Satisfaction guaranteed: We're so confident you'll get what you want from this webinar that we'll refund your full fee if you're not satisfied. It's risk-free. Register now using this link, or paste this URL into your browser: http://www.meetingbridge.com/seminar/?9025596

Details
This webinar is designed for people and organizations who have been grappling with the challenge of integrating sustainability into day-to-day work throughout their organization. Bring your specific issues and challenges for discussion. Measuring What Matters will cover
- How and when to set powerful goals
- How to select relevant metrics for every level and purpose
- How to manage the nuts & bolts of managing metrics:
collecting, analyzing and deploying performance indicators This webinar is based on Natural Logic's popular day-long workshop: "Measuring What Matters: Tools for Assessing Progress towards Sustainability" Some representative comments:
- "Excellent!"
- "Informative and inspiring."
- "I'll be able to use the info to review our divisions' performance measures."
- "The most valuable sustainability workshop I've been to." Webinar leader
Gil Friend, founder, president and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc., is a systems ecologist and business strategist with 35 years experience in business development and environmental innovation -- and inventor of the Business Metabolics™ key performance indicator (KPI) system. He authors The New Bottom Line, an internationally distributed column offering strategic perspectives on business and environment, and writes and speaks worldwide on business, environment, and resource policy issues. Natural Logic
Natural Logic provides strategic, analytic and management services, supported by proprietary protocols and tools, that build our customers' profit, resilience and competitive advantage through exceptional environmental performance. Our strategic assessments evaluate your company's aspirations, processes and productivity, identify opportunities to recover the lost profit embedded in "waste" of all kinds, and uncover your hidden profit potential. Our design, training, implementation and monitoring services help you put the "how" into practice. Natural Logic. Sustainable performance you can take to the bank.™ Questions?
If you have questions, or to schedule the full, day-long Measuring What Matters workshop for your organization, call 1-877-628-5644 (outside the US call +1-510-849-5467) or email measures at natlogic dot com We look forward to seeing you on line!

My head. It's talking

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 21:59:42 GMT

Deborah Streeter's extended interview with me at the NCIIA conference in March 2006 is now posted at the Cornell University eClips web site. (You get a collection of thematic clips, as well as transcripts.)

I haven't watched them all yet, but my favorite so far is this one, on the strategic importance of aiming ahead of the trend. (I'm sure there's a way to enclose the video right here, but I don't know what it is.)

I've got more video coming in, from various recent presentations (including -- for something completely different -- Green Festival) -- and I've added "Build a demo reel" to my GTD list. (Helpers welcome. ;-)

Climate Haiku!

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 20:00:23 GMT

From the impressive Sonoma County (CA) Climate Protection Campaign: climate crisis haiku! A few samples: A frog in water
Doesn't feel it boil in time.
Dude, we are that frog.
[~]Haiku Hullabaloo winner,
Grist Magazine, July 2004 and Reduce by one fifth
First step to protect climate
Together no sweat
[~]Merrilyn Joyce, 9/23/03 and CO2 haiku
Is not so easy to do
I'm getting hot now
[~]Doron Amiran

Quote of the Day

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:57:49 GMT

Sez Gary Liss, Mr. Zero Waste:

If you're not for zero waste, how much waste are you for?

Nice, eh? (Disclosure: Natural Logic is working with Gary on the Zero Waste Plan for Palo Alto CA, as as the California Sustainable Business Council.)

Greenlight Essay Contest

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:48:55 GMT

From GreenLAgirl, via GreenBusiness.net:

The Greenlight Greenliving Essay Contest wants you to write a 500-word (or less) essay about how you'd renovate your home to make it environmentally friendly.Entries are due July 20, 2006. The winner gets $2,500. Sez the website: Think as big or small as you want. Be creative and original!

(Greenlight is apparently a direct-to-consumer mortgage lender, FYI)

CSR reports 'trivial'?

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:51:40 GMT

[Sunday Herald (Scotland)]:

Attempts by multinational corporations to talk up their social and environmental responsibility are so threadbare and misleading that they are preventing progress towards a sustainable future. That is the conclusion of a trenchant new study by one of the Scottish Executive[base ']s leading environmental advisers, Jan Bebbington, a professor of accounting at St Andrews University.

The article is light on details, though, and I haven't yet been able to find the original report.

Feedback & regulatory reform

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:16:49 GMT

Speaking of MSWG, I'll be speaking at their conference later this morning, together with client Carol Kraege of Washington Ecology, about finding new sources of business value through innovative approaches to regulation. Specifically, we'll talk about the recent pilot project we conducted with them, exploring how comparative benchmarking of environmental footprints in the pulp and paper industry -- performance feedback -- can drive better performance, and more streamlined regulatory approaches.

We don' need to steenkin' science

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:12:36 GMT

Apparently not. I'm in Park City Utah today, for the Multi-State Working Group annual workshop. Salt Lake City Mayor, Rocky Anderson is giving the morning keynote, describing a surprisingly Salt Lake City Green program; they're not on the SustainLane list, which rates only the 50 largest US cities, but they have met their 2012 Kyoto target six years early, so snaps on them! When he heard that Senator Oren Hatch said that 'the science of global warming is more like science fiction,' Anderson called him and asked 'Oren, what have you read about this?' Sen. Hatch's answer: Michael Crichton's book, State of Fear! 'That's fiction, Oren,' Anderson said, 'you might want to read some of the science.' There you go.

Gore on King

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 05:06:38 GMT

Terry Gips of Alliance for Sustainability in Minneapolis offers this heads up:

Al Gore will be discussing Inconvenient Truth and Global Warming on Larry King Live tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 8 pm.

(And Ann Coulter tonight, if you can possibly stand it!)

If you haven't seen it (Inconvenient Truth, not Coulter), see it now. It's important. College Republican shenanigans notwithstanding.

Cool beans

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:54:34 GMT

Lots of new releases geospatial releases from Google today:

. Satellite imagery update:
. New version of Google Earth:
. Google SketchUp with textured buildings:
. Updates to Google Maps and the Google Maps API, including
. Google Maps API, and KML for Google Maps
. Google Maps for Enterprise

Google Earth is available at http://earth.google.com/. The Google Maps API
is available at http://www.google.com/apis/maps/.

MashUp Showcase at Where2.0

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:25:25 GMT

Coming to you today from Google's GeoDeveloper Day -- the pre-event to the Where 2.0 conference tomorrow and Wednesday. Stay tuned for details -- unless I get so engroessed I forget to blog -- and most likely for a longer piece soon on WorldChanging.

The Google and event focus: looking at the intersection of "search, maps and geolocation."

My focus: the intersection of that with sustainability -- and sustainable business -- opportunities. And in particular, the intersection of place information and flow information and both businesses and communities.

Larry: "Since you can't be in more than one place at a time, these tecchnologies enable you to act as if you are."

Stats:
GoogleEarth developers: 30,000
GoogleEarth downloads: 100,000,000 unique individuals

News: GoogleEarth 4 released today (Beta), simultaneously Windows/Mac/Linux

On to the "mashup and KML showcase"!

More inconvenient truth

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:57:39 GMT

Al Gore's climate crisis film, 'An Inconvenient Truth', opens in the Bay Ares this week. Maybe we'll see you at the afterparty. Meanwhile, truth is apparently inconvenient for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Remember their 'carbon is life' ad campaign that I wrote about a few days ago? Well, FactCheck.org tells us that

The ads drew a protest from a University of Missouri professor who says they are 'a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate.' He said one of them misuses a study he published in Science magazine last year on the Antarctic ice sheet. An editor of Science also said the ads misrepresent the findings of that study as well as a second study on Greenland's glaciers.

Lots of detail here, folks about gross and subtle media manipulation, and distortion of science. That said, I must say that I don't share the upset of folks about CEI's corporate funders. Lots of companies fund lots of think tanks that fund lots of things. What I find striking here is this:

Just over 9 per cent [of CEI's funding] came from donations from ExxonMobil... which said two-thirds of their donation was earmarked for 'Global Climate Change and Global Climate Change Outreach.'

Like Ben Bradleee said...

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:25:59 GMT

[Bollix! I goobered up the html on this. Fixing it now...] SustainLane released their second 'sustainable cities' rating this week, with plenty of media and some show and tell as the US Conference of Mayors conference in Las Vegas (which for some reason ranks #27 on the list). The top 10: Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, Oakland (yay!), New York, Boston, Denver and Minneapolis. Big difference: Last year they selected the 25 best cities; this year they ranked the 25 largest, so it's difficult to compare progres year to year. Big downside: by focusing on the biggest cities, plenty of leaders and innovators were left out -- including long-time Natural Logic client Berkeley CA (rated #3 last overall year). So it's important to be clear exactly what's being companred, and what's not. Treehuger had some questions in that regard: Once we got past the top three, we began to do a little head-scratching. Top 10 cities Philadelphia and New York made another top 10 list this year: the top 10 most polluted cities as ranked by the American Lung Association. In the next tier, we found that Albuquerque, Tuscon, Phoenix and Los Angeles all made the top 25, and Las Vegas was close behind at #27. Given all of these cities' reputations for massive amounts of sprawl and water consumption, their placement seemed... well... interesting. Looking at SustainLane's very thorough overview of its methodology gave us a better sense of how and why some cities fared as well as they did. And they had some useful critique of the SustainLane methodology:

[O]ne of the survey's primary methodological criterion was 'Data or information sets that would be of relatively equal importance to cities across the United States. For example, water conservation programs were not included because they would be much more important for a desert city in the Southwest than for a city with a plentiful water supply.' While this makes for a much cleaner comparison between urban centers, it also ignores one of the fundamental tenets of sustainable development: adapting to the natural environment as it is.

OTOH, I think the folks at Treehugger missed an important point with this observation:

Perhaps it's not even necessary to rank cities, but to simply recognize those taking genuinely sustainable steps forward.

Of course it's not necessary, but it sure can be useful. Rankings like this fuel the competitive spirit of mayors and other elected officials, who then start asking their staffs 'Why aren't we doing better?' and potentially kick more into action. That's been our experience (with cities like Berkeley, Albuquerque -- a recent client, ranked #17 this year -- and others). And that's why we've formed a strategic alliance with SustainLane: they'll focus on ranking cities, and we'll work with cities to help improve and deepen their sustainability initiatives, reduce their footprints, and raise their rankings. Give me a holler if you'd like more details. (BTW, Karen Seeh for this one:

However destructive may be the policies of the government and the methods and products of the corporations, the root of the problem is always found to be found in private life. We must learn to see that every problem that concerns us as conservationists always leads straight to the question of how we live. The world is being destroyed, no doubt about it, by the greed of the rich and powerful. It is also being destroyed by popular demand.

Wendell Berry, "Conservation Is Good Work," Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, 1991

Quote of the Day

Mon, 29 May 2006 06:35:16 GMT

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz musing at AlwaysOn about 'Java, and Survival of the Most Adaptable' (which has to do with much more than software).

I'm still amazed when I hear folks wondering how Sun monetizes Java. So at the risk of repetition, I'd like to share a few thoughts.

When Thomas Edison first introduced the lightbulb, he held patents he tried to wield against potential competitors - he wanted to own the client (the bulb) and the server (the dynamo). He failed. Standards emerged around voltage and plugs, and GE Energy (formerly, Edison General Electric), to this day, remains one of the most profitable and interesting businesses around. How big would the power business be today if you could only buy bulbs and appliances from one company? A far sight smaller, I'd imagine. Standards grew markets and value.

And they still can. (As long as they're designed so they don't stiffle innovation.)

We've seen the power of standards -- even voluntary ones -- in the impact that the LEED™ rating system has had on the growth of 'green building' -- and in the impact we hope to have with the development of the S-BAR 'sustainable business rating system.' (Not exactly the same sort of standards that Schwartz is discussing, but in the lineage.)

Passive Survivability

Sun, 28 May 2006 19:13:58 GMT

Building Green quotes my Sustainability -- At the Tipping Point? article in their recent posting on Passive Survivability: A New Design Criterion for Buildings. (Another aspect of future-proofing; more to come on that soon.)

Here's an excerpt:

In some ways, the failure of conventional buildings to maintain survivable conditions can be thought of as a failure of design. 'If they lose only electricity,' notes building researcher Terry Brennan, of Camroden Associates, Inc., in West-moreland, New York, 'few buildings in the U.S. can provide as much comfort as my backpacking tent; if the gas lines and water lines go, the situation is even worse.'

Some strategies for passive survivability can be found by looking back at our building heritage -- vernacular designs that were in place before electricity and readily transportable fuels became available. The wide-open and well-ventilated 'dog-trot' homes of the Deep South are examples, as are the high-mass adobe buildings of the American Southwest.

The house designs of some animals display even better examples of passive survivability....

Thanks to Arthur Young of iGreenBuild for the tip!

Convenient truths

Sat, 27 May 2006 01:57:05 GMT

Oops, I forgot the link to that NDRC climate change slide slide. And can't find it now. But there's a wealth of information at NDRC's 'global warming' FAQ page.

Inconvenient Truths

Sat, 27 May 2006 01:30:11 GMT

Al Gore's much touted movie, The Inconvenient Truth opens nationwide today, and goes wider next week. (You can see the trailer here or here.)

I haven't seen the film yet yet, but I did see Gore's live multi-media version (on which the film is based) at Stanford late last year. Besides being a tour de force of presentation skills (I left the theater thinking - like many others I spoke to - "Where was this guy when we needed him on the campaign trail in 2000?"), it was a chilling glimpse into our all too likely future. (My posse tells me the movie is a bit long, and a bit too [candidate?] Gore-focused, but still well worth seeing. See it sooner rather than later, since the early returns will guide how widely Paramount rolls it out.)

Investment executive Tom Van Dyck says:

I've seen Gore give this presentation 6 times and it is hands down one of the best I've seen on any topic, but especially Global Warming. Armed with eloquence, scientific data and humor, Gore decisively settles the 'debate' on global warming and connects all the challenges presented by the imminent climate crisis: rising sea levels, displaced populations, extreme weather, disease, biodiversity, agriculture, air quality, peace and security. In the end, it is a compelling call to action and you will not leave unmoved....

It is essential that as many people see it as possible-this film awakens all, regardless of political affiliation, who see it to what is really at stake.... take your skeptical family and friends with you who have bought into the rhetoric that Global Warming is a 'theory'.

As we enter a carbon constrained economy those management teams that are more aware of this reality will be better situated to take advantage of opportunities in their businesses and deliver more value to their shareholders than management teams blinded to the reality of global warming. The most obvious example is Toyota vs GM and Ford. Many other examples will develop over the next decade that will reward those who have a vision of environmental responsibility and best business practices.

As if that wasn't enough, we saw NRDC's global warming opus (a mere PowerPoint deck) at Googleplex a few months ago. It was that very much of the content surprised me -- it didn't -- but seeing the whole case carefully assembled and hammered home shook even my sometimes jaded self to the core.

Two immediate impacts for me: 1) looking more deeply at my family's personal choices and carbon footprint (all too easily overlooked as I spend my days giving advice to others); 2) talking more with our clients, their CxOs, and their boards about the risks -- and fiduciary duty implications -- of willful neglect of these trends, and the opportunities -- and future-proofing potential -- of engaging them responsibly, aggressively -- and right now.

In related news, our friends at Worldchanging have declared -- in response to climate-skeptic comment postings -- that the debate is over. (Hey, even George Bush agrees... sorta.)

Indeed, it is precisely because the climate crisis is so profound that we need to encourage the American debate on the subject to move on, finally and for good, and start to focusing on how to build a bright green future as quickly as possible. The science, after all, is pretty unequivocal at this point. Indeed, essentially the last remaining credible skeptic, Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer announced this month that, despite his dislike for environmental groups,
[D]ata trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic climate change. ... Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
In other words, the debate is over. It's just over. Climate change is here, it's scarier than we thought, we're causing it, and (especially in combination with other large-scale environmental and social problems) it's going to demand radical innovation and major reforms.
But how do we get the word out to a wider audience?

And bless their creative little worldchanging hearts, they're working on just that:

As we work to prepare a first draft of the "Universal Climate Skeptic Response Post" -- a single-page resource explaining why the debate on the need for action in response to climate change is over -- we are also looking create some compelling visuals bearing the same message. Indeed, this is our first design competition.

(In lighter climate news, Ideal Bite's excited about Hollywood's embrace of the climate change issue (and the industry's abilty to move a message can help move minds). OTOH, others wonder about the net carbon impact of stars showing up for the Oscars in electric cars but still flying between megahomes in private jets....)

CO2: We call it life

Fri, 19 May 2006 00:51:24 GMT

Here's an amazing example of what the mind of a skilled propagandist can produce: Two 60-second television spots from the Competitive Enterprise Institute 'focusing on the alleged global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use.'

Carbon Dioxide: It's what we breathe out, and what plants breathe in. They call it pollution. We call it life.

True enough, but put true statements in distorting contexts, and what do you get? Highly polished sleeze. I'm wondering who, at what agency, did the creative on these, and how well they're sleeping at night, and how well they'll sleep with seawater lapping at their feet. 'Got milk' has got nothing on these guys. Brought to you by the Let's Go To Hell In A Faster Handbasket Marketing Board.

Design Science Lab

Wed, 17 May 2006 06:47:04 GMT

'If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do, HOW WOULD I BE? WHAT WOULD I DO?' - R. Buckminster Fuller The Buckminster Fuller Intitute reoprts that details for DESIGN SCIENCE LAB 2006 are now online at:http://www.designsciencelab.org/newyork.php (June 21-30) and http://www.designsciencelab.org/asheville.php (July 19-28)

The Design Science Lab offers a unique inter-generational, intense, and collaborative environment in which participants develop solutions to global and local problems using present day technology and known resources--'doing more with less'. The program features hands-on training experience in complex problem solving, employing an approach pioneered by R. Buckminster Fuller called comprehensive anticipatory design science.

Consider this a recommendation. I cut my teeth on Bucky's 'World Game' -- a month-long version of this -- 30+ years ago. This 'design charrette for the planet,' as I call it, was a deep dive into both big picture systems thinking and nitty-gritty, on-the-ground data -- looking at (1) where we are as a planet, (2) where need to be for success for 100% of humanity, and (3) how we got from #1 to #2 -- reverse engineering the pathway. The clear conculsion: we could find no resource or technology barriers to planetary success, only shortages of human and political will. That set my course -- from World Game to Institute for Local Self-Reliance to Office of Appropriate Technology to Natural Logic (with a few other interesting stops along the way). There's a thread that has run through it all. More on that soon.

The blogging gap

Sat, 13 May 2006 01:43:34 GMT

... is a consequence of my travel schedule &c -- seems like I've been on the road much of the last 7 weeks. Back home and in the office now for the next few weeks before the speaking schedule cranks up again. BTW, you can also see some short clips of what I've been thinking and speaking about here at Big Picture TV.

Happy birthday - to us!

Sat, 13 May 2006 01:38:05 GMT

Natural Logic is seven years old today! It's been a sometimes challenging road, but just look at where the world has moved to in that short time Thank you for your part in our part in making that happen.

da Vinci's 7 Principles

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 06:09:37 GMT

daVinci to coolmel to Hohmann to Liebert to you:

da Vinci's 7 Principles
Curiositá - An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
Dimostrazione - A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistance, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
Sensazione - The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
Sfumato (Literally "Going up in smoke") - A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
Arte/Scienza - The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination. "Whole-Brain" thinking.
Corporalita - The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
Connessione - A recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking.
(Via coolmel)