All Things Sustainability

The Times of India and Science Daily are among news sources citing to our research on the link between companies’ green reputations and their employees’ morale!

In case you missed this: our global first in the arena of sustainability reporting got some coverage by Cindy Mehallow in a major CSR blog: Triple Pundit; our sustainability report was also highlighted in this CSR Minute video from 3BL Media.  Finally, you can see what a colleague and I did in some spare time in June on pages 10-14 of The UMass Dartmouth Magazine.  Here’s to maintaining the momentum behind expanded sustainability reporting in 2011!

Speaking of momentum: here’s an announcement coming this Monday, January 31 at the NYSE.  Here’s another.  Both have a link to the live webcast.  If you’re going, see you there!  If not, hope you can check in with us.

So it’s 1/1/11… we should start the year getting inspired, right?  Taking stock of trends, where we are, where we want to go this year (and beyond), setting our goals, and getting our bearings.

During my New Year’s Day jog listening to 90.9FM WBUR, the show, On the Media, from NPR, provided an unlikely source of inspiration in the following statistics on video games that otherwise would have depressed the heck out of me: 5.93 million years – according to Jane McGonigal, that’s how much time has been spent by gamers on World of Warcraft (since its release in the mid-1990s).  10,000 hours – that’s the average amount of time spent gaming by someone by the age of 21 in a country with a strong culture of video games.

Even if we question those figures or other content of Jane McGonigal’s presentation at TED, her main thesis is fascinating and may be a reason for hope and inspiration.  What if the world’s toughest problems (including challenges related to sustainability, the topic of this blog and most of my research) were somehow presented as problems that could be solved in a context similar to that of online video gaming?  What if the rush of an “epic win” in solving a vastly complex problem (like that of World of Warcraft or other popular games) could be attained by spending time on challenges that actually mattered (like figuring out how to provide for our present needs without undermining our ability to provide for our needs tomorrow)?  This seemed hard to imagine – but watch the end of McGonigal’s presentation: there are some very clever ways this idea has been implemented and they have yielded some positive outcomes.  For example, one game asked players to figure out how they’d conduct their lives if oil and gas became much more expensive or unavailable – apparently this led to changed habits in their daily lives that persisted past the period in which they were playing the game.  In another game, players apparently came up with hundreds of policy solutions to another problem.

Also featured in the radio broadcast (transcripts and MP3s available at www.onthemedia.org) were the ideas of Jesse Schell, who similarly sees elements of digital gaming creeping into our real lives.  For example, what if we earned points when sensors in our shoes detected that we had walked more than a mile during the day, or when we purchased a healthier menu item, or took public transit?  We (or a lot of us) already spend a lot of time and effort and money trying to score those “epic wins” in completely imagined alternate realities, so why not use existing technologies to compete for points given our behavior in everyday reality?  Further, wouldn’t it be in the interest of both businesses, such as health insurance companies, and good public policy, to have people voluntarily competing to see who can live healthier or more sustainable lifestyles?  Given the investments of time and effort we compulsively make in video games, isn’t there potential here for epic wins in terms of profits, epic wins in terms of quality-of-life, and epic wins in terms of sustainability?  Yes, it may be disconcerting that the same approach could be used to award us for buying more of things that are harmful to us, and some may see other potentials for abuse.  However, we’re getting used to the idea – and sometimes acquiescing to the fact – that our locations and purchase and Web-browsing behaviors are already tracked by companies.  It therefore seems inevitable that someone will follow-through on Jesse Schell’s vision and that some people will try out such games that reward us for behavior in the real world.  Jesse Schell’s presentation at DICE is well worth watching for other great ideas and reasons for hope.  Clint Hocking is also featured in the program – in 2008 at a game developers’ conference he challenged designers to come up with games that mattered.

So here’s hoping for epic win-win-wins in 2011!  Could it be that some of the answers to our toughest problems may turn out to be a matter of fun and games?

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, you may find this interesting and/or an intriguing business opportunity, just when you may have thought it was too late to come up with your own green business: it looks like no company is (on a large scale) producing and selling easy-to-recycle Christmas trees?  The New York Times Blog on Energy and the Environment contains content that explains why the use of real, cut trees has a lower environmental impact than artificial trees, due partially to the fact that artificial trees are made from difficult-to-recycle polyvinyl chloride (PVC).  Ideas on how to reuse a ragged artificial tree are available at a site called DollarStretcher.com and here at eHow.  Conversely, you might prefer to not pay anything for your tree and reuse materials (glass, plastic, or others) to build your own tree – WebEcoist has some examples of what people have improvised.  Or, you just might be the first to think of a way to mass produce and sell a tree for the mainstream market that is made from a variety (or varieties) of plastic that is (or are) more easily recyclable.  Happy holidays!

A U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico… how could any headline writer resist coming up with a pun?  To answer my own question: no, it does not appear likely that we’ll get the action on global hotness / climate change that we’re craving in Cancun.  While an effective international agreement would be great, in the meantime, it’s interesting to note that there seems to be more action occurring in other contexts.  These include cities, other political subdivisions of countries, in bilateral relations between nations, within the European Union (EU), and in the private sector.

To cite some examples: 138 mayors committed to measuring and publicly reporting progress-to-goals with regard to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on November 21, 2010.  Considering over 50% of the almost 6.9 billion people on the planet now live in cities, multi-billion dollar investments of megacities such as Mexico City are a cause for optimism.  In the U.S., home to 5% of people in the world yet accountable for over  25% of the world’s GHG emissions, 1044 mayors representing almost 88 million citizens have committed to taking action, including New York City, which has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30% below 2005 levels. 

At the regional level, cap-and-trade mechanisms and other efforts to boost clean energy adoption have been implemented between states in the U.S., including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Western Governors’ Association’s Initiative on Climate Change and Adaptation. 

In the arena of bilateral relations, we’ve seen some action lately on the part of Norway, which pledged $1 billion in exchange for Indonesia’s cessation of rainforest destruction, though this type of offer is not without controversy.

The EU’s stated goal is to reduce its GHG output by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 and has organized 9 billion Euros in investments to help achieve that goal.

Finally, some businesses have made potential mandated GHG reductions look downright silly with their achievements: in 13 years, Interface has reduced GHG in absolute terms by 44%, or 94% if offsets are included, even as net sales grew 27% during this period.

Turning our attention back to the U.N. Climate Change Conference, a few facts from our recent research is worth noting.  There persists a debate about balancing commitments and perceived burdens between more developed, wealthier countries and emerging economies whose GHG footprints are rapidly growing.  There is also a pervasive theory of an environmental Kuznets curve, which holds that as countries develop, their environmental conditions and/or impacts will improve.  The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) often come to mind as countries that present growth opportunities for business and investment but also growing or potentially huge environmental footprints.  Some would argue that these countries’ development should continue unimpeded by any restrictions, and that this economic growth alone will lead to these countries becoming more green.  South Korea also seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind these days because of the simmering tensions on the penninsula, so I’ll also note some findings about South Korea (data on North Korea was unavailable).  Here we go: the main conclusion of our paper, Oil Users, Air Polluters, and Forest Abusers: Macro-Level Segmentation of 121 Countries Based on Resource Usage Efficiency Per Capita, co-authored with my colleague, D. Steven White, used 3-D cluster analysis to find groups of statistically similar countries based on their energy consumption, carbon emissions, and paper and paper-based product consumption.  The results are clusters of countries that cannot be entirely explained by geography, demographics or economic specializations, but most definitely challenged the notion of an environmental Kuznets curve.  More developed economies (generally) have massively greater environmental impacts per person.  The statistics alone lend some weight to the argument that the more developed countries have already contributed disproportionately to our current climate change problems, and therefore should assume more of the perceived-or-actual burdens of reducing humanity’s impacts.  Consider the following: the average resident of a country in the cluster containing Brazil or China consumes 14% of the energy of an average resident of a country in the most energy-voracious cluster, produces 17% of the carbon emissions of an average resident of a country in the most carbon-emitting cluster, and consumes 22% of the paper of an average resident of this energy- and carbon emissions-intensive cluster.  The average Indian’s impacts are even smaller: 6% of the energy, 4% of the emissions, and 7% of the paper consumed by the average resident of the most energy- and carbon emissions-intensive cluster.  Russia and South Korea both belong to the same cluster – one of two clusters containing countries that are moderate in per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions, but comparatively avaricious in paper consumption.  The average resident of the cluster containing Russia and South Korea uses 40% of the energy and produces 48% of the carbon emissions of the most energy- and carbon emissions-intensive cluster, yet consumes 105% of the paper of the most energy and carbon emissions-intensive cluster.  Despite their green reputations and generally progressive societies, the Scandinavian and Benelux countries all belong to the clusters of countries with the greatest environmental impacts.  Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden are found to be statistically most similar to Australia, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, with the average resident of this cluster using 60% of the energy and emitting 61% of the carbon emissions yet 129% of the paper products of an average resident of the most energy- and carbon emissions-intensive cluster.  These findings have been fodder for a lot of discussions, especially since some developed countries with good standards of living have comparatively much smaller environmental footprints in one or all of these metrics.  These findings challenge some conventional rankings because the statistics reflect consumption and exclude measures such as incidence of waterbourne diseases, which otherwise boost some energy- and carbon emissions- and paper-intensive countries to the top of “green” rankings.  For a full explanation of why we chose these variables and the methodology and results, please read the full paper. 

To summarize: (1) it doesn’t seem like many observers have high hopes for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun accomplishing a tremendous amount, (2) there seem to be greater causes for hope coming out of the political subdivisions of nation-states, bilateral agreements, the EU, and the private sector, and (3) inasmuch as the talks in Cancun are likely to revisit the old dilemma of balancing burdens-and-commitments between developed-vs.-developing countries, we can offer delegates and observers some useful guidance as to which clusters of countries have been – and continue to – have a disproportionate impact on our climate, and the relative per capita magnitude of those impacts.  Comments are welcomed either here (by submitting a comment on this blog) or by e-mailing me at asulkowski@umassd.edu or by connecting on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/people/Adam-Sulkowski/100001884760252) or Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Adam/Sulkowski).

That’s probably an ad campaign we won’t see – though there is a product called Tofurky that’s actually delicious.  My main point this morning: to direct our attention to these very timely and useful articles at The Daily Green on how to reduce the environmental impact of your Thanksgiving feast.  Recipes and ideas like locally sourcing your food items and slow cooking your food (which leaves you more time for other chores and family, which you may or may not prefer) are highlighted.  Bon appetit!

Thanks to Roger Maag in our MBA course, Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Law, for referring this fascinating story on green computer code.

Just in case you miss it, please be sure to click on the new link above, or, heck, here it is: the world’s first sustainability report by a university to attain an A level of compliance with the preeminent world standard!

UMass Dartmouth’s Charlton College of Business will soon have a gold-standard chapter of Net Impact thanks to the efforts of our student leaders – thank you Elizabeth, Kaisa, and Liz for your hard work!  NIUMD has the coolest logo in the known universe.  Click and see for yourself.  Get the reference?  Reply with your answer!

I’ve had the pleasure of working with several people in the first five years of my academic career.  They include a former director of one of the Indian Institutes of Management (Dr. S.P. Parashar), Dr. Lu Wei of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, China (who is Director of their MBA program in Hefei and Shanghai), and three colleagues at my home institution: Jia Wu in the Accounting and Finance Department and Ric Golen and D. Steven White of the Management and Marketing Department.  Most recently, honors program graduate Cassandra Walsh (Charlton College of Business Class of 2010) and I just had a coauthored article published (click My Articles above for more information).