Going all-out on Sustainability

In line with the theme this term of just getting out and doing it - the home furnishings company Ikea is an example of just that. Sure they are not perfect, nor would they claim to be, but Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer at Ikea, talks about his role in in the company driving them forward in sustainability.  They have made some pretty big gains and drawn some pretty clear lines in the sand.  

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Have a listen to the short talk, its only 13 minutes - so watch it while you are doing the dishes or something!  Its time well spent.  

Steve Howard: Let's go all-in on selling sustainability

Now that you have been inspired, have a think about what your business or industry can do to make some gains in improving sustainability - both financial, social, and environmental. 

I'll get you started:
Energy - How do your buildings perform? Are they insulated? What heating do you use? Is there double glazing? What about lighting - do you have energy efficient bulbs? Some simple building changes could reduce your energy bill.  Record what it is now (your energy bill will tell you monthly units of energy used over the past 12 months).  Look for areas of inefficiency and fix them and see what happens in the next month comparative with the same month the previous year.     Replace you appliances with energy efficient ones and ensure their placement in the building is not making them have to work harder - like fridges in direct sunlight!  Watch your energy bills go down and each month do something else.  This list is not exclusive.  Simple actions like maintaining a drier, warmer building are better for the environment, better for staff health, and better for the bottom line in ways such as energy costs and reduced sick days. 

Staff well-being - Do you listen to your staff (or are you listened to as an employee)? Are there regular staff meetings where all input is valued? Are staff given responsibility and trusted? Are there adequate down times in each day for people to recharge?  What changes could be made to make staff feel more included and valuable to the team?  Most of the time its not simply an increased pay rate!  

Disinfectants - Have you audited the disinfectant you use?  Does it have zero effect on the environment? Is the company that produces it looking after their staff? Is it safe for your staff to handle every day? Are there toxic by-products produced when it is made?  Make sure you can satisfy yourself that you are using the best disinfectant with the lowest impact on the environment. 

There are many other areas that can be looked at to improve sustainable practices in your business, workplace, home and community. If you are not the boss and want to get traction on a project in your workplace - start with a project that will save the boss money!  An energy audit would be a good place to start.  Simply showing that you can spend a little to save a lot could be all that's needed to get them on board.  Once implemented, your successful project will provide  traction for other projects that may not affect the bottom line but instead will reduce environmental impacts. 

Take a moment to comment below on some ideas that you have. I look forward to hearing what projects you are putting in place.  

Have a great week.  

The Story of Stuff - working on solutions

You will have hopefully all seen the original Story of Stuff videos, showing how our systems are causing problems. Now they are producing videos that are looking at focusing on solutions.  This video outlines in very simple terms what it takes for change.  Its 6 minutes well worth viewing. Click here to view the new video.

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Can we see this sort of change already happening? 

I think we can, and this will only increase.  All over the place you can see citizens mobilising to grow their own food in food forests (check out this website as an example), we can see the Student Volunteer Army originally in Christchurch but now with branches nationwide, we can see the Gapfiller project and the Ministry of Awesome also at work in Christchurch.  These are all citizens mobilising and taking action. 

In "The Press" on Saturday 28th September 2013, there was a fascinating article by John McCrone called "Game Changer"  about how local councils are changing from a corporate style to organisations that consult with, and consider what the people want. This is all happening due to the explosion of social media.  The article was absolutely inspiring and offers hope for the next term of local councils if those elected buy into that. 

What other examples of active change have you seen recently?  Please share them!

Amazing technology - does this have the potential to be the answer?

Does this amazing technology hold the answer to our future? If it does, how much will it affect the environmental impact of our primary industries? 

The TedTalks I have linked below show case some amazing new technologies that make it possible to reproduce the qualities of leather and meat in a test tube and to use viruses to create batteries.  The first talk really makes you think about the potential future changes in primary industries.  The second shows the potential of nature to produce things we are currently producing while potentially destroying nature.  

• Andras Forgacs: Leather and meat without killing animals
• Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries

After viewing these - all I could think of was - WOW. Science has come along way since I was at university.  I challenge you to think about how wide-scale use of this lower-impact technology could affect the New Zealand environment and economy  considering that we currently rely strongly on primary industry to make export dollars.

I look forward to your thoughts.

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Business and social responsibility

This week I wanted to blog on social responsibility.  When we think about sustainability we often think about things like: Is it organic? Can we recycle it? Where did it come from (in terms of travel miles)? How much waste was created producing it? However, what is equally important is the human side.  Does the product come from a business that shows social responsibility? Does the business look after their staff and allow them to meet the
9 fundamental human needs by Max Neef? Does it exhibit other social responsibilities like volunteering, charity support and philanthropy?    Equally important to this, is that the business you work in/on/for or own also has this strong sense of social responsibility.  

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This link shows a short video clip of the slave labour often employed in food production.  Its based in USA but when I think of New Zealand, unless things have changed drastically from the 1990's when I last had any primary contact with this industry, it may be not so different here. Clothing production worldwide will be similar.  

Now I know you are wondering what this has to do with the Animal Care Industry.  Well many of our products are imported from overseas where we have little idea of the production company and their practices around human resource management.  What I am suggesting is that it is time we found out by starting to ask questions.  

Food for thought?  I look forward to your comments.

Where have all the bees gone?

Being a keen gardener, I have often asked myself this very question.  As a child I can remember our garden being full of bees, now I rarely see a honey bee.  I still see bumble bees but I'm not sure there are enough to complete the pollination required for my garden. 

So when I stumbled across this TEDTalk it answered lots of questions (and confirmed some suspicions). 

Marla Spivak: Why bees are disappearing

All is not lost - if we all do our bit to plant bee-attractive gardens and hedgerows, the bees will come back. 

Let me know what you think.  Do you have many bees? If you do, what do you have in your garden to attract them? 

I look forward to your comments.

The recent windy weather front

Last week's weather front brought tremendous winds which has created havoc for many.  Many consumers were without power for a week. Its at times like these we realise how much we rely on electricity.  

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What relevance does the weather have to this blog?

Well with the current changing weather patterns we can expect more freak weather storms like this.  So we have to start asking how we maintain power so our home or workplace can keep functioning.  The mind set of relying on the power provider is not going to work long term because eventually the problem has the potential to become too big. Just consider the losses to a business from 1 week closure, yet alone longer.  Insurance may cover it but eventually insurance premiums will rise out of the reach of many. 

Important questions for all homeowners and business owners to ask themselves are:

1. How long can I survive without power - at home, in my workplace?
2. What losses will I incur in a time without power? Am I am prepared to take those losses?
3. What changes to my power supply can I make which will allow me to be self sufficient all the time or at least in the event of mother nature intervening?
4. Is my alternative source of power sustainable long term? e.g. is it from an infinite resource and will it survive wild winds and earthquakes? 

I look forward to your thoughts on this.

Why is there concern about urban sprawl?

This article appeared in the Christchurch Press this week.  It is a perspective article discussing something we hear a lot about but often feel powerless to do anything to address the problem - I'm guessing this is partly because of our own 'quarter acre of paradise' upbringing and our wish to replicate this. 

The experts tell us that pushing the city boundaries further out from the town centre is a bad move.  Then they go on to tell us how we should be living in well designed apartments closer to the city centre with communal areas outside for gardens.  The argument sounds very sound and it is easy to go yeah we should do that BUT urban sprawl continues and kiwis want someone else to live in the apartment while they continue to live in large houses with back yards.  The ironic thing is that when you look at nearly every new subdivision popping up around the city, the houses are large and the sections are small (ranging in size from around 400m2 to 800m2). So what we in effect have is a big house with a fence around it and very little viable area to garden or play.  Each of these new subdivision has a entry area with a wall or fence with the name inscribed on it.  The residents enter the subdivision, in their car, drive into their garage and close the door.  Inside they stay because there is no communal outside area. They stay inside engaging with their computers and TVs, out of touch with the neighbourhood around them. These are broad generalizations but you get the gist. 

Not all people are happy living in apartments, and the current subdivision trend isn't meeting the dream for the quarter acre paradise. Many people are generally unhappier in today's urban sprawl and my theory is that it is due to a lack of meaningful interactions. Perhaps we need to stop looking at our old expectations or what other countries are doing and look instead at how we can design a modern living space for a number of people that allows everyone access to the kiwi dream while also promoting community interaction as well as personal and social productivity.  In the future, travel will be more expensive so if people work in an urban sprawl they will need to be able to also live in that area so accessing food locally will be more important than ever. And then of course power - lets be brave and make solar power the only way to access power in these new developments.

Imagine a subdivision where a number of houses all looked over a green space which had multiple uses - the perimeter had fruit and nut trees, a community garden, free-ranging hens where the residents can collect eggs, an area to play ball sports, picnic tables and swales to collect water overflow after rain, yet each of these houses also had their own space for a private entertaining as well.  These houses could be 2-storey, to maximise land use, all could have photo-voltaic panels, water storage tanks and composting toilets.  The kitchen /dining area would be designed to look over the common green space so people could see who was out and about and go out and join in.  Perhaps there could be an office pod, so even if you work from home, you could go to the pod and join others working from home.  The next step to this is of course more radical ideas, like car sharing in these subdivisions distant from the city.

What is to become of the city centre? Well there will always be a core of people, that love the European lifestyle, who will take to that and feed the city centre making it attractive and different so it becomes a place to visit too. 

So, what on earth has all this got to do with veterinary clinics?  Well part of designing these communities we need to consider the core service providers. In this community, perhaps 1 or 2 vets, doctors, dentists (with their support staff) set up a GP style business in each of these areas (another way the community can 'live, work and play' in the same area).  These service providers could offer the basics and a transport service to a central hub for more complex procedures (e.g. large human hospital , or a central large referral hospital for vets).   In some ways, this type of set-up gets back to the community health professional model of years a go when everyone knew the local veterinarian and his or her support staff and they were a pillar of the community.   

What do you think?  Does this model provide a sustainable solution to urban sprawl?  Do we need to go European or do we go for a kiwi approach to sustainable living?  What would your vision be for a kiwi approach to sustainable living?  How do we integrate sustainable veterinary professional services into that vision

I look forward to your ideas and feedback.