Hawaii of Tomorrow 2022

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HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC PRESENTS

H AWA I ‘ I O F TO M O R ROW

H AWA I ‘ I OF

TO M O R R OW PUBLISHER

Cheryl Oncea cherylo@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 534-7575 C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R

Kelsey Ige kelseyi@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 534-7179 WRITER

M. Kaulana Ing

of advertisements that imagined how Honolulu would emerge from the war years as a thriving, modern city. These penand-ink drawings were infused with idealism and creativity, with the artist and author using what today we would call design thinking to sketch a gleaming Honolulu that was just over the horizon.

Seventy-five years later, Hawaiian Electric commissioned Hawaii Business to create a successor that reflects the same kind of optimism and confidence in Hawai‘i’s future as we recover from one of the most disruptive experiences of our lifetime.

Honolulu of Tomorrow described a place where the built environment worked in harmony with Hawai‘i’s natural beauty. We wanted a fresh take on this, a Hawai‘i of Tomorrow that envisions resourceful, sustainable islands that adapt to the challenges of the coming decades, especially climate change.

We’re talking to people about what they see for the Hawai‘i of 2050, including experts in design, transportation, agriculture and energy, and receiving ideas from groups like the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders and the Office of Indigenous Innovation at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. While technology is an important element of the future they describe, so is the responsible stewardship of our islands’ natural resources.

As you will see in the feature on future agriculture, the artists Matthew Kawika Ortiz and Roxanne Ortiz drew inspiration from the ingenuity of Native Hawaiians whose ahupua‘a enabled self-reliance and adaptability to natural events.

I hope you enjoy this project and that it inspires discussion, as it has at Hawaiian Electric.

You can send your comments and ideas to future@hawaiianelectric.com. Our Climate Change Action Plan sees us eliminating carbon emissions from power generation well before 2050 and working closely with our communities to make sure that the clean energy transformation benefits everyone.

I N 1947, HAWAI IAN E LECTR IC CO M M I S S IO N E D A S E R I E S

©2022 Hawaii Business Magazine, 1088 Bishop St., Suite LL2, Honolulu, HI 96813. hawaiibusiness.com.

E N V I S I O N I N G A H AWA I ‘ I O F TO M O R R OW T H R O U G H C R E AT I V E C O L L A B O R AT I O N Hawaii Business Magazine, in partnership with Hawaiian Electric, summons the optimistic spirit of practical imagination to think about what Hawai‘i would look like in 2050, with special consideration on the challenges of the coming decades. Who better to envision this future than homegrown Hawai‘i artists who create beautiful worlds and futures through imagery.

The artists featured in “Hawai‘i of Tomorrow” envision Hawai‘i as a place where people, technology, infrastructure and ‘āina somehow function harmoniously together. Let their visions of the future serve as inspirational and aspirational.

Excerpts from Hawaiian Electric’s 1947 publication “Honolulu of Tomorrow”

hawaiianelectric.com/HonoluluTomorrow

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Kimberlie Clinthorne-Wong Artist of “The Tranquility of Transportation,” Pg.3 Kimberlie Clinthorne-Wong is an illustrator, designer and ceramicist from Hawai‘i. She received a B.F.A. in Drawing from UH Mānoa and a B.F.A. in Illustration from Art Center of Design. Her diverse range of work includes conceptual editorials to whimsically, surreal and playfully imagined worlds for children’s illustrations. Select clients include 7-Eleven Hawai‘i, Starbucks, The Washington Post and World Vision. She is a co-founder and one of the principal artists of Two Hold Studios, a collaborative ceramic design studio.

Hawai‘i of Tomorrow is published as a supplement to Hawaii Business Magazine, February 2022.

Presented by Hawaiian Electric.

Wooden Wave Artist of “Food Powered by ‘Āina,” Pg.5 Matthew Kawika Ortiz and Roxanne Ortiz are a husband-and-wife creative duo who paint under the name Wooden Wave. They draw upon Hawaiian values and concepts to present them in a contemporary context. With conscious attention to detail, their work invites viewers to imagine alternative realities to our current society and environment. They meld elements of the natural world with technology (both, modern and ancestral) to create narratives around mālama ‘ʻāina values. Best known for their large-scale murals depicting sustainable treehouses, Wooden Wave presents a playful perspective that brings hope and joy to those who view their art.

With aloha, SHELEE KIMURA

A R T I S T S F E AT U R E D I N H AWA I ‘ I O F T O M O R R OW

President and CEO

Kate Wadsworth

Lauren Trangmar

Solomon Enos

Xochitl Cornejo

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TH E TR A N Q U I LIT Y O F TR A N S P O RTATI O N

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LE E K E LECTR IC VE H IC LE S ZOO M N O I S E LE S S LY ATO P AL A M OANA BO U LEVAR D, barely one meter apart.

Public, app-summoned carpods glide alongside private vehicles and delivery drones. All are piloted autonomously, orchestrated by the DriveGrid to merge, pass, and re-route with optimized synchronicity. Commute times are shorter with each system upgrade, and it’s been years since the city’s latest traffic fatality.

A thin solar substrate coats each vehicle’s tempered glass facade, drinking in sunlight to keep wheels spinning longer. Without bulky engine blocks and steering gears, interiors are roomy and oriented for pau hana conversations and sharing snacks with family on the way home. Smart vehicles valet them-

selves with inhuman precision into ultra-compact, fast-charging stalls; blocks once used for parking lots have been transformed into neighborhood gardens and agroforests.

By 2050, the melodic trill of ‘elepaio birds have replaced the roar of combustion engines in Downtown Honolulu. The rail’s Alakea Station has evolved into an urban kīpuka, host to native trees and their natural ecosystems. These days, a rail rider exiting the station can just as easily grab an e-bike from under an ‘ulu tree and freewheel to their front yard or hop onto an autonomous electric bus without having to wave a single transit pass.

In the silence of electric streets, most nights are filled only with the sounds of leaves rustled by tradewinds. Even those living near busy roadways sleep soundly and breathe deeply.

“If you ever stand at a corner and listen to what’s going on… the sound of transportation can be really loud. It’s not natural. Just that sound can be grating to people’s psychology. But with clean transportation — whether it’s electric vehicles, bicycles, or walking — it’s all very quiet. So, instead of having that white noise of buses and cars, hopefully we’ll have people laughing, people talking, those types of noises that are more human.”

– AKI MARCEAU, DIRECTOR OF E LECTRIFICATION OF TR ANSPORTATION , HAWAIIAN E LECTRIC

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FO O D P OW E R E D BY ‘Ā I N A

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S TH E D E S IG NATE D KO N O H I K I WALKS U PSTR E AM FRO M FI S H PO N D TO FAR M ,

his field tablet pings at regular intervals. ‘O‘opu populations in Zone 6, it tells him, have officially tripled since the return of the ahupua‘a’s natural water flows.

Community scientists from seven countries, participating in the university’s prestigious climate resilience fellowship, follow along with mud under their fingernails, eager to learn more from the ecosystem manager.

He tells them how the sluice gates separating the ‘auwai, arterial valves in the vast circulatory system of agricultural waterways, revolutionized Hawai‘i in the 13th century, an innovation by the chief Mā‘ilikūkahi to cordon waterborne plant diseases and even grow fish within the irrigation system. In 2050, these mākāhā are now solar-automated, he says, and regulate water usage to exactly what each plant needs, no more.

The valley, in turn, bursts with food. Patches of kabocha, sweet potatoes, carrots and lettuce radiate from the banks of the lo‘i kalo. A multicolored canopy of fruit crowns the agroforest, pulling clouds towards the hillside with their leaves and healing abused soil with their nitrogen-fixing roots.

Smart solar panels dotting the variegated fields adjust their opacity along the sun’s path, optimizing shade to what the plants beneath them liked best.

Any excess power is sold to the island’s power grid.

The extra income is reinvested into crop innovation and productivity.

The same technology panels the facades of the farm’s kauhale — greenhouses that nurture vast solar-powered aquaponic systems of delicate plants and seedlings. Inside, the konohiki observes the farmed fish that enrich the closed water loop within. He nets a 4-pound adult to cook for his visitors, plucks enough green onions and fern shoots for lunch, and gives thanks to his kūpuna.

‘Umeke: Photosynthetic algaes light night paths.

Lupe: Solar kites collect and correlate wind, rain, solar, and lunar crop data to inform when and where to plant.

Kāhili: Vertical axis wind turbines catch the valley breeze without harming birds and pollinators.

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