Podcast on Cradle to Cradle sustainability in design

Here is a link to an excellent podcast recently recorded between Radio NZ's Kim Hill and Michael Braungart.  Michael Braungart and William McDonough wrote the challenging book "Cradle to Cradle" (featured on the Recommended Reading list here on the right).

http://podcast.radi

onz.co.nz/sat/sat-

20080830-0905-

Michael_Braungart_design_beyond_sustainability-048.mp3

Cradle to Cradle is about environmentally intelligent design that doesn't just seek to minimise our negative impact - it aims to maximise our beneficial impact on the environment.  As Prof Braungart says "it is not enough to say 'I am beating my child less than I used to', we must stop what is bad and do what is good".  He goes on to highlight the example of the Ant.  Collectively, the bio-footprint of Ants on the Earth far outstrips the footprint of Human Beings.  Yet Ants have a significantly positive impact on the Earth compared to Human civilisation.  

He also highlighted that countries who have been less efficient in minimising their impact on the environment, have actually come out infront of those pseudo-progressive countries that have created loads of legislation on behalf of the planet.   Kyoto reductions are therefore not seen as a good solution to Braungart.  He cites Volkswagen who have attempted to protect the environment by removing asbestos from brake pads; except they have replaced asbestos with antimony, a carcinogenic far more deadly than asbestos.  These misplaced actions become more difficult to undo than the less efficient efforts of others.

"The perverseness of Eco-efficiency - you make the wrong things perfect and then they are perfectly wrong"   says Braungart.

Keeping the Technosphere and Biosphere apart

What was most interesting was his take on "Technical Nutrients" - the fact that the book he co-authored was printed on plastic polymer instead of paper.  Braungart argues that there is better recycling within the "Technical Metabolism" of polymers, than there is in the recycling process for paper.  Currently we downgrade the paper product each time it goes through a re-cycle, losing many of the natural nutrients along the way, with inks that are incompatible with the recycling process for example.  

Realising that the offcuts from the production of airline seating were toxic waste; McDonough and Braungart designed new seats for the latest Airbus where the materials were replaced by edible ones - the offcuts now being able to be used in gardening.

My personal favourite is the concept of ice cream packaging that is solid when the contents (ice cream) are frozen, but slowly turns to liquid at room temperature, disippating in hours.  This accommodates people's seeming 'need' to litter and when the packaging is impregnated with rare plant seeds you actually harness littering and make it a beneficial process.

C2C Certification

Cradle to Cradle Certification is now available to companies, institutions and governments, with an increasing number dedicating resources to ensure C2C is embedded into product design.  From US Postal Service packaging products to Eagle Corporation Allied Concrete products, an ever-expanding list of C2C certified products are now appearing and setting the benchmark for Corporate Citizenship. 

I am not a number! I'm an MCSE!! (and so is he...)

Recently I found myself giving some impromptu careers advice to a handful of Servicemen who were about to leave HM Armed Forces as a result of injury, some sustained on Active Service in Afghanistan. They were looking at "getting into IT", a less physically-demanding job with sound long term propsects.

"Is an MCSE a good thing for getting a job?" was the typical question. My
take was 'yes' and 'no'.

Yes - if this is your first foray into IT training and certification, then getting an MCSE would be a good introduction into basic IT principles and understanding the role certifications play and their shelf-life in the IT industry.

No - if you think it's enough to bag just this one qualification and then sit back and let your career take off. I didn't have the statistics at hand but my point to them was there are 2.3 million Microsoft Certified Professionals in the world today. 878,000 of them are MCSE's. No need to feel lonely then...

If you want a strategy for your career then you need to realise two basic truths:
1. Certifications are like fish - they are best when they are fresh and definitely go off after a while.
2. Certifications are like fish - if you want to catch a worthwhile one then you need to go fishing where other people aren't.

Analyse the latest certification statistics from the likes of Microsoft and Cisco and see where the there is currently a glut and a famine of talent.

A few statistics standout from Microsoft:

• There are just under 1.4 million MSCE's & MCSA's in the world today.
• But there are only 2 people with Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft SQL Server 2008; and
• "Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.0: Developing Applications" is a club with only 39 members
  
• In fact there are 11 Microsoft certifications with less 100 qualified people in the world.

As for Cisco and their hallowed "CCIE" qualification:

• 18,674 CCIE's worldwide, yet;
• Only 140 are Storage Networking CCIE's

But when you look at the regional dispersion of those 18 thousand people, you find a few other interesting facts:

Like there is only 1 CCIE in the whole country of:

• Barbados
• Guadeloupe
• Cayman Islands
• Ecuador
• Uruguay
• Guatemala
• Albania
• Andorra
• Belarus
• Moldova
• Angola
• Botswana
• Chad
• Ethiopia
• Ghana
• Lesotho
• Mauritius
• Yemen
• New Caledonia
• Kirbati
• East Timor
• Georgia
• Laos; and finally...
• good ole Uzbekistan

The point to all this is that there are a raft of niche applications and solutions out there that have their market cornered and need competent, certified people to work with them.
My parting advice to these young guys was to:

• Understand that certifications were going to be a constant requirement through any hands-on career in IT; so
  
• Look for something to get you started and then look to manoeuvre yourself into developing areas of technology where niches exist, but, as always, keep mobile.

Permaculture: The art of being clever...

My father’s generation tinkered in their gardens and remarked on how “clever” nature was. But it took two Australian’s in the 1970’s, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, to record the systematic and harmonious way nature co-exists with itself and call the concept “Permaculture”. They were concerned the way modern farming methods required increasing levels of chemicals and machinery in order to produce food; the net effect being unsustainable for the planet. So they went to nature to find a better answer.

But what is it? “Permanent Agriculture” is a design science that develops solutions that are more harmonious, less wasteful, and both sustainable and resilient against external pressures. These principles are often applied in agriculture settings, but are increasingly being adopted by other modern systems.

So how do you apply Permaculture? The first step in applying Permaculture is to Observe. For example, observing the interaction of plants and animals in your garden through the cycles of Inputs and Outputs each one requires and produces.

Take a simplified example of Chickens and Apple Trees:

• Chickens need fresh air, a place to scratch and food (Inputs). In return Chickens eat bugs, produce manure, eggs and meat (Outputs).
• Apple Trees need fertiliser and pest control (Inputs). In return Apple Trees produce... Apples! (Outputs)

Enter Permaculture...

• Chickens need bugs to eat (Output) and Apple trees need pest control (Input).
• Apples trees need fertiliser (Input) and Chickens produce manure (Output).
• By letting Chickens roam in an orchard, we get eggs, meat, apples and avoid the need to apply chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
• Less wasteful; Harmonious; Sustainable; and Resilient.

Now take a large Datacentre full of computers bringing you the Internet. They require electrical power (Input) and produce web pages and large amounts of heat (Output). Steam turbines require heat (Input) and produce electrical power (Output). Voila! IT companies are now partnering with electricity providers to attach mini-steam turbines to Datacentres to capture the waste heat and turn it into electricity, reducing their overall requirement for the fossil-fuelled variety.

But I know what you’re saying “I live in Fiveways and don’t own a Datacentre, Chickens or an Orchard! So what’s the point?”

Some call it “no dig” gardening: putting the effort into planning your garden, so you benefit from the need for less backbreaking effort once it grows. Companion planting is one way of achieving this: Slugs love Lettuce, but they love Marigolds even more, so using Marigolds as a border around your bed of Lettuces can save you from that sinking feeling, when your Lettuces ‘disappear’ overnight.

Or apply Permaculture to this: We produce compost, more than we can use (Output). Our neighbours bring home bags of compost from the garden centre (Input). They grow great tomatoes (Output). The result? People sharing locally grown produce, saving on car journeys and building stronger links in our neighbourhood. Sustainable, harmonious and resilient, both for Local and Global communities.

Whilst the world is rapidly trying to simplify life, Permaculture thrives on the complexity generated by the numerous inputs and outputs of different eco-systems, social groups and processes. The more the merrier! The more joined-up a community is; the richer and more resilient it will become.

Tell me more! There are both weekend “Introduction to Permaculture” and two week “Permaculture Design” courses run locally, as well as Permaculture principles being discussed and applied in the local Brighton Transition Town movement. So get thinking, get involved, get clever.

http://www.brightonpermaculture.co.uk/

[The article, by Rob Gourdie, first appeared in the Fiveways Directory in February 2009]

Fiveways Francs? Brighton Bucks? Local currency in a green world

Imagine popping down to our local Newsagents for a paper and paying for it with a “Fiveways Franc”?

That’s exactly the way things have been working in the town of Totnes, Devon since 2006 with the introduction of the “Totnes Pound”. Totnes was the first community to become a Transition Town ; a community committed to finding ways of reducing their future dependence on oil and minimising their carbon footprint.  However recently and more close to home, Lewes issued 10,000 "Lewes Pounds" as part of its Transition Town "Energy Decent Action Plan" in September.  These wonderful Lewes £1 notes have been a real hit, albeit in an unexpected way with most being snapped up in the first 3 days and currently going for about £35 on eBay!  Plans are already underway to issue another 30,000 Lewes Pounds so they can continue to circulate around the Lewes economy.

So how does a "Local Currency" work? 

Alternative currencies are valued and treated in exactly the same way as standard Pounds Sterling. The only difference is that it is legal tender only in the local shops and businesses that accept them. Think of it as a loyalty scheme that is tied to a geographical area (eg. Totnes/Lewes/Brighton/Fiveways) rather than a particular shop.  In Victorian England, Mill owners sometimes used to pay their staff with tokens that could only be redeemed in local shops owned by the Mill owner. Whilst their motives were more unscrupulous than those of the Transition Movement, the result was the same – a thriving, resilient local economy.

To understand the benefit of a local currency; imagine you need to buy some food and instead of heading (in the car or bus) to the local supermarket to buy Brussel Sprouts from Argentina and Asparagus from Israel, all the while making a large corporation richer; you walk down to your local shops and by farm-assured Sussex bacon from Barfields and Kent Strawberries from Danny at the Green Grocers. Locally accepted currency pushes you to shop locally, reducing your need to drive to the shops and to fly produce thousands of miles to stock supermarket shelves. It also supports local businesses, enriching your local community and making Fiveways a nicer place to live. Because the people who own businesses in Fiveways are locals too, they spend the local

 currency for their own needs and of course hand it out in change to other local shoppers, keeping the “shop local” phenomenon going.  It can be used to purchase anything local - like paying for babysitting or purchasing vegetables from the local allotment or farmers market.

So I can just print my own money? 

Not at all. The easiest way to implement an alternative currency is to have an Issuing Authority. This is normally a Community Trust, which is responsible for printing the currency and making it available for people to 'purchase' into circulation; where people exchange Pounds Sterling for local money. Often this can be done at a discount to foster the uptake of the new currency.  

Here's an example:  George goes to a shop issuing Fiveways Franc's (FF's) and hands across £9.50 for FF10.  George can then use his 10FF's just like £10 in the local Fiveways shops that accept them.  If George wanted to cash out his 10FF at any time, he would get back his £9.50, but clearly its better for George to spend his 10FF and keep the local currency circulating.  The Community Trust holds George's £9.50 in trust, just the same way the Bank of England used to keep an amount of Gold equivalent to the amount of money in circulation. Once in circulation, the value of the local currency is the same for whoever’s hands it passes through, so there’s no chance of someone being left with worthless money.

Although not a new concept, the success of the Totnes experiment has been very encouraging, with Transition Towns all over the world issuing local currency.  To learn more about Local Currency and the Transition Movement visit: http://thelewespound.org , http://transitiontowns.org/ or http://www.transitionbrightonandhove.org.uk/

[The article, by Rob Gourdie, first appeared in the Fiveways Directory July 2008]