Innovation

Innovation / Sustainable lifestyles — 1 Comment
7
Jan 10

Time for Transition

February, 2008

Since I learned about Transition Towns, I stopped waiting for my jet-pack to be delivered.

When I was a snotty-nosed 10-year-old in the mid-1980s, my school teacher gave out a booklet. It described how by the year 2000 we would commute by jet-pack from the roofs of our air conditioned living pods over green fields to gleaming cities of sky-scraping steel and glass.

There we would do a squeaky-clean 20 hour week, while the machines and robots did most of the work. Leisure would be the largest industry; our biggest problem would be working out what to do with all the spare money and free time.

Of course, it didn’t mention that this kind of future would only ever be available for a tiny minority of super rich people at the expense of everybody else. It left out the limits of global resource use, Peak Oil and Climate Change.

Fast forward to now. Surprise. It turns out Star Trek was a science fiction show after all. The jet packs ain’t comin’.

How each of us copes with this reality, how we re-imagine and re-engineer our future with this knowledge and build new dreams, is the greatest and most exciting challenge humanity currently faces.

Transition Towns is one way in which people are coming together to do this. It accepts that the future is going to be one in which we consume dramatically less energy than currently. Most communities, towns and regions, not to mention individuals like me, are terribly ill-prepared for this.

But if we prepare in enough time and engage with enough creativity, we can create a better, more vibrant future than the life we are currently living.

When I cycle up to meet James Samuel, New Zealand’s volunteer national co-ordinator for Transition Towns, he is smiling from his sun bleached shed-come-office perched over Waiheke’s idyllic Oneroa Bay. He’s wearing beach shorts, an open shirt and large greenstone disc dangling from his neck. With his athletic build, twinkling eyes and deeply relaxed composure, he doesn’t seem like a 50-year-old who has been on a computer all night.

“I took a Skype call at about 2am about sales on our latest book,” he explains. “Then at 3am I got involved in a web training seminar with the UK, then another call came in at 5.30am with the feedback from another workshop being held over there. It was great.”

Okay, Transition Towns isn’t some Doomsday Luddite anti-technology cult. I may not get my jet-pack, but I won’t get in trouble for bringing my laptop. We go for a swim in the ocean beneath James’ home. With a holistic work schedule like James’ you take your breaks whenever you feel it’s appropriate.

Nobody can question his commitment. He has now spent most of his savings while working 50 wildly irregular hours a week on this for the past five months, for which he has managed to get $3,500 in funds.  He says this doesn’t worry him.

“I will never be homeless on this island, and never without food,” he says simply. “I don’t own my own home, but I have a lot of social capital built up here.”

The concept of Transition Towns began life just about when I was due to start gliding off my garage, by another seaside, in Kinsale, Ireland. It grew – you might say organically – from its originator Rob Hopkins’ study and practice of permaculture, which he had at that time been pursuing for more than a decade.

Permaculture – coming from ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’ – is a design approach which aims to integrate and harmonise humanity with nature to provide for all our needs in a sustainable way. In permaculture gardens, lakes, ponds, rivers, fields, forests and buildings are designed or reshaped with the intention of being as diverse, stable and resilient as nature itself.

Applying these principles to Kinsale, Rob began to develop ways in which the community could prepare for the approaching realities of Peak Oil and Climate Change. The result was the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan, which was adopted by the local town council.

The plan was essentially aimed at creating a vision of what a happy, healthy, thriving post-Peak Oil and Climate Change savvy Kinsale might look like, and then charting out the steps aimed at getting there.

Or, as Rob describes it: “It was the first, as far as we know, attempt at designing a timetabled strategy for weaning a town off fossil fuels.”

Importantly, the plan was informed by community discussions and input from a wide range of local people. Transition Towns is not about politicians or ‘experts’ telling people what they should do. It’s an open invitation for everyone to play a part in creating a really tight-knit, focused, inspired community, which can share the upcoming challenges and successes equally.

It does this by helping a community to identify what they need to become stronger and more resilient to the changes ahead. It could be anything from intensive permaculture design courses and setting up alternative currencies to coffee mornings and yoga classes. Anything that binds the community together is thrown into the mix. The Transition Town group’s job is to just to keep stirring.

After his success in Kinsale, Rob moved on to Devon and began work on a plan for Totnes, where a calendar of Transition events and a number of working groups have sprouted. Word spread. What became the Transition Network forged links with similar worldwide movements. Today there are 35 full scale Transition projects in the UK, one in Australia, and two in New Zealand.

Which is where James came in, in about the middle of 2007, with his eclectic background as farmer, woodworker, traveller, paragliding instructor, religious community member and facilitator. When he first heard of Transition Towns, he had already been working hard on bringing his own community together.

He had been manager of the local cinema, ensuring that films covering Peak Oil and Climate Change were screened. He also helped to establish community gardens, the local farmer’s market and even a new primary school.

“I called the first Transition meeting, inviting 20 people, and 24 came, which was encouraging,” he said. “I soon realised that people already knew about Peak Oil and Climate Change, they wanted to talk about the process, about what to do.”

Currently the Transition Towns concept includes guidance on 12 steps – like Alcoholics Anonymous except it deals with our community’s addiction to oil. Rob admits they are not so much designed to take you from A-Z as from A-C, since this is as far as people have got up until now.

The steps are not prescriptive, they can be followed in any order, left out, or new ones added as the group sees fit.

  1. Setting up a steering group designed only to continue as long as a few of the steps have been taken. This avoids burn out or stifling of ideas by strong personalities and bureaucracy;
  2. Raising awareness about the challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change with films, talks and other events. These should all be designed to be positive and constructive;
  3. Connecting with people and groups that are already acting on these issues;
  4. Organising a launch event which celebrates the community’s resources and willingness to act;
  5. Forming groups to work on areas like energy use, transport, food etc;
  6. Using Open Space, a collaboratively organised conference where participants all get a chance to lead discussions and choose the topics;
  7. To avoid becoming just a talking shop, developing physical practical manifestations of the project like tree planting, solar panels, or alternative local currencies, and getting publicity for them;
  8. Helping people train in basic self sufficiency skills and problem solving in a relaxed, social atmosphere of fun;
  9. Connecting the project to your local authority;

10.  Learning from those who remember the transition into cheap oil between 1930 and 1960;

11.  Letting it go where it wants to go. The Transition group is there to act as a catalyst for the community and to facilitate them asking the right questions, rather than to come up with answers;

  1. Finally, creating an Energy Descent Action Plan.

What it doesn’t involve is getting funding, fighting the law, stepping on the toes of other green groups, waiting for someone else to do something, berating people or obtaining qualifications.

“The idea is to keep the energy going,” says James. “Find great people, and make them as effective as possible, so that everyone can focus on what they have a passion for.”

As an island beside an island nation, with a warm climate and abundant water supplies, Waiheke is fertile ground to test the Transition Town idea.  And because New Zealand does not produce large amounts of oil and is a long way from the key oil producing parts of the world, it is likely that energy decent here will be quite sudden.

Current priorities for Transition Waiheke include looking at ways to reduce food imports to the island, working with Meridian power to reduce power consumption on the island, and encouraging house builders to use local materials.

The group is also planning a new sustainable public transport system, sharing sustainable skills like woodworking and blacksmithing and drawing together a full inventory of current community projects.

The Transition Towns push also manifests itself on the island in neat little ideas, like the veggie swap stall on the local market, where instead of money, people’s surplus fruit and vegetables from their gardens changes hands. Or the ‘fabulous fruit tree’ project, which aims to plant 20,000 fruit trees in public spaces on the island by 2014.

These are what James refers to as ‘baby steps’, which get people used to the idea of gathering and sharing natural resources. They also provide fresh opportunities for people to get to know and like each other.

“People want to feel that it is doable, that we can start now,” he explains.

In New Zealand all Transition Towns activities are undertaken by volunteers, and only three people formally work in the UK home of Transition Towns. The number of people involved ebbs and flows depending on their passions and availability, and the events taking place at the time. Despite, or perhaps because of it, the momentum is growing.

“Things are moving at a phenomenal pace,” says James. “The last film showing we had was on a really sunny Saturday afternoon on which there was a load of other stuff happening on the island. We still filled the auditorium and had people sitting in the aisles!”

As well as Waiheke, Orewa has begun the formal transition process, and a number of meetings have been held. The business of raising awareness is also underway there. This recently included a talk from Cuban biologist Roberto Perez, who provided an example of how his country survived and thrived while oil was scarce because of the US blockade.

More than 30 other areas in New Zealand have expressed an interest in this approach, and are using some of the Transition Towns techniques to bring people together. The chances are there is one near you. If not, James suggests you get in touch, so you can start something yourself.

“It is an amazing, exciting, encouraging, growing thing and I don’t see that stopping,” he says. “We have got to keep learning from each other. When people come up with something really creative everyone can benefit from it, and that is exciting.

“When a community comes together as a Transition Town they are saying ‘we have started’ which means they have already succeeded, not in some future moment. It is a movement and evolution which begins now.”

Innovation / Sustainable lifestyles — 1 Comment
7
Jan 10

Bringin’ in the rain…

August, 2009

Freshwater is one of the world’s most precious resources. So it’s handy that so much of it falls out of the sky in New Zealand. All we need to do is collect it.

The benefits

Collecting and using rainwater is one of the easiest ways to add a touch of eco-friendly self-reliance to your home and help preserve our environment. And if you are on a metered supply, it will save you money too.

Most areas of New Zealand have a pretty good supply of fresh water, but it’s not always in the right place at the right time. Like the components of any complex long distance supply system, mains water storage dams, pipes, and treatment facilities are costly and come with inherent environmental impacts, including the potential to damage the health of our river ecosystems through excessive extraction and pollution.

The mains system is also susceptible to occasional failures which leave you, or at least your precious vegetable patch, high and dry. This is particularly true in hydro-power areas like Auckland, where in dry periods water and energy authorities have to strike a delicate balance between supplying fresh water and power.

Even small roof water systems can take a huge load off of the mains supply and inspire you to be much more conscious of the water you do use, and how you use it. And they help slow the flow of water in our urban areas, improving storm water management and reducing the risk of flooding

The paperwork

You may need a minor plumbing consent from your council, or a building consent, especially if you are planning anything larger than 25,000 litres. You will also need to fit a backflow prevention device if your tank is being topped up from the mains supply, to keep the two types of water separate.

If you plan to drink roofwater, some councils require you to treat it. Others require an annual inspection of your system. On the plus side, some local authorities offer cash rebates to encourage rainwater use.

Watch out for…

Cleanliness: keep the roof and guttering clear of overhanging branches and regularly inspect and clean them. Consider fitting one of the many guttering filters on the market. The ministry of health recommends disinfecting roof water with small amounts of chlorine, but for those of us who dislike that ‘fresh from the swimming pool’ an ultraviolet light filter system costs about $1,500, plus installment.

Contaminants on the roof: You will need to unplug the system from your roof and find an alternative for a while if you use chemical paints or moss killers up there. Don’t collect from a roof which has lead, chromium or cadmium materials or is unpainted metal. Any paint used should be labelled ‘suitable for potable water supply’.

Your intake: Rainwater is naturally ’soft’ water, meaning it does not contain the dissolved minerals, like chalk, lime, calcium and magnesium mains water in some areas picks up as it percolates through the ground and into our waterways. Getting the right amounts of these minerals is important to our health, so its worth cross-referencing the decision to switch to rainwater with our dietary considerations. This is especially important if we choose a vegetarian or vegan diet, where obtaining the right mineral levels can be more challenging.

Small people: For the same reason, as well as the risk of possible contamination, some doctors advise that even filtered rainwater may not be ideal for pregnancy or for bottle fed babies.

The sums

You only need about five litres of drinking-quality water for each person a day, for cooking, drinking and food preparation. The rest – about 160 litres per person in an average household per day – is used for toilets, showering, washing, the garden, and other uses.

There are many variables, but as a very rough guide each metre of roof space you get hooked up to your system provides around one litre of water in an average year. Even in relatively dry areas, an average home with 120-150m2 provides the potential for at least 100,000 litres of free water each year. A smaller household should get by on a 25,000 litre (5,500 gallon) tank. A larger household may need two.

Metered mains supply of water costs about $1.50 per 1,000 litres, plus a couple of hundred dollars a year for water testing and meter reading. If you are in an area which is not normally metered, you may have to pay $500-$1,000 or more to get one installed. This, plus the cost of your system, suggests a payback time of somewhere around 10 years.

Unless you have a lot of roof, a lot of rain and a plenty of tank space, or you are very frugal with water use, you will probably want to keep a mains back up, to avoid costly water truck deliveries through dry spells.

Innovation / Sustainable lifestyles — No Comments
7
Jan 10

You are my sunshine

September, 2009

Aliens are probably laughing their tentacles off at our approach to energy generation. We spend our days fighting wars over a dwindling supply of black sludge, beneath our very own giant free fusion reactor.

Many homes in New Zealand have 20 – 30 times more solar energy hammering down on them each year than the owners use in electricity or gas.  We have, at least, got as far as developing photovoltaic cells to convert this energy into electricity. But with the average Kiwi household using about 8 kWh of electricity per person per day, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority calculates that to supply all the needs of an average family of four would require a system costing between $60,000 and $170,000.

So reducing power use remains the first priority if you want to save money and protect the environment. But the tantalising prospect is that if every New Zealand home had a 3kW photovoltaic solar panel array, they would generate enough power to satisfy more than a quarter of New Zealand’s residential electricity needs.

That would mean we could shut down the Huntly coal fired power station, assuming we didn’t need it to back up our renewable sources on those still winter evenings…

The dark side of the sun?

There’s no such thing as free electricity, either economically or environmentally.

The glass, plastic and metal fittings in PV systems take energy, water and a wide range of chemicals to make. Some of these are toxic or hazardous. PV modules also use palladium silver, nickel, nickel chromium or tin for metallic contacts and usually a tin/lead solder for electrical connections. Not to mention small amounts of cadmium, which is toxic and has a tendency to accumulate in the food chain.

The resulting cells are generally only good for about 20 years. And although the cells are more or less benign in use, disposal of dead cells is also problematic. Recycling programmes are being developed, and some manufacturers will take back old panels to recover the more valuable materials.

There are some other, unavoidable, limitations. Because PV cells only produce power during the day, and relatively little when it is cloudy, even the most super frugal electricity user will need some sort of backup if they don’t want to be left powerless from time to time.

Other renewable generation options like wind can help to iron out the peaks and troughs if you have the right conditions, but for most people off the grid, lead acid batteries containing sulphuric acid are the most useful option. Nickel-cadmium batteries are less common and much more expensive, but last longer. Depending on the system and how it is maintained, the batteries you use will last somewhere between 3-15 years.

As PV technology advances the costs are falling and the efficiency of the panels is increasing, making it a more viable option. However, as things stand, when you take into account the costs of installation and maintenance, and even once you have negotiated with your local energy company to sell power back to the grid, you will almost certainly be paying more for each watt of electricity than if you plugged into the mains. And whether your system adds its full value to the cost of your house depends on the temperament of the potential buyer.

While there are 100% renewable energy providers like Trustpower and Meridian around, even the overall environmental benefits of having your own PV system are difficult to quantify. But wind farms are a blot on the landscape, and there are benefits from reducing our hydropower use to reduce the pressure on our water systems. There’s no doubting the added self sufficiency and resilience provided by your own personal power generation. And if you can’t get on the grid, or don’t want to, PV is less polluting than gas.

The paperwork

Building or resource consents may be required for photovoltaic systems that penetrate the roof or are considered by neighbours to affect their property. Any grid-connected photovoltaic systems need to be agreed to by both the lines company (for the connection) and the electricity retailer (for pricing arrangements). And you need to get an installer who knows what they are doing as the system must meet the AS/NZS 3000:2007 electrical installations wiring rules.

Innovation — No Comments
7
Jan 10

Pitch with no buts

November, 2008

First printed in Idealog magazine

http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/november-december-2008/

How to jump start creativity wearing coloured hats and comedy spectacles.

Picture the scene. A high ranking BBC executive has just been given one minute to pitch an idea to a group of her colleagues, many junior than her. She chooses a project which is already happening, she is responsible for, and on which the company has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars (£100,000).

At the end of her time she has to stand there, without saying a word, while the group responds to what she has said. Some of them are wearing coloured hats, others have large comedy spectacles on. Twenty minutes later the project is dead. It will be scrapped and started from scratch.

The story is true, and for Bill Wilmot, who led the session, it’s an illustration of the power of a simple innovation process, and the potential costs of not bothering to go through it.

Bill works for SRI International, is an emeritus professor at the University of Montana, and is director of the Collaboration Institute, which specialises in workplace communication and collaboration. He is also the author of Innovation – Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want.

He has played a part in nurturing innovations like the computer mouse and high definition television, and has helped nudged the BBC from its collision cause with the government axe man.

On his way he has probably arranged the deaths of thousands of dumb ideas which could have cost his clients millions in money, time and reputation. At the heart of the process is a simple mnemonic: NABC. This means:

  • identify the marketplace Need for your product or service;
  • define the ‘golden nugget’ or the unique advantage of your Approach;
  • outline the Benefits to the customer, your partners in the market ecosystem;
  • pinpoint the Competition and systematically compare your approach to competitive products or services.

Do not go glossing over this list. Look at it again and think about it. When was the last time you systematically went through all of them thoroughly?

Considering its simplicity, Bill finds it startling how haphazardly this process is done in most firms, if it is done at all. The resulting confusion is readily exposed in the one minute pitch exercise he uses at the outset of his sessions.

“They know this stuff, but it’s about getting them to do it rather than talk about it,” he said. “What’s fascinating for me is that businesses world wide use these terms but they can’t define them. It is un-fucking-believable how bad it is the first time. I walk up to employees and say ‘what’s the value you bring to this company’, they say ‘Erm…I’m a vice president.’”

The average pitch, he says, is mostly Approach – how we’ve come up with this new way of making X, with a distinct lack of knowledge on whether anybody wants X,  what X will do to enhance people’s lives and whether or not X’s role is already being fulfilled by a similar product or collection of products.

“The typical thing is to say ‘well it’s better than the competition’, but that doesn’t really cover it,” said Bill.

When he told me this, it reminded me of a piece of marketing analysis I did for some friends working on an internet start up in the UK. They had spent three years working with investment cash from friends and family developing a new online tool.

We got together and they told me about their Approach, what the thing was called and why, how it worked etc. They also told me that whenever they explained it to anybody the response they invariably got was ‘that sounds like Facebook or MySpace.’

I checked out their website and asked them a few questions. They couldn’t tell me exactly who their tool was for or what made it unique, and I couldn’t really get to grips with how it worked. We parted company. They have tried it as a website for individuals. They have tried aiming it at business. Last time I checked it was sort of aimed at both.

This was three years work, remember. Bill tries to get this all sorted out in an hour or so. After participants do their initial pitch the person gets 20 minutes of feedback in which they are not allowed to speak. Bill calls this the Watering Hole. This is also where a little light role playing comes in.

“The Brits were so critical at the BBC we gave them these green hats and said those wearing them could only say something positive,” said Bill. “In Asia, people sometimes have more difficulty being critical, so we gave them red hats and said they could only say things which were negative.

“Then we give some of the group these giant spectacles, which we call the Eyes of the Customer, and tell them to feedback from that point of view, you know ‘I don’t care about the technical stuff, just tell me what I want to hear.

“People don’t tend to want to open their idea up like that, but it is often the person who comes in from the outside that says ‘Erm, I just don’t get it’ that is important. They learn more in those 20 minutes than they have learned in the last year.”

After their initial Watering Hole, the participants are given more time to come up with a more detailed proposition which takes the form of a four minute pitch. According to Bill, the key is to do this multiple times.

Many people are incredibly uncomfortable doing this the first time, especially with an idea that may be close to their heart. But with the right coaching and preparation, most become more comfortable.

Then they are able to drop their defensiveness and learn from the intense feedback they are given. This makes them part of the innovation process. They themselves come up with the changes which can turn a good idea into a great one, or a bad idea into a forgotten one, fast.

Bill said: “The customer and competition parts are the hardest. Most people do not do a good job of identifying customer needs. They tend to just ask customers what they want, but customers cannot always tell them. They think they do a focus group and that answers the question. You can’t really see what people need unless you shadow them and follow them.

“Go into an airport and you will see people sitting on the floor propped up against the wall. Why? They are plugging in their laptops and phones. What are airport designers thinking? You can’t really tell what people need until you watch them start to clog up the spaces. It is not a one time thing, it’s an ongoing process.”

At SRI International people pitch ideas to each other as they pass in the corridor. The company is currently helping to develop the next generation of intelligent internet browsers and ‘packet hop’ technology which would enable mobile phones to work at short range without the use of a tower. It is also working with Worcestor Polytechnic to build innovation into the curriculum, and in Singapore they are working on making innovation a part of children’s school work.

The aim is to engender an entire culture of innovation. Bill sees potential for that here in New Zealand too.

“You guys are talented, and well educated,” he said. “The thing that is missing is realising how competitive the world is. The exchange rate falls and you won’t be selling lamb to France. I would suggest more flexibility.

“I do see it as a strength that there are a lot of small companies here. That is where innovation happens. What isn’t happening is talking to each other. But you must have a clear process for innovation, a common language you can use to make it happen.”

Branding / Innovation / celebrities — No Comments
7
Jan 10

One-man brand

August, 2009

First published in Idealog magazine

http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/may-june-2009/

Kiwi golfer Michael Campbell has nurtured hopes of morphing into a global sports brand ever since he beat Tiger to win the 2005 US Open. It hasn’t happened yet. Andy Kenworthy spoke to Cambo about what could be the toughest challenge of his career

You’re a branding expert. Maybe you brand cars, you brand shoes, you brand chunky diving watches with a tie-in to the latest hip spy movie. But what happens when you brand a person?

If you get it wrong branding a product, maybe it doesn’t sell so well. You do a little ‘Lessons Learned’ Powerpoint and everybody wanders off to do something else.

But with a person, there’s a lot more at stake. Walking away is just not so easy for them. The whole purpose of the exercise is to make them inseparable from the impression you create.

This is par for the course for sports branding consultant Hamish Reid. In the last few years his London-based firm WayPointOne has advised, among others, a Formula 1 driver, a high-profile professional boxer, an iconic British footballer and a contemporary artist.

Reid studied marketing in the late 80s at Otago University and perfected his game at companies like Pepsi-Co, Fonterra and Danone. He then became part of Saatchi and Saatchi’s global branding factory, consulting on sponsorship.

This is where Michael Campbell’s golfing circus turned up, looking for help. Campbell had been steadily making an impression on sports fans with big-tournament wins and top finishes in the opening years of the century. But a lot more people suddenly became aware of him when he won the US Open and its US$1.2 million in prize money.

“Michael’s board came to us at Saatchi soon after that,” says Reid. “IMG, Michael’s managing agents, were having difficulty articulating Michael’s value to European and American prospects. Our brief was to build a compelling proposition that would help IMG convert these prospects.”

Management-speak aside, on the face of it there’s a lot to be said for ‘Cambo’ as a New Zealand brand. It’s not hard to portray him as a walking, swinging, Kiwi Cinderella story, intimately bound up with the history of this country.

Born in 1969 at Hawera, in the shadow of Mount Taranaki, he spent much of his childhood around his grandparents’ small country farm in nearby Patea. His mother pulled him away from rugby as it was “too rough”, so the sporty wee Campbell started swinging things instead. He played softball for Wellington from the age of ten to 14 and enjoyed squash and table tennis.

His dad played off a single figure handicap at Titahi Golf Club, and Michael would caddie. He joined the club himself at age ten, and had a handicap of 11 by age 12. By the time he was 16 he had broken the course record and was representing Wellington in junior golf teams. At 18, he played for New Zealand as an amateur.

Meeting him in the stylish foyer of Auckland’s Westin Hotel, Campbell is impressively quick to swing into action with the story of his battle against the odds.

“I remember being 13 at a new school and having to introduce myself,” he says. “I said I wanted to be a professional golfer and they all looked at me. I think I am only the second Maori pro golfer ever. Maoris didn’t play golf, so there was no gauge as to how well we might play it.”

His ancestral roots are from Ngati Ruanui on his father’s side and Nga Rauru on his mother’s side. His heritage also came over the seas from Scotland in 1840, in the form of his great, great, great grandfather, the near-legendary Sir John Logan Campbell.

Sir John, also known as the ‘Father of Auckland’, set up shop in a tent at the bottom of what is now Shortland Street and was instrumental in setting up many of the institutions that form the backbone of the city. He built the first European house in the city, is buried on the summit of One Tree Hill, which he named, in the middle of Cornwall Park, which he gave to the people.

It’s clear this isn’t just history for Campbell; it is very present in every sense. “On the last nine holes of the US Open in 2005 I drew on them, my ancestors,” he says. “I was visualising myself as a Maori warrior, with my club as my spear, fending off attackers. That gave me strength.

“The connection to John Logan Campbell makes me feel that in a way I was born to have that leadership role,” he adds. “I am very proud to have him as my great, great, great grandfather.”

This, along with a fairly consistent ability to notch up top five placements in big tournaments which lasted until late last year, is the raw material Reid has to work with. This has generated estimated earnings of around $8 million, but it’s still pretty raw, as Campbell is quick to admit.

“I learned from Greg Norman,” he says. “He said ‘Employ people around you who are smarter than you,’ so that’s what I did.

“I specialise in hitting a little white ball around a course. My head-space was basically ‘Michael Campbell the golfer’. At first I didn’t know what a brand meant. Over the last two or three years Hamish has educated me about the brand and how it can enhance me as a golfer and a person. He is the driving force behind it.”

First off, Reid put Campbell through an ‘immersion’ process aimed to consolidate this raw material and generate the insights which would begin to build up Campbell’s ‘story’ and messaging. After that, he had to work around Campbell’s travels to go through the rest of the steps to begin building the brand, pretty much on the hoof.

A quick scan through mentor Greg Norman’s epic business portfolio creates an impressive road map for Campbell to follow. Norman, a two-time British Open Champion, has ploughed millions in on-course earnings into two signature property development companies, a turf company, clothing, vineyards, a restaurant, sail-type shade awnings and a brand of beef steak.

But there must be a limit to how far you can stretch product-celebrity cross branding. For example superstar jockey Frankie Detorri has a range of frozen pizzas, seemingly based almost entirely on the fact that he is Italian.

Reid is cautious about heading down a similar route with Campbell, but says there are plenty of opportunities. “I think that providing there is a direct link to strategy, that it is robust, can stand up to scrutiny and furthers a sportsperson’s brand story—heavy product links can work,” he says.

“Does Frankie Dettori come from a long line of Sicilian pizza makers, did he grow up with mozzarella and basilico—is there provenance in pizza for him? If yes, that story could work, but if it is merely opportunistic, it’s tacky and, in my view, doesn’t have a long-term future—he’ll be exposed and people will view him as having sold-out.”

Campbell’s team plans to keep things careful and considered. So don’t expect to buy Cambo’s Signature Microwaveable TV Hangi anytime soon. If it doesn’t feel true to Campbell, it won’t happen—and already he’s turned down some ready cash.

“I was approached by two big drinks companies for sponsorship,” Campbell says. “This was big, six-figure sums. I said no, and they were surprised. It was on the principle of health. I could not carry that [brand] on me, knowing that stuff is bad for you. One thing that angers me is sports people advertising things like alcohol, KFC and Coca-Cola. That angers me a lot. I promote a cleaner image.”

Campbell, after all, has other things on his mind. A lot of this branding effort is being made so he can continue to grow his charitable foundation and support organisations like the New Zealand Junior Golf Foundation and—perhaps ironically—Ronald McDonald House, to which he donates all his golfing earnings in New Zealand.

As he says: “I grew up among strong tribal traditions. The way I was brought up was that you have two hands: one to receive—and I have received a lot, healthy kids, a wonderful wife, golf tournaments—and one to give back.”

He has also just created ProjectLitefoot, a platform to further spread the word on climate change and a means to tackle his own gargantuan carbon footprint. He estimates he has a 140-tonne carbon footprint just from his travel and 172 tonnes for his homes in Wellington and Brighton in the UK. The New Zealand average is 18.5 tonnes per person. “I can’t stop travelling to games, but I have changed all my light bulbs at home and sold a couple of my cars,” he says. “I’m now looking to purchase hybrids.”

For the time being, Campbell is either a very well briefed and polished media performer, or the brand has not parted company with the true instincts of the man, so they move together naturally and seamlessly. It remains to be seen whether this will continue to be the case if he manages to expand his current modest and rather predictable line up of sponsorship deals with Callaway Golf, Canterbury of New Zealand and Oakley.

In the end, for all Reid’s undoubted expertise, whether Brand Cambo succeeds or fails probably goes back to Campbell, his clubs, and that little white ball.

The week I met him, he was languishing at 204 in the world rankings, behind fellow New Zealanders Danny Lee at 156, Mark Brown at 131 and David Smail at 91. He had not placed better than 119 in a tournament since November 2008 and had just pulled out of the New Zealand open—his fourth tournament missed in a row due to a shoulder injury.

Being ‘New Zealand’s fourth best golfer’ doesn’t have a winning ring to it, and isn’t going to get you a lot of property development companies.

“It may be that I have spent too much time on the charities and the brand,” he admits. “Now I want to put my focus and energies back into my golf.”

Which is just what you’d hope for from Brand Cambo.

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7
Jan 10

Healthy design

August, 2009

First published in Idealog magazine

http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/september-october-2009/features/orions-hunt

Ian McCrae is a former Ernst & Young man and senior business analyst for the London Stock Exchange. He’s probably used to being a few clicks ahead of the rest of us. In the 16 years since he founded Orion Health, the firm has gone from a five-person startup to New Zealand’s largest software exporter.

When McCrae founded Orion Health in 1993 there were just 50 World Wide Web servers known to exist in the entire world, most in university campuses or government agencies. While the rest of us were playing computer games that now look like they were drawn with blunted crayons, Orion Health was busy working out how New Zealand’s National Health Index could pass everybody’s details around every health centre in the country. Orion then acquired the first commercial Internet link in New Zealand and harnessed its blistering nine kilobits per second to become the first Kiwi company to use international Internet marketing to sell its products.

Orion does the opposite of killer apps. Its specialist healthcare programs might one day save your life, or the life of a loved one. They may already have done so. Your doctor almost certainly uses Orion products, as does your local hospital every time a new patient arrives. Orion’s Concerto Portal has helped sweep away centuries of staggering down hospital corridors clutching dog-eared paper files. It allows medical staff access to a single view of their patients’ computerised admissions records, blood test, X-ray results and more.

Orion’s cWorkflow Modules are a set of software tools and applications that help manage and support things like disease management, clinical notes, discharge summaries and e-prescribing. Symphonia Messaging & Mapping Tools allow IT professionals to convince a host of previously incompatible healthcare computer systems to finally talk to one another. And the Rhapsody Integration Engine brings all of this together, with the aim of making it all as easy to use as anything on your desktop.

Being this useful should bring success. And it has. McCrae claims his firm is now the market leader in several areas of its sector, particular when it comes to integration engines. “Last year we lost one sale in that area,” he says. “But we won all the rest.”

The firm now has turnover of around $60 million and 330 staff, with offices in the US, UK, Spain and Australia. This helps to explain the air of affluent creativity in the stripped-down, stylish interior of the company’s Auckland HQ, and McCrae’s quietly spoken confidence when Idealog meets him there.

“We reckon we will open another couple of offices by the end of the year and our turnover should hit $100 million,” he says, matter of factly.

I don’t doubt him. Orion posted 40 percent year-on-year growth from 2002–2007—and that was before Barack Obama decided to pump another US$10 billion annually over the next five years into this sector in the US. During his campaign for the US presidency, Obama pledged to invest on an electronic health records programme to streamline the work of hospitals, clinics and physician offices. He has since said that he wants a full digital health records system in place for the whole country by 2014.

It’s not easy to appreciate from New Zealand just how difficult Obama’s task is. Like most countries, the health system in the US is riven with bureaucratic and commercial rivalries, professional mistrust, entrenched commercial interests and incompatible systems, philosophies and legal requirements. Integration will be as politically challenging as it is technically difficult—but McCrae is happy to help. “That’s a big pie,” he says of Obama’s billions. “All we need is one percent of that.”

To get it, McCrae must complete Orion’s transformation from precocious startup to world player. Design and usability, he reckons, is the key. “This company started out working in small groups of people and was pretty informal, and we have relied on the talent of those small groups of people. But as we grow we have had to be more systematic about things. We reached a scale where we had to get out of the startup mentality, so we went looking around the world to people like Apple to work out how they do it.

“When it comes to software manufacture, industrial design doesn’t come into it as much as it already does in hardware. Looking at ergonomics, look and feel, that has been relatively unusual in software design. Apple gets the idea, whereas Microsoft is a late convert. Microsoft is very technically led, they do the technology first and then put a skin on it. When Steve Jobs took over Apple he wanted design to be in everything. When was the last time you saw an Apple manual or a guide book for an iPhone?”

That’s the model—that in the future Orion software will be so easy and instinctive for healthcare people to use, they won’t need instructions and won’t need to learn anything new.

“We wanted to train our people, so we focused on user-centred design,” says McCrae. “We sent them to San Francisco where they trained with Alan Cooper, who helped create Visual Basic and has now set himself up as a design guru.”

In mid-2008 Orion created an eight-person design team. McCrae now considers their role crucial to the future of the company. “Companies with the best products have a far better chance of prevailing,” he says. “They way to get good products is to have really good design up front. We need to be able to do good design and do it well, because once you do a good design people will copy it. You have to be putting out good design twice as fast as everybody else to stay ahead.

“The companies that will win this business will be those with the most elegant, user-friendly products out of the box. Most of the software organisations don’t have the commitment to design. We know this because when we recruit their staff, we ask them.”

As well as poaching the odd bit of US talent, Orion has established offices in Santa Monica and Boston to add to its other overseas outposts. The office locations read like a travel brochure on their website. This is not accidental. Orion uses pleasant locales as a staff retention programme. That way their people get to do their OE, and still work for the company.

Orion sells all over the globe, with about 85 percent of the company’s revenue coming from international sales. But the US is the single biggest healthcare IT market in the world, and Orion has worked hard to break into it.

“It’s all about having a presence, getting the reference sites,” says McCrae. “The smaller hospitals are excited to see us because vendors don’t usually go there. But now we have UCLA, which is two and a half times the size of Auckland hospital.”

The roster of big US clients also includes John Hopkins Hospital, in Maryland, Baltimore, which has topped the US News & World Report’s annual rankings of American hospitals 18 times in a row, the New York State Department of Health and Greene Memorial Hospital, Ohio. Shared Health, one of the largest public/private health information exchanges in the US, now uses Orion technology to connect medical information for entire geographical areas.

McCrae explains the importance of each new conquest. A single hospital may be running up to 800 separate computer applications, roughly equivalent to one for every bed in the place. This makes for a lot of complexity for Orion to step in and simplify.

Adam Sawyer, Orion’s general manager, talks me through their approach. In the initial research phase, Orion sends a qualified clinician to establish in detail how people are working at the target site. “We don’t take them over to a coffee shop to interview them,” says Sawyer. “We send someone who knows what they are doing and watches the way that people work.”

Orion also tries to get to know a bit about the personalities behind their clients. Staff create example ‘personas’ and attempt to design the software to match them. For example, the end user may be a married nurse who finds technology intimidating, or a young surgeon who is comfortable handling complex information on screen. The trick is to design software that’s friendly for a variety of users.

The design team brings this all together. To avoid the dangerous urge of jumping to conclusions, they use the Balsamiq Mockups sketch design visualisation software. This creates a virtual ‘doodle’ of how your new software will look in operation, and some of its properties. What Balsamiq doesn’t do is pixelated perfection; it works like an architectural walkthrough, getting the user interface right before you start pouring the digital concrete.

This deliberate simplicity prevents the designers’ recurring nightmare. You don’t want to introduce a concept design to your customer, and have them say something really useful like: “Can I get the icon in cornflower blue?” Or worse: “I just don’t like it.” The aim is to keep the client in the process, working with you.

Which is the core of Orion’s challenge. How can it stay ahead of the design curve now that every company is out there surfing it?

“People’s expectations are so high now. They see this stuff on their phones,” says McCrae. “People are used to using Google, Gmail, that’s becoming the norm. But things like health and accounting programmes can still be hard to use. That is not the future.”

Innovation / Sustainable lifestyles — No Comments
7
Jan 10

Carbon Farming

July, 2009

First published in Idealog magazine

http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/september-october-2008/ecoinnovator-spring-2008/carbon-farming

Shortly after entering the Simunovich Olive Estate, about 18 months after emigrating from the UK, my body’s internal calendar finally blows up.

I thought I’d adjusted reasonably well. But as I turn into the imposing stone gates of the estate, I sense a little boing and a broken cuckoo dangling on a spring from where my understanding of the seasons should be.

It’s July—summer where I come from, winter here—but after a frosty start it has dawned sunny and warm. I wind my car window down and try to relax. I am in Bombay, a 40-minute drive south of Auckland. Outside, lines of olive trees laden with fruit march over green hills threaded with silver streams. I am rolling though a perfectly European panorama of harvest.

In 1999, Branka Simunovich and her husband Ivan bought five titles, covering a total of 86 hectares of farmland, for what she describes as their “retirement project”. The entire site was then landscaped into a mind-boggling network of terraces and 40,000 olive trees were planted, whose growth has been accelerated by days like this one.

The Simunoviches have so far invested $13 million in the venture and employ 43 people. The property is now the biggest privately owned olive estate in New Zealand, exports to Australia and has its sights firmly set on the markets further afield. Olives from here have figured in the New Zealand Olive Association Awards every year since they started. This year they reckon on producing 70,000-80,000 litres of oil, up 250% from last year. The company now creates more than 30 different olive oil and cosmetic products, and is working hard to develop more.

Branka Simunovich tells me her husband “doesn’t understand small numbers”, and a glance at the family history shows why. About 40 years ago Ivan Simunovich opened a small fish and chip shop in Glen Innes. He then set up a fishing business to keep the fryers stocked. In October 2004, the family sold Simunovich Fisheries for a reported $137 million.

So you could see the whole estate as an exercise in recycling. Money earned trawling the seabed for scampi is now being turned into a model of sustainable business and environmental care. For Branka, the environmental considerations are an integral part of the economics of her operation.

“The most economical way of doing things is the sustainable way,” she says. “You don’t plant a grove only for yourself. It will be available for generations and generations, otherwise what’s the point of planting it?”

So it surprises me that the site is not certified organic. It’s partly because of the need to treat occasional fungal infections on the trees, caused by a wetter climate than olives developed in. Simunovich says she could probably find legitimate ways of obtaining certification, but would see this as cheating. She stands by the way the estate operates and wants to be as open about it as possible.

She certainly isn’t averse to the paperwork. As well as going through the extremely lengthy monitoring and evaluation processes necessary to export to the UK, US and Japan, the estate is now in the second stage of a full carbon-use audit. This looks likely to give it the status of not merely a ‘carbon neutral’ enterprise, but a ‘carbon positive’ one. While not formally required by any of the countries, it has also allowed the company to quash any concerns from overseas distributors that ‘olive miles’ might threaten the environment.

This is because the growth of the trees is helping to combat climate change to such an extent that it not only offsets the estate’s other activities, it actually exceeds them. In theory, this could be another potential earner: selling carbon credits on to more polluting operations.

It also opens the doors to the potential for ‘green’ exporting, not just for the estate, but for eco-savvy NZ companies which follow their lead—offsetting the food miles inherent in sending these goods overseas with the good the estate is doing here.

Entering the processing plant generating all this potential is like going into a miniaturised and modernised Willy Wonka’s olive oil factory. The eco-logic behind the business is evident from the outset. The plant is located in the centre of the property, with the terracing scheme designed to minimise the distance from the trees to the factory. Simunovich says they even tried running sheep through the groves to mow the grass. “But we aren’t sheep farmers. I ended up with about seven lambs following me everywhere I went, and then I couldn’t eat lamb anymore.”

The picking is done in large boxes, to reduce return trips to the plantation. The olives come in straight from the surrounding trees and are mashed, emulsified, washed and stored. It’s a continuous process that maintains the oil’s natural preservatives and means the oil can be stored for an extra two years, remaining edible for up to five.

The plant uses state-of-the-art machinery from Italian company Pieralisi. Branka runs seminars and workshops on their use, hoping to help create a truly world-class olive industry in New Zealand.

There are no piles of olives on the floor, no bags to split, and almost no waste. Every batch is monitored during the process and tested after. Pips, pulp, leaves and any other additional material are composted, mulched back to the trees or used to feed local cows. “We are always looking for ways to put everything through the full cycle,” says Simunovich.

Water use is a particular example, for reasons that go back to Branka’s past. Maybe olive trees and New Zealand’s emigrant population recognise something of themselves in each other, as they have both tended to be pioneers of marginal land.

Simunovich left her homeland on the island of Brač in Croatia in the early 1990s, to escape the country’s civil war. Brač is a place without running streams. Traditionally each family grows its own small grove of olive trees on its rocky slopes, as well as cultivating grapes and its own food animals and vegetables. As a child she learned the crafts of making olive oils and various creams.

“Where I come from water is a very valuable resource,” she says. “When I saw water running through every gully here I thought I’d found gold!”

On the estate there is no mains sewage or piped water supply from outside. The water comes from within the boundary, and the waste is processed on-site. So, for example, the machine that washes the olives filters and recycles its water, requiring one-fifth the water of a conventional system.

Next door, in the skin care section, the jaws of a machine that seals 40 tubes of cosmetics a minute require water-cooling. This is normally just flushed straight through and out of the system. But here a separate machine recycles the water. The process would have required 1,000 litres a year; it now uses just 15. There is another closed water system for the air conditioning.

The skin care production line, which is in its third year, uses exactly the same olive oil, and the same high standards. The company even cleans the place with a detergent made on-site from a recipe derived from its own range of soaps.

Scientist Sushma Sharma, who has a background in botany and a Masters degree in biochemistry, oversees the whole operation. She tests each product before it goes into production, working to surpass the consistency and quality standards which would otherwise became barriers to exporting the goods. This includes Tebe, their latest skin care range, which Sushma has designed as the firm’s Trojan horse for the overseas market.

But the driving force is Branka Simunovich, who was born into a tradition of growing olives and may well have olive oil in her veins. She drinks a small amount of it each morning as a health tonic. “There’s a tradition,” she says. “If you touch an olive tree each day you will feel better. It is the holy tree; it comes from heaven.”

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7
Jan 10

Web muscle

August, 2009

Build it and they won’t come.

That should be the mantra of the web. You can have the cleverest website in the world, but it’s pointless if nobody is looking at it. Equally, you might get people looking at your website, but if it doesn’t deliver the goods, you might as well not bother.

Which is where The Web Company comes in. Its specialist search-engine optimization (SEO) team makes sure that your site will be found – and when it’s found, that it works like magic.

Search power

One of the Web Company’s current clients is Auckland-based weight-training company GetStrength.com. GS is no stranger to power struggles; its strength and conditioning products help train the Blues Super 14 Rugby team, NRL and AFC teams, weightlifters and top athletes.

Jamming the GS website with key words to barge its way up the search ratings wasn’t going to work. The referees in the online arena—search engines of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft—aren’t falling for that old trick anymore. They also now look website design and content.

So The Web Company kicked off with a pay-per-click campaign, meaning the link to GetStrength.com appeared on the right-hand side of relevant Google searches, upping its profile. The team then made an in-depth analysis of the website itself and suggested a redesign to maximise both visibility and usage.

“The original site was quite confusing and hard to navigate round,” says Rebecca O’Neill, The Web Company’s senior online marketing consultant. “It had lots of information, but it was hidden away. Half the users saw the front page and then left. We also found that the ‘back end’ of the site was so broken that they were missing sales, some of them worth about $4,500 each.”

Community focus

Key to the improvements is an understanding that the Internet is no longer a series of static shop windows where people might see pictures of your products and read something about them. It is an incredibly dynamic collection of communities, meeting places and interactions.

The Web Company helped target specific communities by dividing the site into theme-related sections. It also created a Facebook page to create a GS community to share stories and ideas.

Now everything is at the weightlifter’s chalk-covered fingertips—products, information, blogs, videos and vouchers and shopping. Crucially, you can find your way around the GS site in many ways—clicking on images, on lists, through a search box, and always know where you are.

Marketing discipline

But that isn’t the end of the story. “There are loads of companies out there who can design a good looking website. We come from a marketing background, and this we’re used to ongoing campaigning. If you don’t maintain things by uploading fresh content and keeping the site up to date, your ranking will drop away after a time.”

The Web Company’s general manager Sukesh Sukumaran says “We know that a website is just a means to an end, whether it be to generate enquiries, online sales or brand position. We build, market, and measure, so that we can use these measurements to continue to make improvements.”

The results

Steve Thompson, GetStrength.com founder and New Zealand power-lifting record holder, says he took a little convincing to make the changes. “We were spending a lot on advertising and sponsorship, but our business was online so we figured that was the best way to go with our marketing. It took a while to get used to the new website, but now I am 100% rapt. We have seen improved sales and higher value sales online.

“The website also acts as a professional contact point for people who will then spend more with us over the phone. And seeing yourself at the top of the Google listings, well, you can’t get much better marketing than that!”

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7
Jan 10

Spare some change?

June, 2009

First published in Idealog magazine

http://idealog.co.nz/magazine/july-august-2009/workshop/spare-some-change

In 2006, the Labour government gave a US$8 million five-year interest-free loan to Right Hemisphere, a private enterprise employing only a few dozen people. Eyebrows were quickly raised. “Sounds great,” David MacGregor wrote on the Idealog blog. “Especially if you’re Right Hemisphere … is it fair that one company should be singled out for special favour by cabinet? Does it set a precedent where the taxpayer becomes venture capitalist in high-risk ventures?”

So far, no similar deals have been struck. But now that we’re short a bob or billion, can Right Hemisphere president Mark Thomas justify our largesse, and does he recommend we repeat it?

“It is making a huge difference,” he tells me when we meet at Right Hemisphere’s swish HQ in the Millennium Centre on Auckland’s Great South Road. I’m just in time to be wowed by some early screen shots of the firm’s sixth incarnation of its Deep Exploration 3D design software.

“We are growing, we’re hiring people,” says Mark. “We are able to grow our market share and through that we have a bright future. That money has got us over the hump.”

He estimates the firm would otherwise be six to 12 months behind in product line, development, and its sales and marketing strategy. “Without the recession that would be okay, but with the recession, we could be really struggling,” he says. “$12 million may sound like a lot of money, but not when you are dealing with a company with a lot of highly-paid people.”

IT pay at this level hovers somewhere around $80,000 a year. The government investment—around NZ$12 million—would pay about 150 years of that, or enough to pay the company’s 40 or so permanent New Zealand staff for nearly four years. That’s an expensive employment scheme, but there’s more to the deal than that.

First, those 40 jobs are still here. A condition of the investment was that R&D remains based in New Zealand.

Second, Right Hemisphere promised to help create a mini business sector based on its 3D visualisation software through its catalyser company, Nextspace. Sure enough, today there are several smaller firms stuck on like remora fish to Right Hemisphere’s Great White hope.

They include Revisia, which creates walkthroughs and training resources for heavy industry, the Urban Voyage design studio and ‘virtual construction consultants’ Predefine. Another dozen or so are lined up for support.

Nextspace provides Right Hemisphere software at knock-down prices to research centres and universities across the country. Says Nextspace chief executive Gavin Lennox: “In the last 12 months we have provided technology with a list price of $6 million to these establishments at a 97.5 percent discount. That’s enough to cover the cost of the interest on the loan in itself.”

And Nextspace has just secured a deal to integrate Right Hemisphere’s software into products EMC, one of the world’s largest document management companies.

Thomas is serious about meeting his national commitments, but for him this is a global game and $12 million is just table stakes to play with the big boys.

He says: “There are assumptions about what a success is in New Zealand, that a turnover of $10–15 million is big, which in global terms is nonsense.”

His company’s worldwide competitors benefit from significantly more government support than Right Hemisphere receives, he says, and by the time our government got interested Right Hemisphere was not some dot-com bedroom startup. It had its HQ in California, funding from iconic Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sequoia Capital, and was already making a splash offshore with clients like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.

Right Hemisphere’s turnover has come close to doubling since then, so maybe the government should have grabbed a share in the firm and its success or set in a trigger point at which it would start paying some interest. But it’s all too easy to argue that since the company is succeeding it didn’t need our help, or that if it had bombed it would not have deserved it. Perhaps the government could instead be congratulated for backing the right horse.

At the time of the loan there was a lot of chat about the government ‘picking winners’. Thomas argues our money was in pretty good company, since Sequioa, whose investments include such small fry as Google, Yahoo, Apple, Oracle and YouTube, had already swung in behind the firm. He believes gaining export success and high quality investors the way Right Hemisphere did in its early days must be key qualifications for any firm hoping to benefit from a similar set up in the future.

Whether it pays off more in the long run than other uses of this money is still open to question. The doomsayers might be saying it’s time for the economy to head for the hill farms, but Right Hemisphere is growing and hiring in tough.

Without this deal the company may have been forced to flog its intellectual property to a foreign bidder, or stagnate – a situation we are all too familiar with.

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7
Jan 10

Beyond Sustainable Design

September, 2008

“What if buildings actually created an abundance of fresh water, fresh air and power? What if it was possible to take your chair or carpet, cut it up small and eat it with your muesli?” When Professor Dr. Michael Braungart started saying things like this at the recent Better by Design CEO Summit jaws were dropping so fast you could almost hear them drum-rolling on the floor. But what does he mean?

Michael Braungart is the principal of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, Professor of Process Engineering at Universität Lüneburg (Germany), and co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things with architect William McDonough. But more than that, he is that rare thing – a visionary who understands the details of his subject and maintains a sense of humour.

Michael’s work as an environmental chemist set him on a collision course with many of the materials of modern home design. As a former director of Greenpeace’s chemistry department he uncovered the fact that, as he describes it:

“Most of the materials in furniture, paints and more were never designed to go inside, which means the air quality in most modern buildings is worse than the most polluted city street. Most skin care products were never designed to go on anybody’s skin and most children’s toys should not be played with by children.”

The Cradle to Cradle is a bid to transform these products and more. It also takes us beyond the cradle to grave approach, where our industrial system is still largely based on digging natural resources up, turning them into short-lived poorly designed things, using them, and then burying them in a hole.

It goes beyond reducing or even eliminating waste and pollution. It eliminates the very concepts of waste and pollution. It’s about industrial production and products where the side effects are positive rather than negative. Carpets and chair made of such positive materials that they can be composted (or even eaten!) at the end of their use, factories that produce cheap power or soil as by-products.

And it’s not necessarily about efficiency, it’s about effectiveness. Michael points out that at the moment the industrialised nations are very efficiently destroying the environment, while Mozart, Van Gogh, love and sex are not particularly efficient, but are extremely effective.

Michael believes that what most people consider ‘sustainability’ and ‘green’ today is largely a form of guilt management for the damage we feel we have done to the world. While justifiable, it is far too limited, too negative, and stifles innovation.

This means that recycling, for example tends to be: “Doing things less badly, instead of not doing bad things. It’s like perfecting something which is wrong in the first place, so you are now just being perfectly wrong.”

It turns away from the self-flagellating obsession with just leaving things out, minimising waste, minimising ourselves, or feeling guilty for simply being on the planet.

Michael argues that this guilt at simply being human, the sense that there are just too many of us, is also partly to blame for the mindset which allows the industrialised world to abandon starving people in Africa and elsewhere. If you begin to believe that humanity itself has no real right to be on the planet, how can you believe in human rights?

One of the greatest enemies of genuine development at the moment is what Michael describes as a particularly European fascination for ‘doing as if,’ or acting like you are doing something, rather than actually doing it. For example publicising the banning of one toxic substance while failing to tell people that it has been replaced with something equally or more harmful.

He is also only too happy to slaughter a few of the environmental movement’s sacred cows. “I don’t want to minimise my footprint,” he says triumphantly. “I want a massive footprint, but I want it to be a positive one. Yes we only have one planet, but if we are clever we can use it to produce 50 times what we have now, so it’s as if we have 50 planets. There are not too many of us, we are just being too stupid.”

It is a positive vision. It contains the idea that there is no longer the bit of the planet we are responsible for, and then wilderness. We are affecting all of it, so we are responsible for all of it – this human managed Earth. The response is not a retreat from globalisation, capitalism or democracy but a challenge to reinvigorate them, to take on our responsibility.

Instead of making the same old things and trying to minimise their harm by what Michael terms ‘downcycling’ them into lower value items, we should create truly positive products in the first place. These should exist in one of two closed loops of production and re-production.

One is the nutrient cycle, in which everything should be edible, compostable or biodegradable. The other is the technical cycle, in which materials which cannot do these things, for example the precious heavy metals we use for computers and mobile phones, can be easily reclaimed and re-used.

“When you go to buy a product, you should ask yourself, when I am finished with this, can I eat it, burn it safely and cleanly in my fireplace, compost it in the garden, or will the company take it back?” he says. “Otherwise how can you take responsibility for it, and why should you?”

Instead of just selling you things, a Cradle to Cradle economy would be more likely to sell you the use of things. As another speaker at the conference Alex Steffen from Worldchanging.com pointed out at the conference, the average DIY power drill is used for between 6-20 minutes in its entire lifetime. This fixation with ownership of products and not services is a direct creator of waste.

People don’t really need to own their own drill, but they want a convenient way of putting holes in things. A more effective way of providing this than selling you a low quality drill you will hardly use might be to offer you the use of a top quality drill for the time you need it, or the inexpensive services of a well equipped drilling person.

That way the drill itself could be built to last, and its components to be easily re-used. Then nobody has to worry about what to do with all the unwanted drills.

If this all sounds like common sense, that’s because it is. And it’s catching on. Governments are taking notice, and big companies like Ford, Nike, Shaw carpets and BASF have already been given some Cradle to Cradle treatment.

It is early days for these ideas, and they are so far only being applied piecemeal in dispersed places. But how we design our way from cradle to grave to cradle to cradle, and resurrect our civilisation in the process, is now one of the most urgent and exciting questions facing humanity.