What's Hip, Happening and Happened, Natural Capitalism Exposed
[Click Here]
to view a list of upcoming and archived events Nat Cap Staff have been involved
with since 2002.
[And Click Here] to read the web-log (blog) Hunter has started!
Highlights Since Last Newsletter
Aussies Leaping and Bounding Towards Sustainability
Hunter’s travel schedule is usually intense enough to exhaust any five people, but this spring was particularly grueling. From early March until May she was home fewer than five days. As part of this run, Hunter spent three weeks in April
with The Natural Edge Project touring Australia, deepening partnerships formed on the 2004 tour and giving a nationally televised presentation to the Australian National Press Club (estimated audience of over a million). Hunter traveled to the Central Coast (Gosford), and the Northern Rivers country of Ballina, and Byron Bay. She visited Townsville in the far north of Queensland, where the
mayor
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bought her the Australian cattleman’s hat she now wears. She also made appearances in such capital cities as Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne. From Alice Springs she ventured deep into the outback to spend a weekend on a cattle station discussing organic agriculture with farmers from around the country.
Hunter gave dozens of public lectures from audiences of 1,000 in Townsville to a small group of business leaders in Alice Springs. She met with politicians, government officials, business people, the media, water utilities and students
. . . anyone active in implementing Natural Capitalism.
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It’s a long flight down under, and a significant commitment of time, but Hunter loves doing the trip. For starts, the Australians grappling with these issues are some of the finest friends in this movement. People like Dr. John Cole, Director of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, and Dr. Peter Newman from Murdoch University are world class. Hatch Engineering, who again hosted Hunter to speak to a business audience, has a brilliant approach to sustainable minerals extraction. Molly Harris Olsen and Philip Toyne, who invited Hunter to supper at their wonderful home in the country outside of Canberra, are as insightful and competent at the political and business aspects of implementing change as anyone anywhere. The group sat late with academics, politicians and business leaders talking political theory, cutting edge technologies and the human aspects of how to get all this done—over some very good Australian wine and delicious food. |
Many people ask why no one has replicated the example of Village Homes in Davis California. This development, created in the 70’s is, as they say, simply a better way to live. Solar housing, human scale neighborhoods designed around pedestrian friendly green-spaces, capture and reuse of rainwater on site, and dozens of other sustainability technologies were so cutting edge that the local officials looked askance when the developers Judy and Michael Corbett proposed them. All have proven out, and Village Homes remains one of the most desirable neighborhoods anywhere. Well, now, on the Gold Coast of Australia, the Currumbin Eco-village is emerging, based directly on the experience of Village Homes, with as many of the new technologies that have been developed since the 70’s as they can fit in. It did Hunter’s travel weary heart good to ride the property on a brilliant horse,
"Skye," courtesy of a neighbor, Pip Rose.
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City of Boulder, Colorado
The City of Boulder, Colorado, enjoys cutting-edge leadership from both its elected officials
and such staff as Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, Sarah Van Pelt. At their urging (and the
occasional nudge from Natural Capitalism), Boulder recently joined Chicago and Portland as one of the
first major U.S. cities to join the Chicago Climate Exchange. This initiative is one of many others the
City has undertaken—it has already done ground-breaking work in requiring high performance (green)
residential construction and has county-wide partnerships for pollution prevention. And Boulder had
already committed to meet the goals of the Kyoto Protocol: reducing the community's greenhouse gases
from all sources 7% from 1990 levels by 2010.
This is not a trivial accomplishment. Exchange membership
represents a legal commitment to reduce greenhouse gases
annually. Now the challenge is to fund the city’s Climate Action Plan.
NCS was delighted to be asked to help city staff, the Wirth Chair of CU Denver and the Shaw Group of
Chicago to help lay out the funding strategy.
The results will be presented this fall, and should be useful to all U.S. cities that choose
a climate-responsible development path. For more about Boulder’s environmental initiatives and
accomplishments, visit
www.environmentalaffairs.com.
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Colorado University, Boulder Maymester
The engineering profession will play a significant part in
moving society to a more sustainable way of life. This May, NCS
teamed with the Engineering for Developing Communities,
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
at the University of Colorado to present Natural Capitalism for
Engineers. Taught in the Maymester (a semester delivered in a month) the course provided engineering students with a basic
understanding of sustainability issues and the opportunities for society. Natural Capitalism Solutions’
Hunter Lovins and Christopher Juniper, Janet Graaf of the CU Business School, and Robyn Sandekian of the
Engineering Department and The Natural Edge Project’s Charlie Hargroves taught the course. This course was
supported by a range of engineering-related material in Natural Capitalism and
The Natural Advantage of Nations (see above).
Dr. Bernard Amadei, founder of Engineers Without Borders—USA and Professor of Engineering at CU, reports that the
students raved about the course. He has invited us back to teach it next May.
[Click Here] to email us if you are interested in learning more about NCS curriculum and guest lecturing.
[Click Here] to review the curriculum delivered for this May-mester course.
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Backbone Campaign
NCS has no political affiliation, does not lobby and is avidly non-partisan (Hunter even serves
on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Business Advisory Council). Perhaps to balance
the equation, Hunter has been nominated for the "Backbone Cabinet" Secretary of Commerce position;
as of this writing she leads a field that includes former Senator Bill Bradley, Robert Reich, David Korten,
Paul Krugman, Michael Porter and Jim Hightower. (Hunter insists that someone must have voted more than once.)
The Backbone Campaign, the Progressive Government Institute and a coalition of grassroots
organizations have initiated a process to empower citizens to nominate, comment on and rate progressive
leaders to serve as a virtual Progressive Parallel Administration. Created to demonstrate that the progressive
movement is not an opposition, but a propositional movement, it seeks to show that progressives are preparing
to run the country.
www.backbonecampaign.org
This Project has initiated "Conversations with the Cabinet," a weekly webcast conference call and podcast,
designed to create links between grassroots activists and our most effective policy and movement leaders.
Hunter recorded a podcast, titled: Progressive and Profitable Too: Building a Sustainable Shadow Economy,
which aired Monday, July 18th.
Hunter discussed how Natural Capitalism Solutions is making the concept of sustainable development a central
operating principle of organizations around the globe by promoting resource efficiency, biomimicry and sustainable
business practices.
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Sustainable Business Management Training Sessions with Paul Sheldon
Hunter Lovins and Paul Sheldon (read more about Paul below) are available to help your businesses or organization
increase profitability and efficiency while becoming more environmentally and socially responsible.
NCS trainings show organizations how to create and implement a whole-systems approach unique to their situation.
They show you how using resources more productively and operating in ways that are restorative of people and the planet
can deliver increased profitability and greater competitive advantage in all industries. |
Hunter and Paul can train groups of any size and expertise; from senior executives, engineers, designers
and accountants, to an entire staff. Sessions are rich in lecture-delivered content, but emphasize interactive
dialogue. Session lengths can range from half-day workshops to five-day intense charrette formats
to ongoing implementation consultation.
Natural Capitalism works with organizations to manage
their "integrated bottom line," combining profitability,
environmental awareness and social responsibility, while fostering greater levels of operational effectiveness. |
[Click Here] to email us if you are interested in learning more about Training and Implementation.
[Click Here] to read more about NCS' Sustainable Business Management Training and Implementation.
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"Development as if the World Mattered"
Published in the World Affairs Journal
The NCS Holiday Letter that Hunter wrote from Afghanistan elicited an invitation from
World Affairs Journal to write an article about her proposals for international development.
The thesis discussed in this article (summarized below) has been a topic of speeches Hunter
has been giving for months now. Some of the participants in this discussion have included
participants at the UN’s World Environment Day in San Francisco, CA, the BELL Conference in
Ithaca, NY, City Club attendees in Boulder, CO, and private gatherings in homes around the
Boulder area.
[Click Here] to download 256 KB .pdf of complete article.
Article Summary:
In the West Central Highlands of Afghanistan an empty diversion canal for a micro-hydro
electric power plant is emblematic of what’s wrong with international development and what
needs to be done.
Abandoned since the Soviets stripped the turbines from it, the diversion could supply
a megawatt of power to the city of Bamiyan and to the thousands of rural people around it.
It could sustainably bring power, critical for development, to that region of the poorest
country in the world outside of Africa. Instead, the U.S. is funding a multi-million dollar
powerline from the north to Kabul. Other proposals call for spending billions to build coal
plants across the north of the country to feed more power into that tenuous line. Clinics
are built with U.S. tax money with no regard for solar orientation, and no energy budget.
The doctor borrowed a diesel generator but has no money to buy fuel.
The world desperately needs a new model of development. Most of the world’s people are
stuck in poverty, and all major ecosystems are in decline. Spending more money, however, will
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solve the problems. The answers must include fundamentally rethinking international
development so that it implements world best practice in sustainable development technologies in
ways that promote the creation of locally controlled, viable businesses.
In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals set targets for eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women,
improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,
ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development by 2015.
Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Millennium Development Project, a recent Time magazine article
called for the wealthy nations to meet their development pledges as the recipe for meeting the Goals.
But more money, alone, will do little good. Unless there are changes in how development money is spent,
and how development is done, such increases will not decrease poverty. |
Around the world, aid money tends to
create perverse versions of a welfare society, dependent on big western contractors and foreign NGOs.
When the money runs out and the westerners leave, the people struggle on in poverty. Each "crisis du jour"
repeats the process—money pours in to aid the afflicted people, but winds up in the pockets of developing
country contractors.
Natural Capitalism and a growing array of other books prove how the rapidly emerging best practice
in sustainable technologies can meet basic human needs around the world and solve most of the environmental
problems facing the planet at a profit.
Imagine, a world in which no family needs to burn smoky dung or wood or oil lamps for
light, where wireless digital communications are available to everyone, and where women and young people
have illumination to become literate, to be able to see a brighter future reflected in the solar cells that
power this vision. This model of development starts its business planning from the bottom up. It asks how much does a
farmer have to spend? |
What will your product do to increase an urban dweller’s income? In India, SELCO is
showing how, without subsidies, even poor families can afford solar electricity. In China "Eco-machines"
of living plants are cleaning the water in polluted canals, while creating habitat and beautiful community
parkways. SEKEM, in Egypt, is using private enterprise to lift thousands of people out of poverty, deliver
quality organic food to European markets, and now, to create a University.
Collectively, the array of sustainability practices such as efficient and renewable energy supplies,
green building technologies, efficient water treatment and delivery systems, and sustainable approaches to
providing food and health care can do a better job of meeting development needs in Afghanistan and other
developing countries than the conventional approaches offered by the western consulting firms with whom
USAID typically contracts.
Our tax dollars are funding the current system of "development done wrong." We deserve better,
and the rest of the world desperately needs it. |
[Click Here] to download 256 KB .pdf of complete article.
[Click Here] and share your ideas of how to best circulate this article.
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