Local and/or Fair trade

For our first solution-based post this year we are going to look at how purchasing local and/or fair trade products is a way to be socially sustainable. We know that production of some common products is resulting in inequitable trading standards and environmental conditions, especially overseas in developing countries.  Remember that system condition 4 is about being socially responsible.  In addition, if products are both local and fair trade, then they help us reduce reliance on oil, which is a breach of system condition 1. To review the system conditions click here. 

Otago Polytechnic as part of our goals to improve sustainable and socially equitable practices, is working towards becoming a fair trade tertiary institution. You can read the guidelines here. Your workplace could become a fair trade business too.


Switching to local/fair trade products is easy as many products are readily available. Make changes where you can by enquiring if there are any fair trade options for the products you need to purchase. Even small changes will make a difference. You might start with products such as biscuits, sugar, coffee, tea and chocolate as well as cleaning agents, and even home cosmetics, shampoo, and soaps. 

Another thing to consider is if products are free from palm oil which is frequently harvested unsustainably from tropical forests, irreversibly damaging the environment and reducing habitats for many species of animals. Some palm oil is produced from sustainable sources so it is good to check before buying. 

Finally, are the products locally produced and are they environmentally safe? Keeping these questions in mind will help you to make better decisions about what products to buy.

Where can you get fair trade/local products?
OfficeMax, which is a common supplier of office products, have listings of fair trade tea, coffee, sugar and hot chocolate. Many of your local stores also stock fair trade products. Try asking your shopkeepers to stock more fair trade products and that may cause them to start changing as well. 

To find products that are Palm oil free review this link which is a list of palm free products compiled by the Auckland Zoo. 

To focus on supporting local businesses you could consider obtaining supplies from your local wholefoods supermarket where you can reduce packaging by refilling your shampoo bottles and containers for many household cleaners. Here are some links to these in the main centres: 
Dunedin - Taste Nature 
Christchurch - Piko Wholefoods 
Auckland - Huckleberry Farms, multiple locations 
This link will help lead you to suppliers in other locations 

How do I make this change as a junior staff member?
Talk to the person ordering - explain to them the rationale.  Most people want to do the right thing and if they can see a benefit to the bottom line, they will be even more influenced to make the change.

Does this have a marketing advantage?
Yes!  If your clients are aware you are trying to make a difference then they will want to support you over a neighbouring business who isn't.  Make the change, market it on your website, advertise it in your next newsletter and put a sign up in the waiting area.

Dont forget to let us know what you are doing in your business and what difference it is making!

Next week - We look at adhering to system condition 4 in reference to the veterinary nurse and technicians.  

Have a great week!

From baseline to vision - making a plan to get to the vision.

Hopefully you have followed through the blog posts so far this year and have seen that sustainability is not all about tree hugging. If we use some of the language introduced this year, we can demonstrate how change is good not only for the environment, but also for people and the bottom line (economics). 

The way that sustainability issues are presented also is important so that people don't turn off and become disinterested. These topics can be presented in such a way that it is hard not to become engaged.  

For instance, when we started our discussions here about sustainability, we looked first at the 9 fundamental human needs and explained why it is important and gave an example of how to meet our need for sustenance (food, water and shelter we needed a healthy environment). 

We then looked at drivers of change.   We know that there are significant changing issues that drive change like increasing fuel and power prices, reduced availability of fresh water and also specific industry things like staff turnover,  inequitable wages, pressure to maintain knowledge, and comparisons with human practice.  You can review two  drivers of change funnel diagrams in this past blog post.  

Have a go at doing one for your own workplace (or community). Start by presenting irrefutable drivers of change that affect the business and then work through how each of those things can be mitigated. For example, you might think about how the business can improve its bottom line, reduce its eco footprint or improve its social well being. Thinking this way will not only improve the business's sustainability outlook, but can also create excellent marketing angles which in turn can improve the financial bottom line.

We now know that the system conditions provide a definition of sustainability,  in other words, if we adhere to these conditions, then we will be acting in a sustainable manner.  To apply this to the veterinary industry, we imagined what a veterinary practice would look like if it met these 4 system conditions.  This image below is just an example to stimulate discussion.  You might have your own ideas of what an ideal practice might look like.   

Now that we know what a vision of the sustainable future looks like, we can also use the 4 system conditions to do an audit against our current position - to provide a baseline of where we are now in a given situation - work place, home.  You can look at an example audit of the system conditions against  generic vet clinic on this prezi on slides 3-7.  Remember not all of these situations may apply to your workplace or business, for you, there may also be additional considerations.  By doing this audit you can create a list of the issues that need addressing.

If you then map these specific conditions on a graph, you can see which actions will have the highest impact and indicate where it would be most important to make a change.  This helps to prioritise which areas to focus on first.  You can choose the top 5 actions (with the highest impact and highest importance), set time frames, and take action. Involve experts if you need advice on a specific area or need someone to drive this change. Once the business is convinced of the benefits, then re-evaluate at the end of the time period, re set goals and continue the cycle.  Market what changes you are making  - declare your goals to your clients and tell then what you have achieved. This will create a marketing advantage which in itself will have economic benefits.  Remember to communicate to business owners - you need to relate everything back to the financial bottom line. 

Next week we will start looking at some drivers for change for a veterinary business, how we are violating the system conditions and explore an approach to resolving this conflict. I won't have all the answers so this will require input and feedback!  

If you would like to suggest some specific topics to cover then email me and I will endeavour to cover these.  

Have a great week. 

A vision of a sustainable future

What does a sustainable society look like?
A sustainable society has certain characteristics:

If the 4 system conditions are adhered to, this is what a vision of a sustainable future might look like.  

In that sustainable vision:

• Everything we use would be cyclic, with zero waste.  
• All energy would be renewable clean energy (the diagram shows this as solar, but any renewable clean energy could be used.
• Everything we do would be safe - safe chemicals, safe working practices, safe environments for people to live in, safe both physically and emotionally.
• Our lifestyle would be social - showing care for the people.
• Products and services would be affordable, and financially sustainable.  
• We would be efficient - doing more work for for less energy - this is energy efficient as well as consuming fewer resources, less stress and so on.  

So what does a sustainable veterinary clinic look like? 
The following image is not meant to depict exactly what a vision of a sustainable veterinary clinic is - its mean to be a conversation starter.  

This image shows a multifunctional facility including: veterinary clinic, groomers, doggy daycare, boarding facility for cats, dogs and small mammals and a cafe (which allows pets).  It also includes community facilities such as dog walking area, community garden, memorial garden and a meeting room that can be hired to community groups.  It is designed to be a community focus for the companion animal loving people in a given community.  

This vision is sustainable because it is:

• Cyclic - This facility produces zero waste.  
• Solar - power is provided by photovoltaic panels and wind power
• Safe - all chemicals are environmentally safe at all stages from production to disposal, the working practices also look after the safety of the employees.  Products are check to be sourced from sustainable sources for example paper, to avoid further degradation of the environment.  
• Social - this facility provides a family friendly work place, it is inclusive of all employees in decision making, all employees have the option to purchase shares, working hours are in place that suit individual requirements.  It provides spaces for staff, the clients and the community to meet formally (eg meeting room which is available for booking by staff, clients and the community as a whole) and informally (eg the cafe, community garden, dog exercise space and the memorial garden). Fairtrade products are used wherever possible.  
• Affordable - the multi use facility which incorporates several smaller businesses working together provides efficiencies in use of space, energy and sharing resources.  It also has the ability to draw in members of the community to spend more time at the facility so this contributes to them spending discretionary cash at the facility (eg coffee and dog treats) rather than at a megastore that is not owned locally.  These all help to reduce overheads and therefore reduce costs to clients.   
• Efficient - efficient use of space, sharing resources, renewable energy, working smarter (reduced working hours - for example 8.30 - 5.30 + one late night and a saturday morning once a month rather than 7am - 8pm Monday to Sunday as an extreme example but packing more in for example) allow the facility to function very efficiently.

How does this apply to your own life?
Have a go at creating your own vision for your own home, workplace, or community.  Once the vision is in place, it is easier to set achievable goals to attain it. 

Next week - how do we get to our vision from where we are now?  

Have a great week.

Why our focus on economics is flawed

A little bit of a side step from my plan for a blog today, which was looking at visions of a sustainable future.  The reason for that is that a student sent me a link and when I read it, it resonated with me a lot, especially with all the things going on in government that clearly show a disregard for the environment in preference for the finance system.  Please note that the commentary provided below is my own opinion.  

If you look at current things that are happening, it is clear that our governance system is using the "mickey mouse model" (right hand diagram below) for sustainability rather than the" strong sustainability" model (left hand diagram) which we have discussed in an earlier blog post.  The mickey mouse model focuses almost entirely on the economy and gives passing minimal acknowledgement to the environment and society. 

Image Source

Example of the mickey mouse model in action:  It is widely acknowledged that the expanding dairy industry is having a negative effect on waterways but the high economic value of the dairy industry is making the government reluctant to make the needed changes that will mitigate the problem. Case in point: a bill currently passing through parliament is proposing to maintaining water quality by restricting reservoirs to "secondary contact" levels (i.e. boats are safe, but swimming is not as it allows direct human contact with the water supply). This bill is still subject to change, and this is only part of the wider bill around environmental management. The article linked here highlights some of the concerns about the bill. 

The problem with this proposal is that by limiting reservoir access to secondary contact, it is enabling dairy farms to continue many of the current practices minimising the environmental benefits, and it is not acknowledging the societal benefits of allowing people access to enjoy the waterways even though primary contact has very low risk for the quality of the water distributed to our towns. 

My interpretation of this bill is that the government is avoiding allowing primary access to waterways as that would require major changes in current dairy farming practice and thus affecting our export earnings. They are opting for the better economic option at the expense of the environment and the people and in the process are disregarding:

1. peoples enjoyment of water
2. degradation of the water system and the ecosystem within waterways 
3. quality of our own drinking water
4. maintenance of the species that live in the water including native fish
5. quality and enjoyment of the sea water from waterway run off
6. quality of experience for tourists who come here to enjoy our environment
7. costs to the health system from illness that people contract from swimming in contaminated waters, eating produce grown with the water, or drinking water from the potentially contaminated waterways.

This bill is a very short sighted approach, because eventually environmental degradation will affect the farming and tourism industries and a negative economic effect will occur.  When that occurs, it will be hard to mitigate the vast environmental damage that has eventuated.  

If a system conditions approach to this problem was used, rather than just accepting lower standards for immediate economic gain, there would be a real opportunity to improve efficiencies in dairy farming (and other business practices) as well as to return our waterways to being healthy and thriving areas that are safe enjoyable for New Zealanders and tourists. 

Please note: while I highlight dairy farming in this example, it is obviously not the only contributor to the degradation of the environment/water quality.  We need to look at the bigger picture and use the four system conditions to help audit our current position and to guide improvements for the future. 

The above is just one example of the clear disregard for the environment and the bulk of the people, in the current system which favours economics regardless of anything else.  Another example that is currently gathering a movement of protest is the TPPA which threatens to undermine the people of New Zealand as well as the environment in favour of international corporates.  To read more about this click on this link.  

It is my opinion that we need to stand up and voice our concerns about the blatant disregard for the people and the environment in favour of an economic-centric system. If we don't have a healthy environment, we won't have healthy people and a healthy society, and without that economic sustainability will fail to exist.   

To read the blog that inspired this post click here.

Back to the planned post of creating a sustainable vision next week!

Have a great week.

What your beginning of year surveys said

Thank you to all the students that completed the beginning of the year survey around sustainability.  This survey was designed to get a base line of knowledge of students prior to the course.  We hope to show in an end of year survey that knowledge is increased!  

1.  Definition of sustainability

There were lots of interesting definitions of sustainability - I think it is fair to say everyone who answered the question had a vague idea which is a great starting point, with one or 2 sticking out has having significant knowledge on the subject.  

What we would like to see now is that you transform your vague idea into a strong definition. Last week I blogged on the 4 system conditions.  This provides a strong definition for sustainability which also gives a point to measure the current situation and changes you make against.  Review the post here.  

2.  Your personal rating of your own knowledge of sustainability

Of all students who took the survey, most of you rated your knowledge at about 2.5 out of 5 - meaning you thought your have about some knowledge, and certainly not none, but you are aware that you are not experts. What we learnt from that question is that it isn't written well. We rate our level of knowledge against what we are aware of, not what we are unaware of. We will re-write this question so that it is clearer next time. 

It was interesting to compare your knowledge of sustainability to your actions around being sustainable - a higher personal rating on sustainability knowledge did not necessarily translate to more actions around acting sustainably.  The converse was also true - less perceived knowledge was not always associated with fewer actions.  

3.  Actions that you are taking

Out of 147 respondents, the following results were seen:

• 126 recycle
• 41 reuse or upcycle
• 32 walk or bike as a conscious alternative to driving
• 21 compost
• 20 try to save power by turning lights out, using fewer heaters and so on
• 18 use environmentally friendly products (cleaning/beauty)
• 18 grow your own vegetables
• 14 make conscious efforts to reduce water use/collect grey water
• 13 choose products with less plastic/packaging
• 12 try to practice conscious consumerism - thinking before they buy and making conscious choices for the environment
• 9 actively try to reduce their number of car trips
• 9 say that they 'reduce' but did not specify what it is that they are reducing
• 8 try to educate their children or other people about sustainability
• 8 reduce paper use
• 5 buy NZ made or local if at all possible
• 5 actively carpool

There were a number of other things identified that between 1 and 4 people did including: buying second hand, insulating, using public transport, reducing use of pesticides, growing own eggs/meat, planting trees and eating less meat.  

You can see how strongly the theme of reduce, reuse, recycle came through which have of course been the subject of heavy marketing campaigns - recycle and reuse coming up in the top 3 positions. If you add up the categories that are reduced within that list, it comes to approximately 105 actions.

While reduce, reuse and recycle are definitely good messages they only tell half the story. 

Using less is definitely a good action and should always apply.  I applaud all of you that are doing this.  To improve the effectiveness of this, set targets - look at the power units you used last May and then challenge yourself this year to use less.  Measure your rubbish going to general waste next week - set a target to reduce it for the following collection.  Lots of other ideas like that.  Setting measurable targets improves results.  

When it comes to reusing, again it is best to use common sense - we want to keep everything out of waste streams for as long as possible, so use them as much as you can and when you can't use them any more, see if somebody else can. 

We applaud you all for your recycling efforts and encourage you to continue to do so. Remember, it is important to be knowledgeable when recycling. Most recycling, (especially plastics which are probably the bulk of most people's recycling) is only down-cycling, in other words, the products created with recycled materials are often no longer recyclable themselves so they must be disposed of in the landfill.  

While recycling is better than nothing, and it allows us to delay the burden on the landfill, it is still a waste stream where virtually all materials will eventually end up in landfill.  We send most of our recycling to China, but recent changes in China mean that they are accepting less of what we send - much of what we think is being recycled, is simply going to the landfill anyway. So, the message here is reduce your purchases/use of products that have packaging, even if they are recyclable.  If you must purchase them, pick those with compostable packaging if you can and if that doesn't work, reuse and upcycle as much as possible before they end up in a waste stream.  Again set yourself targets - if you buy water, set yourself a target to stop doing it, same with supermarket plastic bags.  Both those could be achieved very quickly.  Look at other waste ending up in your recycling bin - especially the plastics....consider alternatives, set targets, achieve them and then set another!  

Take care with biodegradable products which several people mentioned - biodegradable does not always mean environmentally safe! Biodegradable things can sometimes break down into toxic by-products that poison the environment.  A classic example is the biodegradable plastic bags still made from oil based plastic.  These are a have.  If you put them in the landfill they won't break down - they need light.  If you leave them in the light they disintegrate into very small pieces because of the polymer inserted into the plastic.  This then leaves small fragments of plastic to float around in the environment, get in waterways, into food chains and back into us.   Be aware of green wash - ask questions.

Those of you that are actively walking/biking/taking public transport to reduce fuel use - how about setting yourself targets.  Maybe set a target to reduce annual fuel travel miles from 12,000km to 10,000 in the first year. Set a target to walk 500km and bike 1000km.  Imagine how good you would feel to be able to say you'd walked 500km this year and biked 1000km.  Otago Polytechnic have a target for 2014 to reduce air transport by 10%.  

Well done to everyone who grows their own food.  This is a pass time that seems to be growing in popularity which is really great.  Why not set some targets.  If you grow nothing, plan to harvest 10kg next season of produce, perhaps you could count the number of cucumbers or courgettes you pick as another way of measuring it.  It's fun to set targets, beat them and set them higher next year.  Challenge your neighbours or friends to beat what you are producing!

4. What is missing from the reduce, reuse, recycle message?

The first thing that is missing is an equal focus on the 4 system conditions. The reduce, reuse, recycle theme is just trying to minimise the impacts of the system we live in. However, as you have seen, the system is not perfect. The challenge now is to redesign the system.  Look at alternative ways of doing things to meet the 4 system conditions.  You can look at this personally, locally, in a specific business, or over a wider area.  

Another thing that is missing from this theme is the people. Interestingly, people were missing from everyone's actions in the survey too. Maybe this was just an oversight. We bet many of you are doing community work, giving locally, and so forth - you just don't see it as an integral part of sustainable practice - but it is vitally important. It's about making sure that in developing sustainable practices, that our human needs are also met.  Refer to the blog post on the 9 human needs.

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So, in summary, hats off to you, team. This was a really great starting platform and by doing it, we can see that a total of 373 actions towards improving sustainability were recorded by you all. Stick with us on this journey. Listen, learn, talk to others, set measurable targets, achieve them. Share your targets with others and let us know your thoughts on the process. What challenges did you come across? what ideas did you come up with?  Feel free to email me a blog post to share.  Lets take this journey together, making a more sustainable you, home, community, business, and world.  

Have a fabulous term break and I'll be back blogging in week one of term 2 - the subject: Creating a  vision of a sustainable future.  

4 system conditions - a definition for sustainability

Last week I related the 9 human needs to the model of strong sustainability, by showing that the environment is essential in all of this.

Now I'd like to explain how the 4 system conditions are a definition of sustainability and how they can be used to audit your own impact on the environment at home or at work.  They also help to give a baseline from which to improve and you can use them to show what a sustainable future would look like at work/home/the world - depending on what you audit against.

The funnel

Before we detail the 4 system conditions lets have a look at drivers for change globally.  Using the funnel metaphor we can present to a group the drivers of change.  A funnel shows that we are heading for a squeeze due to declining resources and increasing demand.  We need to find a way to navigate this squeeze and return to a place where the edges of the funnel are parallel lines when demand and supply are equal or potentially when demand is less than supply as shown by the dotted lines).  In this funnel it is showing some global drivers of change.

We can also do this for a given industry.  Here is an example of some drivers for change in a veterinary clinic:

You could also create a funnel for your own home or any other business.  At the end of the day there is no right or wrong here, its just a visual way of saying, look we need to make changes.

Four system conditions

In order to be sustainable we need to adhere to the 4 system conditions, as shown in the image below

Image from http://www.naturalstep.org/ 

In other words

• In system condition 1 we are not taking more from the earths crust that is being replaced (consider oil and minerals)
• In system condition 2 we are not making substances that poison the earth (consider chemicals and disinfectants
• In system condition 3 we are not breaking natures systems (consider deforestation for product production)
• In system condition 4 we are ensuring people are able to meet their needs (refer back to Max Neef's 9 Human Needs and consider whether this is being meet locally, nationally, internationally)

Now that you understand a definition of sustainability that is measurable, you can take an area of your life and audit it against these conditions.  Consider where you are meeting the system conditions and where you are violating them.
For example -

• You may always select paper from sources that use FSC paper (recognised as sustainable) which is a positive on system condition 3
• Perhaps you always select disinfecting products that have proven no effect on environment (and are VOC free)  which is a positive on system condition 2 
• Perhaps you drive a gas guzzling V8 - this is a violation on system condition 1, and so on

To review an example of a system conditions audit, you will find one embedded in this presentation relating to a generic veterinary clinic.  

Key message:

When we adhering to the four system conditions then our society will be sustainable.  The 4 system conditions are not taking more from the earth than can be replace, not making products that damage the environment, not breaking natural systems and making sure everyone's needs can be met.  

Challenge:

Audit your life or an aspect of it against the 4 system conditions and identify a measurable change you could make.
For example: you might want to reduce your driving miles from 12,000km to 10,000km over the next 12 months - this has an impact on improving your sustainability in terms of decreasing carbon outputs, but if you walk or bike instead of take the car, it can also have unexpected effects of increasing fitness and reducing stress. Your set target could be re-evaluated annually too.  

What other ones have you come up with? Please tell us! 

Next week: I will present a summary of your survey results, from the beginning of the year sustainability survey you completed.  

Relating the fundamental human needs to the environment

Image Source

Last week we reviewed the 9 fundamental human needs, pictured above, which we had introduced at the block course.  Hopefully many of you had a chance to take some time out to see that your needs were being met, or if they weren't to look at ways to allow them to be met.  

What I want to do this week is link those needs to the environment.  The human need of sustenance (food & water), shelter, mental and physical health cannot be met without a healthy environment.  And I think you will all agree that if we don't have good food, clean water, shelter and good health then the odds are very poor indeed.  

Many people currently think of sustainability like this model pictured below. This model puts equal emphasis on environment, social and economic factors and unless all three of these are balanced, then the result won't be sustainable.This is a weak model for sustainability because  it does not ensure that the need of sustenance will be met by a healthy environment. If the environment is not looked after, or similarly unhealthy economic can make sustenance more difficult to attain.  

Image Source

In order to really ensure that our needs can be met we should work on the model of strong sustainability.  In this model the environment is of most importance because if we don't have a strong and healthy environment or if we continue to not adhere to the 4 system conditions (which will be detailed in next weeks post) required to maintain a healthy environment, then the people on this planet will not be able to keep going, and as the money system is created by the people, this too will collapse.  

Image source

You can read more about weak and strong sustainability at this link

These are tools that you need to understand which you can use in conversations on this subject when you are wanting to implement change in your business (or any other area).  We will explore more tools in the coming weeks before looking at industry specific problems and working through potential solutions.