To live in peace and sustainability…
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Posted by steve on January 3, 2011
This blog presents my work envisioning sustainable living arrangements for cities and rural areas. I also work with alternative monetary systems that support sustainable development.
As we are reaching the end of the industrial age, I believe we need to envision a sustainable way forward. Creating a positive vision of the future will help us through the coming challenges. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by steve on January 15, 2012
Could we rapidly transition from a global to a local economy? This article explores how it could happen. Click here to read.
The idea is for businesses to offer investment instruments as well as products. For a deeper discussion see the white paper.
Posted by steve on December 22, 2011
Maybe you aren’t thinking of 2012 yet, just trying to organize Christmas and New Year. But the end of the year is a good time to take stock. What have we learnt during 2011? What has become clearer? For many of us with a sustainability focus, the urgent need to reverse economic, energy and environmental trends is growing by the day. This video, THE OIL JOURNEY produced by the Post Carbon Institute and narrated by actor Peter Coyote, says it the clearest.
Posted by steve on November 23, 2011
The vision is simple: if everyone lived in intentional, sustainable communities – villages, city/town blocks – then the whole world would be sustainable. Supporting that vision is the Open World Villages networking site, newly launched by the Open World Foundation.
Based on the powerful NING platform, the site is bringing together experts in their field (called Academy fellows) with existing villages and initiatives as well as individuals longing to get in contact with like-minded souls to create villages or move into expanding initiatives.
Open World Villages is looking into ways of purchasing land to create a portfolio of initiatives to drive the move to sustainable, intentional living.
But there is more: the site wants to bring together village-scale technology and service providers with people who want to promote and sell what they produce. The vision is a world not of business to consumer or business to business but villager to villager (V2V).
Read more on the Open World Villages site. Membership is free.
Posted by steve on November 15, 2011
Accenture's ad reflects a strange view of nature and its own capabilites. The hubris of the modern corporation?
What is the best way to organise society? That question has been around since we started to be able to talk. In my world I like to add “what is the best way to organise society so it develops resilience and sustainability”.
I have pointed to writers like Aldous Huxley who, in his book “Brave New World revisited” , argues that our urbanization brings forth the desire for “the good order” and that the desire for “the good order” gets misued and turns into some kind of dictatorship. In Huxley’s case the Brave New World he refers to is his vision of a future Britain, where every child is produced in a test-tube to ensure genetic suitability.
One aspect of “the good order” is the idea that corporations are a good way to organize our activities. The basic design is neat: shareholders take the risk and share in the rewards, the corporation contributes to society by paying tax, and the corporation provides people with what they need and with jobs. So pervasive is the the idea that corporations are the best way that they can become the standard solution for a myriad of problems. Problems with healthcare? Privatise. Fed up with looking after support staff like reception, cleaning, etc? Bring in a company to do it. Got a business problem? Bring in a consulting company. Want a job? Look for a company to work for. Need new technology developing? Give a research grant to a company. The list goes on.
All corporations get income directly from the individual pockets of citizens (nowadays called consumers) or indirectly via authorities spending on behalf of citizens (like selling arms to a nation’s defence). Now, in this system corporations line up to compete for capital and to compete for the income from consumers. They also need to compete by pressing prices down and income up.
However, once you let this piece of societal DNA code loose – this corporate legislation – it may have unintended consequences. This is the idea of COPORACRACY – when corporate influence grows so large it manages in practice to side-step democracy and influence decision-making only for the good of the corporations. Corporacracy can go so far as to convince citizens that it is better to live in a corporacracy than a democracy – with arguments like “you get cooler gadgets and definitely better cars”.
Are we in that situation already? The recent US decision to allow corporations to spend limitlessly and anonymously on political campaigns would point to that we are dangerously close. And is this the situation we want? Maybe it is right, that our societal evolution should go from democracy to corporacracy.
To help you judge for yourself I list the characteristics of corporations below – against each one you can ask the question – has this gone too far out of all proportion to the point where it is actually threatening the way we live?
They need to grow. Growth brings the ability to pay equity owners a dividend, it brings economies of scale to push costs down, it makes the corporation more present and able to reach wider markets. It also means more taxes paid and a rise in popularity with local authorities.
They need to control. To ensure costs are kept down, to ensure competitors do not take their markets , to ensure consumers keep a friendly view of them – a level of control is needed.
They need to monetise. If anything is free it should not be fun. People having fun without paying is a lost business opportunity.
They need to inspire awe, to keep competitors away, to keep customers from complaining, to keep authorities from regulating them etc.
They need investors and consumers to believe in them. If you adopt the corporate model – where for example you get your milk from a corporation and not from a farmer – then you need to believe in that product is OK and that the corporation will do what it says it will do. You need to accept that the corporation has the power to deliver so you need to give the corporation the same level of trust you earlier put in the man who ran the local shop or the local farmer.
They need to standardise and repeat. Standardization means it is easier to control, and also reduces costs. The world run by corporations is one very much standardised. And they need repeat sales to keep the income flowing in to pay investors.
They need to communicate basic messages often. They will define concepts for their own benefits and convey messages as truths, regularly to keep up a profile and coming customers coming back for more.
They need to constantly get more money out of their system, for example by cutting input costs, raising prices or getting more out from what they put in.
For more on this topic, see my article on how Copenhagen city planning and architecture now reflects a complete sell-out to corporacracy.
Posted by steve on October 26, 2011
Posted by steve on September 11, 2011
Figures plotted with 1950 as 1 (1968 for fuel prices) GDP in kronor, total fossil imports, vehicle fuel and fuel prices.
Sweden often claims it is demonstrating a miracle: that economic growth can take place decoupled from inputs of fossil fuel.
I am not so sure, and have been looking at the figures for myself. In a rather unscientific way I decided to plot trends to see if there was any pattern that showed up.
Some thoughts:
as economic growth has risen, so has demand for transport fuel. This may be because people can drive more, so they do (despite it being more expensive) or it may be because all the extra goods and services produced require more transport. Safe to say, the curves show that increasing GDP means increasing transportation. That bit of the theory does not hold.
something happened in 1970. Up to then, GDP and oil imports rose together. It may because the dollar was decoupled from gold completely that the amount of money that could be created increased too. Or the Government policy of becoming independent of oil worked – at least for other energy use areas.
use of vehicle fuel rose less than prices. This might be a reflection of increased demand in the world, as well as higher extraction costs. Again, as economic growth continues it looks as if energy prices rise. This needs to be analysed further as energy price is itself a component of economic growth I am unsure how the two factors affect each other. It would be inane to state that higher fuel prices cause economic growth.
Decoupling detractors point to the fact that imported goods’ embedded fossil fuel baggage is far larger than that of exported goods, and the real CO2 “bill” for Sweden is being payed in other countries, creating at least 20% more emissions than accounted for by domestic accounting.
Interesting debate anyway….
Posted by steve on August 24, 2011
Many have earlier pointed out how fossil fuel emissions and the handling of the phosphor cycle need to be regulated. For this the Swedish Sustainable Economy Foundation propose a flexible emissions taxes. But are more needed? A new report, cited in the INDEPENDENT calls for changes to how we handle nitrogen.
The report by 200 experts from 21 countries warns that in Europe, the costs of nitrogen pollution on air, soils, water, increased greenhouse gases and damage to wildlife was between 70 billion euro and 320 billion euro a year (£62 billion-£282 billion).
The diagram above shows the planetary boundaries that have already been overshot. Nitrogen is one of them. Thanks to the Stockholm Resilience Center for the diagram
The cost works out at between £130 and £650 a year for everyone in Europe.
We cannot continue with economic models that promote externalisation and result in each citizen footing the bill.
One model that has been proposed to address the economic challenge of externalities is the flexible emissions fee model from the Swedish Sustainable Economics Foundation. (TSSEF.SE) Read more about the foundation’s flexible emission fees mechanisms.
Posted by steve on August 17, 2011
Sustainable investment is for investors who believe economic growth is close to being curtailed by lack of raw materials, energy shortfalls, restriction on greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of a sustained economic downturn .
The challenges that face many business operations will come from:
Transforming operations towards sustainability, then, means creating resilience by:
How do sustainable investments benefit investors?
If business operations are likely to shrink generally, sustainable investments can provide the investor with things they need that they would otherwise buy. Again, food and shelter are such returns.
Sustainable investments will continue to produce dividend from sustainable food and energy production at a reasonable price whilst operations with a percentage of fossil fuel dependency in its supply lines will meet rising prices. Sustainable operations become more and more competitive as fuel prices rise.
What are the specific returns to investors from Open World Villages?
As open world villages support community development and provide food and housing in a sustainable way, they will increase in value compared to living arrangements dependant on fossil fuel. If you expect massive fossil fuel hikes or shortages, then you can expect higher dividends from investing in Open World Villages and for their value to increase many-fold.
The share –swap scheme. All shareholders are invited to participate in the services for dividends plan: shareholders are. Depending on the size of their investment, may be entitled to up to 50% discount on purchase of homes in an Open world Village.
Share sales. Open world villages start off as letters of intent to purchase land, and mature as highly efficient living arrangements for many families. Your shares have the ability to increase in value as villages mature. And as shareholders get massive discounts, should you not wish to swap shares for homes you will be able to sell your shares to potential homebuyers.
Certain restrictions apply. Please contact Open World Villages for details
Posted by steve on August 4, 2011
Posted by steve on July 20, 2011
Acting in gratitude, appreciation and using all our gifts - intelligence, innovation, hope and determination - I believe we can create settlements for ourselves that are truly very beautiful places - reflecting the Very Beautiful Place inside.
