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February 8, 2010
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February 6, 2010
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Communities that reduce CO2
January 9, 2010
MUNICIPAL LEADERS from San Francisco to Melbourne are engaging in sustainability actions from banning plastic bags and bottled water to making commitments to address climate change. But within and beyond cities, growing numbers of local communities are also going green, according to a new Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute.
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Worldwide, the 379 “ecovillages” currently registered with the Global Ecovillage Network, are sharing innovative solutions that connect residents socially while collectively lowering their ecological footprints -including local food co-ops, community-supported agriculture programs, and carpooling.
“Planned communities tend to evoke overdeveloped suburban neighborhoods and minimalls,” says Erik Assadourian, Worldwatch Research Associate and author of the Update (see sidebar). “But increasingly, planned communities will come to mean neighbors living with a purpose beyond consumerism, embracing a sustainable lifestyle and forging meaningful connections with their neighbors.”
Europe leads the world in the number of registered ecovillages, with 138, followed by North America (110), Latin America (58), Asia/Oceania (52), and Africa/Middle East (21).
Many ecovillages are reducing energy use, localizing farming, and creating more sustainable local businesses. Other environmentally minded communities, including the more than 450 “cohousing” projects found in North America and Europe, focus primarily on improving the quality of life of residents. Cohousing typically includes clusters of smaller houses with shared dining halls and other spaces, facilitating stronger social ties while reducing the material and energy needs of the community.
Even mainstream developers are pioneering green principles in their ventures. The Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED), an 82-unit housing complex in London, aims to produce as much energy as it uses through a combination of passive solar design, energy efficiency, and greater use of walking, cycling, and public transit. A resident living at BedZED – or at the Findhorn ecovillage to the north in Scotland – has just 60 percent of the ecological footprint of an average individual in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Germany’s Sieben Linden ecovillage, per capita carbon dioxide emissions are just 28 percent of the national average.
While all ecovillages and other environmentally minded communities strive toward a similar goal, the diversity among them is striking. They can be found in rural, suburban, and urban areas, and in industrialized and developing countries. Ecovillages in Mbam, Senegal; Porto Alegre, Brazil; and Munksøgård, Denmark, all contribute to the growing global movement.
These community-initiated sustainable development efforts are supported by a range of international agencies and networks. The Global Environment Facility’s COMPACT program (Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation) provides grants to communities in World Heritage Sites to improve lives and reduce ecological impacts, while The Relocalization Network supports 159 groups in 12 countries in their shift toward more local production of food, energy, and goods. In Sri Lanka, the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement helps some 15,000 villages develop under the “no poverty, no affluence” model, based on addressing basic needs while also maintaining the importance of a clean environment, well-rounded education, and spiritual sustenance.
“Many people think living in an ecovillage would be a life of sacrifice. But research shows that residents have lowered their ecological footprints and financial costs, and maintain closer bonds with their neighbors, all of which translates to a less stressed, more fulfilling lifestyle,” says Assadourian.
Julia Tier
Julia Tier is with the Marketing/Communications Office of WorldWatch Institute in Washington, D.C.
green business initiatives
January 9, 2010
When household incomes increase, the demand for environmental services (“green” products and services such as organic foods, environmentally friendly packaging, environmentally friendly production and distribution processes) increases faster than the demand for agricultural commodities. As a result, environmental management plays a larger role in the food industry. The political process responds to these demands by setting standards and developing public programs. Market participants — buyers and sellers — also respond. Consumers and investors now reward farms and agribusinesses that supply desired environmental services along with food and fiber. These market participants are turning to “green” products and the firms that produce them.
Seal Cadbury’s Fate
Scholars and managers have devoted much effort to evaluating public environmental programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), but little analysis has been directed at private agro-environmental management. The potential and limitations of private activities merit more study, especially during an administration that seems to favor voluntary and private industry actions. A lack of understanding of causes and consequences of these private efforts will hinder sound decisions about their roles in solving complex environmental problems, and failed private efforts may prompt stronger regulation. Building understanding of the different types of private environmental initiatives is a first step to using them to help achieve society’s environmental objectives of meeting growing green market demand, and avoiding unnecessary cost and regulation.
The Search for Private Green
Today’s farmers face a bewildering array of federal, state, and local environmental programs, as well as a market that is increasingly rewarding environmental quality. As the costs of participating in public programs grow, and as the market for green products expands, producers have new and increased incentives to pursue private environmental quality management initiatives.
Economic research on business environmental management (BEM) in industries outside of agriculture has grown rapidly of late. The literature identifies three types of BEM: unilateral initiatives by individual firms to control pollution or by industry groups to self-regulate, bilateral or negotiated agreements between the government and firms including a voluntary environmental target and a timetable for reaching it, and voluntary government programs to encourage individual firms (farms) to practice certain types of environmental protection.
The third approach, voluntary government programs, has been the mainstay for agriculture. However, when incentives end, environmental effort usually wanes. The potential for long-term environmental protection thus depends on continuing the public funding. Total expenditures on USDA voluntary incentive programs for soil erosion control, improved water quality, wildlife habitat, and other purposes have ranged from $3.2 billion to $3.7 billion per year in nominal terms since 1992 (Zinn).
The level of funding has declined in real terms. Congress may be unable to appropriate enough funds for incentives to satisfy the growth in the public’s demand for agro-environmental improvements. Program reforms that foster unilateral initiatives or negotiated agreements may increase the effectiveness of the remaining public funds.
In our judgment, unilateral and negotiated environmental schemes in agriculture will increase in number because of unsatisfied public demands for environmental services, along with efforts by farmers and agribusinesses to avoid more stringent regulations. Five different but related motivations for private involvement in the production of environmental services are described here.
Improving firm productivity. The creation of production and marketing systems to implement BEM can lead to the discovery of cost reductions or opportunities for new products. Firms may find cost savings from using BEM information, management systems, and production techniques. Boggess, Johns, and Meline (1998) found productivity gains for some dairy farms that adjusted to higher nutrient pollution control standards for Lake Okeechobee. The regulations encouraged these dairy farmers to adopt new production technologies that simultaneously reduced water pollution and improved net returns. Other dairy farms moved to new locations to avoid the added regulatory costs
Satisfying the demands of “green” consumers and investors. Retail products and investment funds that emphasize environmental performance are multiplying. Investments in “socially responsible” investment funds grew from $40 billion in 1984 to $2.16 trillion in 1999 (Social Investment Forum, 1999), and mainstream food retailers are beginning to stock “natural” and “organic” foods.
Preempting or mitigating future environmental regulations. The incentive to avoid government regulation may increase as public demand for an improved environment grows. However, the costs of building coalitions among diverse farming interests may restrict effective BEM initiatives in farming.
by David E. Ervin, Frank Casey
green business China
January 2, 2010
In the past week, US officials have trekked to both China and India to highlight green technologies taking root in these fast-growing economies. If Obama hopes to get the climate bill through Congress, it will help if he can show that Beijing and New Delhi are willing to play ball.
The missions haven’t gone well, though. Trade friction is emerging as a key obstacle. China and India are livid at the suggestion that the US might assign tariffs on goods imported into the US to cover the carbon contained in those goods. And while China clearly “gets” cleantech (see my recent piece in BW and similar thoughts over at the NYT’s Green Inc blog and the Washington Post) — the importance of developing its own green technologies both to clean up its energy system and to export to others — India is lagging. The rhetoric coming of out Delhi is more bluntly nationalistic and, in the long run, probably a liability its competitive race with China in developing globally competitive clean technologies. Frank Maisano, at Bracewell Giuliani, connected the dots between these trips and the larger climate push quite nicely in a recent roundup.
In China, Energy Secretary Steve Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke seemed to make important baby steps forward with agreements on building efficiency and research, but wide gaps remain on binding emissions targets and an international agreement. Of course, the entire week’s events were overtaken Friday by Locke’s comments that U.S. consumers should pay for part of Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions. Here’s the quote: “It’s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it’s our own consumption activity that’s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that.” I don’t think labor and the manufacturing concerns of many Midwestern Senators will be eased by that. Of course, Locke was busy backtracking late Friday with Commerce press staff saying he meant “fair trade.”
In India, things went even worse for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
[Officials] basically told the US to go fly at kite as to whether they would accept emissions reductions. Yesterday, during a “green office building tour” that hoped to demonstrate how India and the United States could work together to reduce climate impacts, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh complained about U.S. pressure to cut a worldwide deal on emissions reductions, turning the photo-op into policy discussion. Ramesh said that India would not commit to a deal that would require it to meet targets to reduce emissions: “India’s position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets.” Forced to retreat, Clinton said the US’s push for a binding agreement would not sacrifice India’s economic growth.
Some have observed that India’s truculance on these matters is for domestic political consumption. Given the nation’s deep-rooted traditions of self-reliance, politicians may get more bang by looking steely willed than by trying to sell the less tangible long term promises of green technology. For India, this position is short-sighted, and threatens to suffocate a key emerging technology. China is already ahead and shows every sign of moving faster into the space than even the U.S. Over at Grist.com, Anna Fahey tallies up the growing evidence that China is already leading, or is set to leapfrog the U.S. in clean energy technologies because of much deeper official support, from funding and to specific policy goals focusing on everything from renewable electricity goals to smart grid deployment.
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