Volume 10, Issue 4

Fall 2019, Volume 10, Issue 4

Solutions For a sustainable and desirable future

A Decade Of Action: The Case For A Planetary Emergency Plan

by The Club of Rome and The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Sustainability Reporting, Beyond TBL- TSM?

by Keith Murray The High HappinessLow Carbon Link: A new study from Bolivia on well-being and sustainability

by William D. Powers, Karina Mariaca de Oliveira, Hilvert Timmer www.thesolutionsjournal.com USD $12 CAD $13 EURO €10

It’s Not Game Over, It’s Game On

by L. Hunter Lovins

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Letter from the Editor by Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Ph.D.

W

elcome to the final issue of our Ten Year Anniversary volume. In just one year, we have partnered with over 100 solutioneers to produce 62 articles that provide you —our amazing readers—the solutions you need to move the needle toward sustainability in your industries.

Thank you to those who helped us to double our subscriptions and to extend our reach into further points of the globe. I have been deeply heartened by our contributors and followers alike. What an honor it is to be a part of the Solutions Community!

I would especially like to welcome Robertson Work as the newest member of our board. Rob is a global visionary whose work has inspired collaborative governance for sustainability in his career and consulting with UNDP, UNDESA, UN Habitat, The Institute of Cultural Affairs and the East-West Center. We are so grateful to have Rob’s expertise transforming individuals, communities, organizations, systems and societies toward sustainability. We review Rob’s book—A Compassionate Civilization—in this issue. In Gitta’s review, he describes the central contribution of Rob’s book, which is to provide a framework for creating a sustainable and desirable future with compassion and solidarity as guardrails in our quest for systems, policies and institutions that address planetary challenges with urgency and resolve. We know you will be inspired by his book.

You will find that our contributors push us to take a sharp look at the world we’re in. The Club of Rome and The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research declare 2020 “a ‘Super Year’ for international policy action” on climate change, required because we are in a Planetary Emergency.

As such, accelerated commitments

to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are required, along with biodiversity targets and ambitious efforts to decarbonize our global economy.

Business as usual is no longer a reasonable choice, and our authors highlight this fact in no uncertain terms. In the second article in our series on sustainability reporting, Keith Murray argues that Total Sustainability measures—often discussed in corporate sustainability circles—need to be based upon a set of values that include commitment to ecological sustainability, advancing basic human needs, supporting intra —and inter-generational equity, and an understanding that “economics is constrained, firstly by environmental and secondarily by social limits.”

Perhaps the most mind-altering article in this issue is by Hunter Lovins —our wonderful Associate Editor and my dear friend. Better than anyone I know, Hunter has a knack for telling it like it is. This piece is a rare gem where she not only speaks deep truth to the challenges we face, but she paints a remarkably clear picture regarding the changes required to meet these challenges head-on. Hint: It’s the economy, stupid!

Over seven million people took to the streets in September to press our global leaders to take bold action on climate change. We are indeed facing a Planetary Emergency. I continue to hold great hope because of the passionate commitment of young leaders like Greta Thunberg and her colleagues at #FridaysForFuture, and our cover image captures that sentiment. When the power of youth joins hands with lifelong torch bearers, the barriers that hold us back from revolution begin to break. Many members of our Editorial Board and production team were in

The Solutions Journal Editor-in-Chief, Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Ph.D.

New York City for the climate strike.

We will continue to stand in solidarity —amplifying the cutting edge actions and emerging trends needed to move us from complacency to action. May we all recommit ourselves daily to realize shared prosperity on a healthy planet, together!

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 1

Contents

Fall 2019

Features

The search for real answers begins with Solutions Join the Solutions Team Become a part of the global Solutions team. Applications are invited for volunteer section editors. Have Solutions delivered to your door or devices with our PDF subscription. Keep up to date on our latest articles and gain exclusive access to online and face to face Solutions events.

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36

Sustainability Reporting, Beyond TBL- TSM?

42

The High Happiness-Low Carbon Link: A new study from Bolivia on well-being and sustainability

Become a Partner Your contribution is essential to our work!

Click on our website ads or give a tax-deductible gift at www.thesolutionsjournal.com.

2 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

by The Club of Rome and The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

The Plan makes the case for declaring a Planetary Emergency and provides goverments, businesses and civil society with a set of key policy levers addressing the cross-cutting challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and human health and well-being. It outlines a vision of transformation and regeneration, a decade in which we steer the development path of our planet onto one which is inherently beneficial for all living species, leaving no one behind.

Join the Dialogue Submit your thoughts, data, and innovations in the form of articles, news stories, features, or online comments. Follow us and shout out on Twitter @SolutionsMag on Facebook @SolutionsJournal and on Instagram @Solutions.Journal.

What are your #solutions?

A Decade Of Action: The Case For A Planetary Emergency Plan

by Keith Murray

This is a follow-up on the previous paper, April 2019, outlining the Total Sustainability Management procedure for businesses. Brief details are given on how to get started on a risk assessment both within and beyond the “factory fence” using a similar style to that within existing EMS’s. When applied it does allow Senior Management to develop a strategic SD objective.

by William D. Powers, Karina Mariaca de Oliveira, Hilvert Timmer Could dynamic towns in the ‘poor’ Global South—instead of needing western-style development—be, rather, models of sustainability and future-fit living? To probe this question, our research team measured the happiness-level and carbon footprint of the inhabitants of Samaipata, a 4,500-inhabitant town in eastern Bolivia. The result is startling.

On the Ground

Perspectives

It’s Not Game Over, It’s Game On by L. Hunter Lovins

Is Colorado a Regenerative Economy? by Hunter Lovins and

We are in a planetary emergency: climate crisis is threatening life as we know it on earth. But we have all of the solutions we need to solve it profitably. And, with the rapid rise of solar dominance and regenerative agriculture, it is starting to happen.

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Jock Gilchrist Extractive industries always claim to be the foundation of a local economy. Increasingly this is no longer true. For example, in Colorado, the outdoor industries deliver four times the jobs of all extractive industries, and far more economic value to the state. 8

Fracture Lines: On Urban Metabolism, Ethics, and Feeding the Cities of the Future by James Dickson-Hoyle As urban

populations rapidly grow, the city is increasingly recognized as a key site for transformative change. The particular challenges posed by cities, and the opportunities they hold, will be central to attempts to overcome the current societal addictions driving climate change and ecological degradation. Solutions to the current challenges will require systems thinking that crosses the urban/rural divide, and future urban resilience research must expand to include a normative dimension to tackle the ethical and environmental justice dynamics driving many of the social and ecological challenges being faced by the world’s cities. 11

Sustainable Development and Bamboo Value Chains: Ethiopia’s Green Growth Opportunities Within the “SinoDutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19” by Dr. Edoardo Monaco An innovative trilateral cooperation project

Chinese Malaysian university students discover a world of opportunities venturing abroad, transcending affirmative action quotas at home by Robert C. Thornett The

stories of three students Set Jin Lee, her cousin Shi Yi Lee, and her friend Hui Ling Thung illustrate how Chinese Malaysians are stretching around the world in pursuit of higher education.

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employs Chinese expertise to promote sustainable management and upscaling of bamboo value chains for inclusive green growth in East Africa. Ethiopia, blessed with the largest natural stock of this mighty woody grass in the region, could reap the most benefits through the improvement of governance and market linkages in the context of the ongoing “Sino-Dutch East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”. 16

Creating an Ecologically Cognizant and Socially Beneficial Monetary Regime. Why money needs to be transformed and key strategies for its transition. by

Joshua Breen The current monetary regime is debt-based and interest-bearing, meaning that debt is greater than the money supply. Current issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity and species loss, climate change and burgeoning inequality necessitate consideration of a socially and ecologically cognizant monetary regime. 25

Idea Lab Noteworthy

06 In Review

A 2-minute Solution to Progressing Duty of Care in Sport by David Lavallee, Jeff

Lowder and Jane Lowder There is an increasing awareness that all parties engaged in the business of sports owe an essential duty of care to everyone involved.

Editorial

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52

Review of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

By Elizabeth Walsh

Review of Compassionate Civilization by Robertson Work

By Cosmas Gitta

SGDs in Action: Short Films Review

By Sabrina Watkins

Letter from the Editor

by Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Ph.D.

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 3

The Solutions Journal Editor-in-Chief: Beth Schaefer Caniglia Associate Editors: Robert Costanza Hunter Lovins Ida Kubiszewski David W. Orr History Section Editor: Frank Zelko Noteworthy Section Editor Shar Olivier Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein Media Reviews Section & Sustainable Business Editor: Mairi-Jane Fox Print and Online Graphic Designer: Sarah Adams Editorial Board Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert Ayres, Peter Barnes, Bill Becker, Paulette Blanchard, Lester Brown, Alexander Chikunov, Cutler Cleveland, Raymond Cole, Rita Colwell, Bob Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas Dietz, Josh Farley, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Jerry Franklin, Mairi-Jane Fox, Susan Joy Hassol, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson, Tim Kasser, Frances Moore Lappe, Rik Leemans, Wenhua Li, Tom Lovejoy, Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Jacqueline McGlade, Bill McKibben, William Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Shar Olivier, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Ken Sagendorf, Peter Senge, Rebecca Sheehan, Vandana Shiva, Anthony Simon, Gus Speth, Larry Susskind, David Suzuki, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn, Peter Victor, Mathis Wackernagel, Eugene Wilkerson, Robertson Work, Mike Young In Memoriam Ray Anderson Ernest Callenbach Elinor Ostrom Subscriptions http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/subscribe Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com Sponsorships & Partnerships http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/sponsor Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com

On the Cover

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

4 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Contributors 1

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1. David Lavallee—is Professor of Duty of Care in Sport at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. Jeff Lowder is the company director of Skoosh.com. au and has over 20 years of experience designing and building software solutions for professional and elite sports. Jane Lowder consults to professional and non-professional sporting organizations around their athlete development program design and measurement with a particular specialisation in the area of Athlete Career Transitions.

2. Jeff Lowder—Jeff Lowder is the

company director of Skoosh.com.au and has over 20 years of experience designing and building software solutions for professional and elite sports.

3. Jane Lowder—Jane Lowder con-

sults to professional and non-professional sporting organizations around their athlete development program design and measurement with a particular specialisation in the area of Athlete Career Transitions.

4. L. Hunter Lovins—L. Hunter

Lovins is President of Natural Capitalism Solutions, which helps companies, communities and countries implement more regenerative practices profitably.

A professor of sustainable business management at Bard MBA, she coaches social enterprises around the world and consults to industries and governments worldwide. Author of 16 books, including A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in

Service to Life, Hunter dozens of awards including European Sustainability Pioneer award, and the Right Livelihood Award.

Time Magazine named her Millennium Hero for the Planet.

5. Jock Gilchrist—Jock Gilchrist is a Research Fellow at Natural Capitalism Solutions focusing on regenerative agriculture and economics. He is currently pursuing his MS in Climate Policy at Johns Hopkins University. His previous research has focused on theory of change in the climate movement, electric vehicle policy, and ecological rationality.

6. James Dickson-Hoyle—James

Dickson-Hoyle is a student at the Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society where he is studying a Masters of Climate Change. His research interests include human ecology, environmental justice, and sustainable agricultural systems. Prior to this he studied political theory and philosophy at La Trobe University. He is also a writer, baker, and an active volunteer in the community food sector.

7. Dr. Edoardo Monaco—Dr.

Edoardo Monaco is Associate Professor and Director of the Globalisation and Development Relations Program at Hong Kong Baptist University & Beijing Normal University’s United International College (UIC) in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. His research interests concern development governance and

Contributors 7

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8. Joshua Breen—Masters student at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU. 9. The Club of Rome—The mission

of the Club of Rome is to promote understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions through scientific analysis, communication and advocacy. It recognises the interconnectedness of global challenges, with a distinct perspective that is holistic, systemic and long-term. Its members are notable scientists, economists, businessmen and businesswomen, senior civil servants and former heads of state from around the world. The Club publishes a limited number “Reports to the Club of Rome”, the most famous of which is “The Limits to Growth“.

10. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research—PIK

addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. Researchers from the natural and social sciences work together to generate interdisciplinary insights and to provide society with sound information for decision making. The main methodologies are systems and scenarios analysis, modelling, computer simulation, and data integration.

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sustainability across the Global South, with particular regard to holistic development paradigms and their measurement; economic growth, diversification and inclusion; natural resource management and sustainable value chains; green and circular development; South-South cooperation.

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11. Keith Murray—Over 60 years

14. Hilvert Timmer—Anthropologist-

17. Sabrina Watkins—Sabrina Watkins

directly and indirectly involved with the food process industry retiring from Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh in 2003. I am still very much involved with post graduate teaching in France and the development of the HWU’s Masters Program which my colleague and I initiated in 2000. However having retired to the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, for the last 15 years I’ve been rather busy re-instating croft land with some degree of success!

economist with specialization in indigenous peoples, spirituality and permaculture, author on Andean cosmology topics, including the 2011 book Cosmología Andina: Sabiduria Indígena Boliviana en Encuentro con la Ciudad. www.quintaconciencia.org, info@quintaconciencia.org

focuses on strengthening companies’ sustainability leadership and the relationships between companies, investors and activists. She recently retired from ConocoPhillips after 36 years in industry and a decade as global head of sustainability, with responsibility for policies, positions, implementation strategies, results, and reporting. During her tenure, the company reduced over 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, saved over $100 million through sustainability efforts, dramatically reduced shareholder concerns and implemented a leading human rights position within a framework of comprehensive goals and action plans for priority issues.

12. William D. Powers—Award-

winning author of New Slow City (2014)—on the sustainable, low-stress city—and the 2018 book Dispatches from the Sweet Life: One Family, Five Acres, and a Community’s Quest to Reinvent the World, about Samaipata, the town featured in this article. Powers is on the adjunct faculty at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, and co-coordinates the Earth Island Institute Living Well Collaborative in Bolivia. Author website: www.williampowersbooks.com, bill@williampowersbooks.com.

13. Karina Mariaca de Oliveira—

Specialist in environmental management and communitarian tourism. Facilitator of holistic health processes. www.quintaconciencia.org, info@quintaconciencia.org.

15. Elizabeth Walsh—As a social

scientist, community and regional planner, and engaged neighbor, Dr. Elizabeth Walsh facilitates collaborative research and action to advance environmental justice through regenerative design and development. Elizabeth earned her PhD in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin and has taught at the University of ColoradoDenver and the University at Buffalo. She delights in working with family, friends, and communities to bring out the best in themselves and the places they love.

16. Cosmas Gitta—Dr. Cosmas Gitta is a senior UN consultant and the former Assistant Director for Policy and UN Affairs at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, where he oversaw the convening of various intergovernmental and interagency forums as well as the preparation of annual reports of the Secretary-General on the state of SouthSouth cooperation. He was Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Southern Innovator and Managing Editor of Cooperation South, a development journal promoting collaboration among developing countries.

18. Robert C. Thornett—Rob Thornett

is an educator and writer who has taught Geography and Humanities at colleges and secondary schools in seven countries.

His articles have been published in Yale Environment 360, Earth Island Journal, and The Solutions Journal, and he is finishing a fiction book about traveling in China as well as several short stories, to be published in 2020. He currently teaches at the Liceo Francés Internacional de Panama.

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 5

Idea Lab Noteworthy

A 2-minute Solution to Progressing Duty of Care in Sport

by David Lavallee, Jeff Lowder and Jane Lowder

D

uty of Care in Sport has not previously been defined outside of legal terminology and implications.

However societal expectations on what duty of care means have grown beyond this and sports are being asked the question "How are you demonstrating your commitment to the care of all involved?"

Until now there has not existed a comprehensive framework to define the broader meaning of duty of care in sport or a means to measure it. In 2017, a United Kingdom Government review of duty of care in sport recommended that an independent survey was needed to give equal voice to all stakeholders in the system.

We created The Sport Census in response to this recommendation and to answer the questions: what does good duty of care mean in a sporting context and how can it be measured?

The goal of The Sport Census is to provide sports with a quick and easy tool that can illuminate best practice and empower informed decision-making and proactivity through accurate data reported by relevant stakeholders.

institutions, organizations, leagues, and teams to comprehensively demonstrate attention to welfare and wellbeing issues.

In 2017, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson conducted an independent review of duty of care in sport on behalf of the United Kingdom Government1. The review established a Framework that for the first time defined seven critical factors that comprise duty of care in sport. These factors are: Safeguarding; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Safety, Injury and Medical; Transition; Mental Health; Representation of the Participant’s Voice; and Education.

The review also highlighted the shortage of data on duty of care in

measured via an independent survey giving equal voice to all stakeholders in the system.

Solution Based on this priority recommendation we developed a survey called The Sport Census. The survey is used by sports teams, leagues, institutions, organizations, and systems to gather independent data from all participants including coaches, officials, performance athletes, performance directors, administrators, practitioners, referees, volunteers, recreation participants and others involved in sport in some other capacity. It invites these stakeholders to anonymously complete a series of uniform questions based on the

The goal of The Sport Census is to provide sports with a quick and easy tool that can illuminate best practice and empower informed decision-making and proactivity through accurate data reported by relevant stakeholders.

Description of the Problem Sports have a unique, high profile position in society, and are significant because of the potential wide-ranging benefits, including physical wellbeing, mental well-being, individual development, social and community development, and economic development. However, there is a risk that these benefits will not be fully realized due to the challenges faced by sports

6 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

sport, with evidence often being anecdotal and, in some cases, inflammatory. It emphasized the need for data to be collected from a wide range of people involved in sport, in addition to athletes. Baroness Grey-Thompson’s report concluded with a number of priority recommendations, the second of which was: Duty of care should be

seven critical factors identified in the Framework. Responses measure duty of care based on ‘perceived’ and ‘received’ support on a scale of 1-10.

A ‘Key Performance Indicator’ (KPI) out of 100 for each of the seven factors is arrived at by calculating average scores for each factor once all individuals complete the survey. An

Idea Lab Noteworthy Feedback helps sports not only track trends and identify their next steps, but also learn how to respond and innovate with pace. repeat the process on an annual basis [to] give us reliable data to measure the impact of our work and help us identify where next to focus our attention.”

Conclusion

Figure1. The Sport Census Dashboard Feedback

overall KPI is also calculated out of 100 by averaging the seven factors.

The survey takes 2 minutes to complete, and can be accessed via any device; smart phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop.

Sports are provided a data visualisation of results (see Figure 1 for a hypothetical example) including total scores for the seven factors plus an overall KPI for the entire sport. Results can be filtered by multiple variables including age, gender, disability, sport and competition type, which can inform a high level of specificity in strategic planning for programs and support services.

Sports invite stakeholders to complete the survey at regular intervals, typically on an annual basis, allowing them to demonstrate the impact and return on investment of the programs and services they deliver in response to data collected in the previous survey.

The value of The Sport Census is

dependent in the first instance on its ease of use, the reliability of the data it collects, and the overall information it provides for analysis in an accessible format. Feedback helps sports not only track trends and identify their next steps, but also learn how to respond and innovate with pace. The ultimate measure of its value is that sports decision makers apply the learning from the feedback to inform and improve policies and procedures and other areas of decision-making associated with sports administration, communications, and implementation.

Recent feedback from a sporting organization that implemented the survey reports: "[we] surveyed [the] entire cohort of sports clubs and their coaches quite simply because we could do so very easily. We were then quickly able to identify areas of particular focus where we wanted to improve or target some ‘easy wins’ to gather momentum around our work. We will be able to

There is an increasing awareness that all parties engaged in the business of sports owe an essential duty of care to everyone involved. The challenge has been to define duty of care in sport and to measure it. We designed The Sport Census to do just this and to give equal voice to all stakeholders so that sports can be appreciated, recognized, and celebrated for their valuable role in society.

The Sport Census is a rapid, accessible survey tool that can make a powerful difference to sports teams, organizations, and leagues as well as illuminate and elevate best practice in duty of care. After stakeholders invest 2 minutes of their time, sports gain access to meaningful and accurate data that can add light not heat to an aspect of healthy life, economic activity, and social cohesion. It does this by encouraging ongoing improvements in sports implementation, by contributing to the development of strategicallytargeted programs, services and interventions, and through the sharing of good practice.

References Grey-Thompson, T. Duty of care in sport: Independent report to Government [online] (2017) https://www. gov.uk/government/publications/duty-of-care-insport-review

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 7

Perspectives Is Colorado a Regenerative Economy?

By Hunter Lovins and Jock Gilchrist

L

egacy industries often claim they’re essential for the prosperity of the economy in which they are located. Therefore, they say, they must be sustained, regardless the cost to people or the planet. Colorado is no exception. The state’s oil and gas industry asserts that it is vital to local prosperity.1 It’s not true.

The industry spent more than $40 million dollars opposing a citizen’s initiative that would have limited hydraulic fracturing (fracking) near homes and schools. The measure, Proposition 112, would have ensured that regulators took human health and safety more seriously than industry profits.

Despite receiving more votes than the Republican candidate for Governor in 2018, the measure was narrowly defeated because, said the industry, oil and gas extraction is the job creation engine for the state.2 Without it, the claims went, Colorado’s economy would collapse.

At Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS),3 we asked: is this true? What is the real basis of the Colorado economy? Are industries like oil and gas and industrial agriculture as critical to our wellbeing as their proponents claim? Or could the state transition away from industries that are dangerous and polluting4 to business practices that are more regenerative?

Jock Gilchrist, an NCS Research Fellow,5 synthesized information from over 120 sources and summarized key trends, employment numbers, contributions to state GDP, and other metrics. The result is a groundbreaking report, A Snapshot of the Colorado Economy.6 8 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

NCS’ research painted a very different picture of Colorado’s economy than that offered by the fossil fuel industry. Far from being a resource colony, Colorado enjoys an economy that is diverse and growing. The true foundation of the state’s economy are industries like education and outdoor recreation. These receive less acclaim but make far bigger contributions to the Colorado’s strong economic performance (in 2018 the fifth fastest growing state in the nation.) In contrast, the state’s legacy industries oil and gas, mining, timber and industrial agriculture represent a small and falling part of the state’s economy. They are not sustainable, much less regenerative and are at risk of further erosion.

Oil and gas and industrial agriculture are dwarfed by clean technology, craft brewing, even arts and culture.7 Here are the numbers: The labor force of the fossil fuel industry shrank over the last few years, posting negative employment

growth in Metro Denver between 2015 and 2017.8, 9 Statewide, the industry shrank by 8.4% between 2012 and 2017.9 While the fossil fuel industry is important in two counties in the state (Weld and Garfield), it contributes relatively little to the Metro Denver area (which comprises 90 percent of the Colorado economy) or the state’s overall economy.

The IT-software industry cluster employs 58,190 in nine-country Metro Denver.9 Arts and culture directly employs 100,631 statewide.10 While estimates vary for total fossil fuel jobs statewide, a report commissioned by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association itself put direct employment at 30,000.11 Additionally, trouble lies ahead for oil and gas in Colorado. The US fracking industry has never had a profitable quarter, and survives only on fresh infusions of investor money. One report says, “investors would be wise to view fracking companies as speculative investments.”12

David Mark on Pixabay Colorado Outdoors.

Perspectives

Anita Starzycka on Pixabay Fracking Rig.

The real economic powerhouse in Colorado is the Outdoor Recreation Industry. It directly creates four times as many jobs as oil, gas, and mining combined (229,000 to 58,000),13 and supports 511,000 total jobs in Colorado, or 18.7% of the state’s labor force. Outdoor Recreation was responsible for over 10% of Colorado’s GDP in 2017.14 Compare this to the 89,000 total jobs supported by oil and gas (3% of the labor force), and its 4% contribution to GDP. 15 Outdoor Recreation thus supports almost six times as many Colorado jobs and contributes over two and a half times as much revenue to state GDP. Any industry

The real economic powerhouse in Colorado is the Outdoor Recreation Industry. It directly creates four times as many jobs as oil, gas, and mining combined (229,000 to 58,000), and supports 511,000 total jobs in Colorado, or 18.7% of the state’s labor force. hires employees and contributes to local economies, thereby inflating its economic impact, but in the oil and gas industry, spending could dry up the moment investors reconsider.

Even the emerging industry of craft brewing is almost as dominant a force as extraction in Colorado. The

Beverage Production industry in Metro Denver, which includes things like craft brewing, spirits, and tea, grew 28.1% between 2011 and 2016, the highest job growth of any Colorado sector in that time period. By the end of 2017 it had grown to employ 9,790 individuals in Metro Denver,16 as

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Perspectives opposed to the 9,370 employed by the combined Mining, Mining Support, and Oil and Gas Extraction sectors.

Statewide, craft brewing alone directly employs 22,411.17 Similarly, industrial agriculture is a declining part of Colorado’s economy.

Colorado’s agriculture sector faces persistently low crop prices, falling net farm income and challenges from the federal tariff war to climate change.18 Between 1997 and 2015, Colorado’s organic farmland grew from 3,716 acres to over 151,000 acres—a total of a 4000% increase, and an over 220% average increase every year.19 This growth reflects an increasing demand from Coloradans, Americans, and others around the globe for food grown chemical-free and with farming methods that are friendlier to surrounding ecosystems and wildlife.

Beyond providing increased jobs and revenue, the growth in organic land in Colorado is also good news for the economy in another way.

According to research by the Organic Trade Association,20 a high level of organic agriculture activity boosts a county’s median household income by over $2,000 and decreases the poverty rate by 1.35%.

Conclusion Few Colorado residents are aware that a transition is underway or that it provides an opportunity to shift from dirty, dangerous industries to businesses that have a stake in the wellbeing of local residents. The NCS report shows that the legacy industries are fading, dying of an incurable attack of market forces, while industries that are more regenerative of human and natural capital are rising. This begs the question whether similar results might be found in other economies that have settled for a role as a resource colony, but which might already be in a transition to a more 10 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

attractive economy.

We suspect that this is true almost everywhere.

Change is hard. Margaret Mead observed that the only person who likes change is a wet baby. And most babies fuss through the process.

Similarly, legacy industries claim that they are responsible for the prosperity of their society and must be sustained.

Colorado is no different.

The report showcases the opportunity to facilitate an economic, social, and ecological shift away from industries that are drive climate change and endanger our citizens to business practices that are cleaner, promote healthier lifestyles and can give Colorado a finer future. Colorado can deliver shared prosperity for all while protecting the environment for generations to come.

metro-denver-edc-full-report-36.pdf 9. NEA. (2018, March). State-Level Estimates of the Arts' Economic Value and Employment (2001-2015).

Retrieved from National Endowment for the Arts: https://www.arts.gov/artisticfields/research-analysis/ arts-data-profiles/arts-data-profile-17 10. COGA. (2019). Colorado Oil & Gas Industry Economic and Fiscal Contributions. University of Colorado, Denver, Business School, Global Energy Management Program. Denver, CO: Colorado Oil & Gas Association. Retrieved from https://www.coga. org/uploads/1/2/2/4/122414962/coga_economic_ fiscal_impacts_- _final.pdf 11. Clark Williams-Derry, Sightline Director of Energy Finance; Kathy Hipple, IEEFA Financial Analyst and Tom Sanzillo, IEEFA Director of Finance, “Red Flags on U.S. Fracking, IEEFA and Sightline, October 2018 http://ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/RedFlags-on-U.S.-Fracking_October-2018.pdf 12. The Outdoor Recreation Economy, Outdoor Industry Association, 2017, https://outdoorindustry. org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/OIA_ RecEconomy_FINAL_Single.pdf 13. The 2017 Economic Contributions of Outdoor Recreation in Colorado, Southwick Associates, 23 July 2018, https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Trails/ SCORP/2017EconomicContributions_SCORP.pdf 14. “Colorado Oil & Gas Industry Economic and Fiscal Contributions,” Global Energy Management

References 1. Vital for Colorado, https://www.vitalforcolorado. com/videos_and_podcasts 2. Prop 112 fails as voters say no to larger setbacks for oil and gas, Denver Post, 6 November 2018,

Program University of Colorado Denver, Business School, 2017, https://www.coga.org/ uploads/1/2/2/4/122414962/coga_economic_fiscal_ impacts_-_final.pdf 15. “Metro-Denver Region Industry Cluster,” Metro-

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/11/06/colorado-

Denver Economic Developments Corporation, 2018,

proposition-112-results/Natural Capitalism

http://www.metrodenver.org/media/855845/metro-

Solutions, https://natcapsolutions.org/ 3. Physicians for Social Responsibility, “Compendium

denver-edc-full-report-36.pdf 16. Brewers Association. (2018). Total Economic Impact.

of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings

Brewers Association, Boulder, CO. Retrieved from

Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/brewersassoc/

(Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction)” Sixth

wp-content/uploads/2018/08/State-byState-

Edition, June 2019, https://www.psr.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/06/compendium-6.pdf 4. Natural Capitalism Solutions Team, https:// natcapsolutions.org/team/ 5. Gilchrist, Jock, and Hunter Lovins, A Snapshot of the Colorado Economy, 2019 https://natcapsolutions.

Breakdown-2017.pdf 17. Economic & Revenue Forecast,” Colorado Legislative Council Staff, p. 57 – 59, 18. June 2019 https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/ images/juneforecast.pdf 19. Fox, S. (2017, January 29). More conventional

org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FINAL_A-

farmers in Weld County are adding organic crops

Snapshot-of-the-Colorado-Economy_8.13.19.pdf

to the mix because demand is hot. The Tribune.

https://natcapsolutions.org/beverage-production-

Retrieved from https://www.greeleytribune.com/

metro-denver/

news/more-conventional-farmers-in-weld-county-

6. “Metro Denver and Northern Colorado Key Industry Clusters 2017,” Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, 2018, 7. http://www.metrodenver.org/media/230157/2017industry-cluster-study-full-report-.pdf 8. “Metro Denver Region Industry Clusters 2018,”

are-addingorganic-crops-to-the-mix-becausedemand-is-hot/ 20. “Harvesting Opportunity: The Power of Regional Food System Investments to Transform Communities,” The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, 2017, https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/

Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation,

community-development/harvesting-opportunity/

2018, http://www.metrodenver.org/media/855845/

harvesting_opportunity.pdf?la=en

Perspectives Fracture Lines: On Urban Metabolism, Ethics, and Feeding the Cities of the Future

By James Dickson-Hoyle

Doc Searls on Flickr Haze over Downtown Los Angeles.

T

he city has increasingly been recognised as having significant importance for climate mitigation.

Over 54% of the world’s population are now living in cities, and greater that 60% are expected to live in urban centres by 2050, with most of this growth coming in low and middleincome countries.1 The particular challenges posed by cities, and the opportunities they hold, will be central to attempts to overcome the current societal addictions driving climate change and ecological degradation. One of the central challenges for future cities will be ethically and sustainably feeding the estimated 6.25 billion urban residents in 2050.

Current industrial food systems, driven by a productionist paradigm, will need radical transformations.

The focus on yield and economic

profitability, at the expense or exclusion of ecological and social impacts, is at odds with growing recognition of the necessity of building sustainable and resilient cities. Additionally, the long and complex supply chains underpinning food production make decision-making and ethical consumption decisions increasingly difficult for urban residents.2 This paper, utilising a socio-ecological systems analysis and drawing on the Urban Metabolism (UM) literature, will argue that to build urban resilience, a transformation of current food systems is necessary. Solutions to the current challenges will require systems thinking that crosses the urban/rural divide, and a move towards more inclusive, transparent, and shorter supply chains to enable cities to meet the challenges of the coming decades. This paper

will also propose that future urban resilience research must expand to include a normative dimension to tackle the ethical and environmental justice concerns particular to current food systems, and to prevent new approaches reinforcing the structural inequalities driving many of the social and ecological challenges being faced by the world’s cities.

Urban Resilience Concepts and Definitions

Since the Brundtland Report in 1987,3 sustainability and sustainable development have been catch-all concepts in the public policy literature surrounding climate change.4 More recently, Resilience Theory and the concept of ‘urban resilience’ have experienced an upsurge in governance and planning frameworks around the www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 11

Perspectives globe.5 Resilience, like sustainability before it, has lacked clear definition in the urban context, and some have argued that it has become a catch-all term for planners, academics, and politicians alike, with contested meanings preventing clear application and direction for research.6 In the social-ecological systems literature, resilience is classically defined by Walker as the capacity of a system to “absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks.” 7 Applied to the urban context, this concept describes the capacity of complex socio-ecological systems to respond to change, and implies a transformative or adaptive capacity in the face of changing ecological, technological, or

social environments.

Also much utilised in the urban sustainability and human ecology literature is the Urban Metabolism (UM) paradigm, by which the mobilisation and consumptive patterns and processes of resource and waste flows within the urban boundaries are conceptualised.8 Primarily concerned with material input and output, UM thinking aims to describe and analyse the dependency of urban areas on extended networks of resource extraction and production.9 However, the necessity of delimiting the urban, and the focus on resource flows, has meant the impacts of urban landscape specificities and structural intraurban inequality is little studied.10 ,11 Additionally, increasingly complex resource supply chains have made

addressing trans-boundary impacts of urban consumption difficult to measure,9 with rural ecological degradation driven by urban needs often considered beyond the scope of UM analysis.

The Challenge of Sustainable Future Cities Urban / Rural Fractures.

Much of the analysis of Urban Metabolism recognises the challenges in drawing boundaries for urban areas in assessing resource and energy use networks. As cities have grown, the reliance on extended networks of food, resource, and energy transfer from rural areas has increased, with material flows into urban centres and waste returning to rural areas.12 In highincome countries, this urban-rural

Stark8 on Pixabay Urban slums in Xiamen.

12 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Perspectives flow often incorporates global northsouth flows, with the global south taking on increased responsibility for environmentally degrading and polluting industrial and waste processing activities.13 Particularly in large urban centres, the inability of surrounding regions to provide sufficient resources for the large populations has driven intensification of industrialised resource extraction, food production, and extended internationalised supply chains of provisioning.12,14 This fracture between the consumption requirements of urban centres and the regional land and ecosystems required to support them is one of the main sources of the ‘metabolic rift’ that opened up in the process of urbanisation and industrialisation between ecological processes of nutrient and material cycling.15 The reformulation of Marx’s concept of ‘metabolic rift’ and the proposals to overcome this rift through circular economy and alternative agriculture approaches incorporating a normative dimension so often lacking in dominant resilience discourse, whilst a helpful tool for analysis, do not fully capture the trans-boundary linkages of modern industrial food systems.16 The urban/rural distinction is mirrored in much of the governance and planning literature underpinning ideas of ‘smart cities’, ‘urban resilience’, and ‘sustainable urban development’.13,17 Treating the urban as separate or distinct from the rural, obfuscates the wide networks of dependence that connect the urban to rural, the local to the global, and urban value-added production to global resource extraction.12

Complex Decision Making and The Challenges of Participation.

The rapid growth of cities, in addition to posing significant challenges for climate change adaptation and

sustainability, has made successful governance increasingly difficult.18 In the fast growing cities of low and middle-income countries—as well as in some urban areas of high-income countries—population growth has far outpaced the capacity of city and municipal governments to supply basic services or meet the planning challenges necessary.19 Whilst cities are often areas of high economic growth and increased life quality, they are also sites of extreme inequality, with the urban poor noted as being a group most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and food insecurity,18 and with the least input in decision making processes.5,20 Distrust and low accountability of municipal governments, high levels of corruption, reliance on NGOs and informal networks for basic services, and social or economic exclusion all impact the willingness and ability of citizens to participate in urban planning processes,21 and undermine the capacity of governments to make the transformative changes necessary to overcome the challenges posed by a growing urban populace.

Black Boxes and Supply Chain Ethics.

The reliance of current urban centres on extensive regional and global supply chains across the urban/ rural and north/south divides, combined with the tendency of industrial production in the last several decades of compartmentalisation and contractorisation, has resulted in highly complex urban provisioning systems with a concomitant rise in what has been termed the ‘black boxing’ of supply nodes, preventing easily traceable information for decision making.22 Particularly in industrial food systems, the vast matrices of supplier and distribution channels has made the possibility of individual

ethical consumption extremely limited.2 The disconnection between consumer and producer has been so extended, and the volume of information required at every step along the supply chain is beyond the capacity of most individuals.12 Similarly for governance and decision making, achieving sustainability or resilience goals in an urban centre that extents globally requires traceability and knowledge of every aspect along the supply chain from worker conditions in sand mining operations to the fuel efficiency of delivery vehicles or the level of land clearing by banana producers. The lack of permeability of extended, compartmentalised and heavily flexible supply chains and decision making channels directly impacts future capacity to solve urban challenges driven by climate change through reduced knowledge flows and reducing the potential for urban governance or consumption changes to impact global production chains.2

Solutions Participation Beyond Technology.

Even with the UN Sustainable Development Goals being broadly integrated into urban and municipal government planning frameworks globally, and the rise in communitybased resource management approaches over the last decade, it is notable that urban experiments in resilience and sustainability still heavily prioritise technical innovations as solutions,23 with resource management frequently separate from planning and policy related to urban poverty and inequality.24 Critiques of resilience as concept have noted that the underlying socio-ecological systems approach treats complex social structures as emergent system properties, and resilience defined as ability to withstand shocks considered exogenously generated.6 This can obscure www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 13

Perspectives

Lance Cheung City Harvest food rescue and distribution in NYC

the political and power dynamics of current governance and production systems, as well as minimising the impact of individual and social group agency in making change.5 The epistemological underpinning resilience thinking as practised through governance and public policy channels therefore leads to the prioritisation of technological and bureaucratic solutions.16 Methods of incorporating justice and equity concerns, and the political dynamics driving current system states, is a much-needed area of resilience research.

Resilience and Inclusion Across the Urban Boundary For urban planning and decision making, the incorporation of participatory planning approaches has been seen to improve government legitimacy and increase social capital.

Broad based inclusion of community members normally excluded from decision making, as well as marginalised gender, racial, and cultural 14 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

groups, can provide localised and alternative knowledge that can improve the capacity for urban resilience.25,26 In the context of urban food systems, citizen participation in driving systemic transformation must necessarily occur beyond the market. Green, Organic, or Ethical consumption decisions may have small impact, yet the structural dynamics of large retail, supply, and food production chains severely limits the scope for consumer driven change.2 Social and community food movements, embedded locally, and with strong focus on food sovereignty and environmental justice concerns, can contribute to urban decision making.19 Community initiatives to adapt to changing climate realities have great potential at the small scale, yet are often unable over overcome the multi-scalar challenges they are currently facing.27 Integrating community groups and leaders into city-wide planning processes can improve knowledge flows to government, enable transdisciplinary perspectives

to be incorporated into decision making frameworks, and build citizen engagement.5 Combined grassroots and top-down approaches with a focus on coproduction of knowledge between local and expert groups can help create a holistic planning approach to urban resilience challenges.28 Utilising novel multi-scalar governance networks, embedded locally but connected regionally and globally, can extend participation along the supply chain, building links across urban-rural and northsouth divides.6 This hopefully will provide spaces for environmental and social justice concerns both within the city and between regions to be incorporated into decision networks that mirror the globalised supply chains that support growing cities.

Co-management partnerships between state, municipal, and community actors, with equity as a foundational principles, could be embedded at each node of a supply chain. Utilising digital participatory decision-making and

Perspectives Rift. Critical Sociology, 42, p1195-1211 (2016)

knowledge sharing platforms29,30 can help open the ‘black box’ of industrial food and resource systems by creating embeddedness of social and governance networks along transformed supply chains.31 This however, must extend beyond technological fixes to a holistic integrated planning framework incorporating deliberative, participatory mechanisms as well as technological and ecological solutions.32

and ethical cities of the future.

17. Joseph, J. Resilience as embedded neoliberalism: a

References

18. Romero-Lankao, P and Dodman, D. Cities in

1. World cities report 2016: urbanization and development - emerging futures. (UN Habitat, Nairobi, 2016) 2. Christensen, C. Two Kinds of Economy, Two Kinds of Self — Toward More Manageable, Hence More Sustainable and Just Supply Chains. Human Ecology Review, 21 (2015) 3. Brundtland, GH, Khalid, M, Agnelli, S, and Al-Athel, S. Our Common Future. New York (1987) 4. Bai, X et al., Defining and advancing a systems approach for sustainable cities. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 23, p69-78. (2016)

Conclusion The world’s growing urban populations have been recognised as the site of many of the challenges in climate mitigation, sustainable development, and building more resilient societies.

The intersection of ecological, social, and ethical challenges is most prevalent in urban centres reliant on large networks of resource extraction, waste management, and extensive food systems. Cities also hold many potentialities that can help overcome these challenges. This paper has used the context of industrialised food systems to show how urban-rural and northsouth ‘fractures’, long supply chains, and the ‘black boxing’ of information and decision making directly inhibits many avenues for more ethical, participatory decision making. Broadening urban resilience to incorporate the infrastructural and distribution networks of urban support systems, and participatory decision making embedded along the supply chain have been proposed to help overcome some of these challenges. Future research will be needed to more clearly incorporate environmental justice and equity concerns into resilience theory. Including normative dimensions into concepts of resilience, shortening supply chains, and providing a greater space for inter-local knowledge networks will go a long way to bridging the urban fractures, and in building sustainable

5. Meerow, S and Newell, J. Urban resilience for whom, what, when, where, and why?. Urban Geography, 40, p309-329. (2016) 6. Meerow, S, Newell, J and Stults, M. Defining urban resilience: A review. Landscape and Urban Planning, 147, p38-49. (2016) 7. Walker, BH, Holling, CS, Carpenter, SR and Kinzig, A. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society 9:5. [online] http://w ww.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/ iss2/art5. (2004) 8. Thomson, G and Newman, P. Urban fabrics and urban metabolism—from sustainable to regenerative cities. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 132, p218-229 (2018) 9. Dijst, M et al. Exploring urban metabolism— Towards an interdisciplinary perspective. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 132, p190-203. (2018) 10. Pistoni, R and Bonin. Urban metabolism planning and designing approaches between quantitative analysis and urban landscape. City, Territory and Architecture, 4. (2017) 11. Davis, M, Polit, D, and Lamour, M. Social Urban Metabolism Strategies (SUMS) for Cities. Procedia Environmental Sciences, 34, p309-327. (2016) 12. Ramaswami, A et al. A Social- EcologicalInfrastructural Systems Framework for Interdisciplinary Study of Sustainable City Systems.

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16, p801-813. (2012) 13. Sethi, M and Puppim de Oliveira, J. From global ‘North–South’ to local ‘Urban–Rural’: A shifting paradigm in climate governance?. Urban Climate, 14, p529-543. (2015) 14. Conke, L and Ferreira, T. Urban metabolism: Measuring the city’s contribution to sustainable development. Environmental Pollution, 202, p146152. (2015) 15. Moore, J. Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective. Organization & Environment, 13, p123-157. (2000) 16. Ergas, C and Clement, M. Ecovillages, Restitution, and the Political-Economic Opportunity Structure:

governmentality approach. Resilience, 1, p38-52. (2013) transition: transforming urban centers from hotbeds of GHG emissions and vulnerability to seedbeds of sustainability and resilience. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 3, p113-120. (2011) 19. Morgan, K. Feeding the City: The Challenge of Urban Food Planning. International Planning Studies, 14, p341-348. (2009) 20. Bahadur, A and Tanner, T. Transformational resilience thinking: putting people, power and politics at the heart of urban climate resilience.

Environment and Urbanization, 26, p200-214. (2014) 21. Ziervogel, G et al. Inserting rights and justice into urban resilience: a focus on everyday risk.

Environment and Urbanization, 29, p123-138. (2017) 22. Yang, K and Pandey, S. Further Dissecting the Black Box of Citizen Participation: When Does Citizen Involvement Lead to Good Outcomes?. Public Administration Review, 71, p880-892. (2011) 23. Castán Broto, V and Bulkeley, H. A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities. Global Environmental Change, 23, p92-102. (2013) 24. Bulkeley, H, Edwards, G, and Fuller, S. Contesting climate justice in the city: Examining politics and practice in urban climate change experiments.

Global Environmental Change, 25, p31-40. (2014) 25. Wijsman, K and Feagan, M. Rethinking knowledge systems for urban resilience: Feminist and decolonial contributions to just transformations.

Environmental Science & Policy, 98, p70-76. (2019) 26. Grabowski, Z, Klos, P, and Monfreda, C. Enhancing urban resilience knowledge systems through experiential pluralism. Environmental Science & Policy, 96, p70-76. (2019) 27. Jabeen, H, Johnson, C, and Allen, A. Built-in resilience: learning from grassroots coping strategies for climate variability. Environment and Urbanization, 22, p415-431. (2010) 28. Delgado-Ramos, G and Guibrunet, L. Assessing the ecological dimension of urban resilience and sustainability. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 9, p151-169. (2017) 29. Aragón, P. et al.. Deliberative Platform Design: The Case Study of the Online Discussions in Decidim Barcelona. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, p277-287. (2017) 30. Castelnovo, W, Misuraca, G, and Savoldelli, A. Smart Cities Governance. Social Science Computer Review, 34, p724-739. (2016) 31. Chiffoleau, Y. From Politics to Co-operation: The Dynamics of Embeddedness in Alternative Food Supply Chains. Sociologia Ruralis, 49, p218-235. (2009) 32. Boyd, E and Juhola, S. Adaptive climate change governance for urban resilience. Urban Studies, 52, p1234-1264. (2014)

An Urban Case Study in Mitigating the Metabolic

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 15

Perspectives Sustainable Development and Bamboo Value Chains: Ethiopia’s Green Growth Opportunities Within the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”

by Dr. Edoardo Monaco

B

amboo is a versatile non-timber forest resource that is widely available across the world’s South. If harnessed properly, many of its over 1600 known species (Vorontsova et al., 2016) growing mostly in tropical and subtropical regions, could significantly contribute to the achievement of both Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter SDGs) and Paris Agreement’s objectives.

In particular, bamboo’s multiple uses and related value chains could promote poverty reduction (SDG 1), clean energy use (SDG 7), sustainable housing (SDG 11), efficient and sustainable consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), life on land (SDG 15), as well as effective global partnerships (SDG 17).

UN Comtrade estimates the global market value of bamboo and rattan products to be at around USD 60 billion, including both domestic and international trade. China is by far the world’s largest producer of both bamboo and rattan products, as well as the leading exporter. The European Union (EU) as a whole is the second largest exporter of bamboo products (and the top importer ahead of USA and Japan), followed by Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines (INBAR, 2017).

The ecological setting of East African nations such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, would be highly conducive to healthy growth of bamboo resources. Yet, their assets are largely untapped and bamboorelated economic sectors significantly underdeveloped. Ethiopia, above all, enjoys the largest bamboo resource

16 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

endowment in the region. The present article briefly reviews the key opportunities and challenges of bamboo value chain management and upscaling in Ethiopia within the context of an ongoing trilateral development project—the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”—that the International Network for Bamboo And Rattan (hereinafter INBAR) first brokered and now implements.

INBAR is an intergovernmental development organization created in 1997 in Beijing to specifically promote the use of bamboo and rattan for sustainable development and green growth across its membership base, which comprises of 45 member countries, mostly from the Global South.

The organization has grown to become the most relevant international body in its field, working closely with member countries’ governments, international development organizations and in particular with United Nations’ (UN) agencies such as the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

INBAR is also a member of UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and was granted Observer status to the UN’s General Assembly as well as Permanent Observer status to, among others, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change (UNFCCC).

This article is the product of a broader, ongoing study that intends to contribute to the public debate over the use of bamboo for sustainable development and to ultimately present the upscaling of bamboo value chains in Ethiopia (and beyond) as a major, yet often largely untapped, inclusive green growth opportunity.

The article is based on data emerging, up until early 2019, from scholarly work, working papers, relevant reports as well as direct interviews mostly—but not exclusively—within INBAR’s repository and network of key stakeholders: it takes stock, in particular, of the market analyses and value chains assessments conducted

by INBAR’s experts in Ethiopia during the implementation of the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”.

A follow-up article shall be produced for Solutions Journal upon the very conclusion of said Programme’s threeyear cycle (December 2019), to review its overall achievements, evaluate its broader significances and assess the possible “replicability” of such scheme elsewhere in the Global South*.

Why bamboo?

As a woody grass—hence technically a plant, rather than a tree—bamboo is a natural resource that grows rapidly in much of the tropical world, over a total of about 40 million hectares globally (Lobovikov et al., 2007). Latest assessments (Vorontsova et al., 2016) have identified some 1642 species, many of which combine the characteristics of both

Perspectives

Image from Pixabay Bamboo Forest

grasses and trees, thus historically allowing for a vast array of known uses —around 10,000—that over time have made bamboo a cherished resource in both cultural and economic terms across numerous nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America (Widenoja, 2007).

Today bamboo can be utilized in the production of a wide range of products, thus possibly generating livelihood and formal employment at household or small-scale levels, as well as within medium or large value-adding enterprises (Mishra, 2015): these products may include woven baskets, handicrafts, utensils, furniture, mats, flooring, pipes, pulp, paper, solid biofuel, textile fibers and many more (Lobovikov, 2007). It can also serve as versatile, highly resistant construction material (Ogunbiyi et al., 2015) and as nutritious food and fodder (INBAR and UNOSSC, 2018),

The ecological setting of East African nations such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, would be highly conducive to healthy growth of bamboo resources.

INBAR East Africa Regional Office INBAR Programme Manager’s Jayaraman Durai offers training on bamboo resource management www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 17

Perspectives besides providing crucial ecosystem services and contributing significantly to biodiversity conservation as wildlife habitat (Linderman et al., 2005), as soil and water preserver (Zhou, 2005) and as an effective tool for carbon sequestration (INBAR and Tsinghua

University 2018; Song, 2011).

Bamboo has therefore been recognized over the years as a particularly relevant contributor to the achievement of global sustainable development objectives such as the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity’s “Aichi”

Targets 2011-2020, Paris Agreement and, most notably, the SDGs emanating from the United Nations’ Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030 (INBAR, 2015). The table below matches relevant SDGs with key bamboo characteristics:

Cheap and easy cultivation. First harvesting between 3 and 7 years from planting. Yearly sustainable yield not requiring replanting. Vast number of uses from elementary to high-value-added. Income-generation opportunities for households and disadvantaged groups, as well as small, medium and large enterprises.

Worldwide market estimated at 60 billion USD. Over 8 million people currently employed in China—largest national market—alone.

Biomass to be converted into virtually smokeless charcoal, gas, or directly burned as fuelwood with consequent preservation of other forest resources.

Flexible, durable and inexpensive housing construction material. Earthquake-resilient.

Versatile, low-carbon-footprint, rapidly-growing building material alternative to slow-regenerating forest timber, cement, plastic.

High rate of carbon sequestration for mitigation. Source of income for adapting communities.

Dense root system naturally preserving and eco-restoring eroded land and degraded forests. Habitat for various species of wild forest animals, some of which severely endangered.

Availability across the tropical world naturally prompting South-South as well as trilateral cooperation initiatives (e.g. Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19), through organizations such as INBAR, UNDP and UN Office for South-South Cooperation.

18 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Perspectives Why the “Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19”?

The Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo Development Programme 2016-19 is a rather unique trilateral cooperation project initiated and implemented by INBAR, relying on the funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the State Forestry Administration (SFA) of the Government of China, with the support of, among others, a number of local stakeholders in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. East Africa has the largest natural bamboo coverage in the continent—about 4% of the known worldwide coverage—yet this asset is, at present, significantly underexploited, generating only minimal industrial output and value-adding activities (Durai et al., 2018; INBAR, 2016; Van de Logt, 2018). The project can be graphically synthesized as follows:

Apart from the contribution from the Netherlands (the largest bamboo market in the EU), Chinese stakeholders are playing a major role within the project, providing both financial and technical support. This should not surprise, considering that China hosts the world’s largest bamboo forest coverage (6.73 million ha in 2010, up from 2.2 million ha in 1950) and has the greatest diversity of species (around 500), according to the State Forestry Administration’s National Bamboo Development Plan 2011-20.

In 2016, the Chinese bamboo market reached an output of around USD 32 billion (roughly 10 times its size in 1970), and it is expected to employ around 10 million people by 2020 (INBAR, 2018). As by far the largest national market for bamboo products, it has therefore accumulated vast

Conducive Measures

Objectives

Expected Outcomes

1

••Value chains established or improved for at least 5 bamboo product lines

••Assessing bamboo resources ••Developing industrial bamboo value chains ••Building capacity and transferring technology to East African bamboo producers

••Promoting technical guidelines and standards ••Enhancing international dialogue among value chain actor

Pro-poor green economic growth

••Poverty reduction ••Increased income

••Increased EU-China-East Africa trade

2 Promotion of triangular trade and investment opportunities

••Improving or setting-up bamboo nurseries

3

••Building local capacity to plant, manage and restore bamboo

Land restoration and climate change mitigation

know-how embracing virtually all aspects of establishment, management and scaling-up of bamboo value chains. In particular, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has so far engaged in numerous initiatives aimed at building capacity and transferring technology to East African bamboo producers in relation to bamboo handicrafts creation, furniture and handicraft processing and overall bamboo industry development.

Why Ethiopia?

Ethiopia is the most populous nation in East Africa, as well as the second most populous in the whole of Africa after Nigeria, with an estimated population of 107.5 million in 2018 (UNDESA, 2018). Its gross domestic product (GDP) has recorded an average 10.3% growth per year from 2006 to

••Expansion of national bamboo markets ••Increased overall investment in bamboo sectors

••Sustainable management and restoration of degraded forests ••Improved yields ••Increased carbon sequestration

2016, compared to a regional average of 5.4% (World Bank, 2018b). Despite such a remarkable market output expansion, in 2016 the UNDP’s Human Development Report indicated that Ethiopia’s Human Development Index still ranked 174th out of 188, that the income poverty rate (USD1.90/day at PPP) stood at 33.5%, and that multidimensional poverty affected 88.2% of the population, 67% of which severely (UNDP, 2016).

The International Labour Organisation estimates that in 2017 some 68% of the Ethiopian workforce were still employed in agriculture (ILOSTAT, 2018). Agricultural land covers 36% of the total territory contributing to about 40% of the Ethiopian GDP. Forests cover 12.5% of the national land, contributing to about 4% of the Ethiopian GDP, www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 19

Perspectives criticalities and thus significantly untapped (Wondimu, 2018).

Resource appraisal and management

INBAR Regional Office (East Africa) INBAR Programme Manager’s Jayaraman Durai offers training on bamboo resource management

providing employment to about 270,000 and various forms of income and livelihood integration through Non-Timber Forestry Products or “NTFPs” (Durai et al. 2018; MoEFCC, 2017).

As a consequence, the government of Ethiopia has recently devised and implemented a series of policy mechanisms to promote further development in the country, placing great emphasis on inclusive green growth and thus on the very sectors of agriculture and forestry: important examples include Growth and Transformation Plans (GTP) I and II, Climate Resilient Green Economic (CRGE) Strategy, Productive Safety Net Programme, Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme, Sustainable Land Management Programmes (SLMP) I and II etc.

In this context, the relevance of bamboo in Ethiopia stands out, as 20 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

also reflected by the abovementioned GTPII (2016-2020), which addresses bamboo as a key resource functional to the overarching goal of “green development”, consisting in the improvement of living standards as well as in various forms of simultaneous restoration and preservation of the natural environment. The country, in fact, enjoys the largest natural bamboo endowment in the region and one of the largest in Africa. Moreover, bamboo resources already contribute to the livelihood of around 800,000 locals, representing both an important agricultural crop and a precious NTFP (Durai et al., 2018). Nevertheless, as the below market and value chain assessment aims to point out, the potential of bamboo to contribute even more significantly to socio-economic development and sustainable environmental management remains, so far, constrained by fundamental

The first, crucial contribution of the Sino-Dutch-East Africa 2016-19 programme to the development of bamboo value chains in Ethiopia has been the very inventory of existing bamboo resources in the country.

According to the bamboo resource assessment carried out by experts from INBAR and China’s Tsinghua University with innovative remotesensing methodology (INBAR and Tsinghua, 2018), the total area covered by bamboo in Ethiopia is of 1.47 million hectares (see Appendix, Figures 1 and 2), significantly more than previous estimates which stood at around half of that amount (Lobovikov et al., 2007).

Two are the indigenous species that dominate the landscape, although some 20 more were recently introduced by the Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute (Mulatu, 2016b): the much predominant Oxynthera Abyssinica (or “lowland bamboo”), present mostly in western regions like Benishangul-Gumuz and Amhara, and the Yushania Alpina (or “highland bamboo”), present mostly in southern and central regions of the country such as Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Regional State (SNNPRS), Amhara and Oromia regions (Durai et al., 2018; Mulatu et al., 2016a).

Lowland bamboo (producing poles of up to 10 meters in height, and 10 cm in diameter) is vastly available in state forests, but it is only sporadically domesticated on private farmland.

The highland bamboo (producing poles of up to 20 meters in height, and 12 cm in diameter) is instead mostly farmed on private land (owned by individual farmers or institutions) as

Perspectives well as in community forests: in fact, farmers highly appreciate its versatile, straightforward processing and management, which make it ultimately far more widely utilised by craftsmen and industry players than the Oxynthera Abyssinica, despite its comparative scarcity.

Two main institutional schemes are officially in place for non-protected state forests: i) a combination of concessions—consisting essentially of authorisations released by government to private entities that want to harvest and transport forest products —and royalties to be paid for the transportation of harvested materials at toll stations along the way towards processing facilities; and ii) Participatory Forest Management (PFM), providing for the placing of entire communities in charge of management and harvesting of portions of state forests resources.

In reality, over-exploitation as well as under-exploitation—favoured by lack of proper enforcement, planning and incentives—do contribute to widespread degradation of bamboo resources in state and communal forests. Bamboo on farmland tends to be relatively better managed, but, due to lack of relevant know-how concerning best management practices and, in particular, sustainable harvesting techniques, optimal yields remain elusive (Durai et al., 2018; Wondimu, 2018).

Value chain analysis and market assessment Another crucial component of the implementation, thus far, of the Sino-Dutch-East Africa 2016-19 Programme has also consisted in the first systematic, thorough assessment of existing bamboo market and value chains in Ethiopia conducted by INBAR’s network of experts in collaboration with local stakeholders such as: Ethiopian Ministry of Environment,

Forest and Climate Change; Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources; Federal Micro and Small Enterprises Agency; Institute of Building Construction and City Planning; SLMP-II (Durai et al., 2018).

Actors include:

i. Bamboo resource producers: mostly farmers, often smallholders ii. Processing enterprises: mostly household enterprises (occasionally run by farmers themselves) adding only minimal value and employing manual technology to produce bamboo poles, mats, basketry; several small enterprises are present in major towns, producing bamboo furniture; a few large industries are active in the Addis area to produce bamboo flooring tiles, sticks and energy products. iii. Traders or middlemen: few and operating mostly within local or national markets. iv. Consumers: in large part to be found in households, and among subsistence farmers.

The main product categories present in the bamboo market in Ethiopia therefore include: poles; mats; basketry and small handicrafts; furniture; construction materials; bioenergy. These tend to be produced by micro and small enterprises employing traditional techniques, adding limited value and implementing low quality standards (Endalamaw, 2013).

Industrial production of more complex items such as bamboo flooring or ceiling panels and tiles, stick-based products as well as bioenergy products is also present, but it is currently limited to a handful (six, as of September 2018) of medium-sized enterprises.

The bamboo sector in Ethiopia is not regulated by any specific, comprehensive legislation (although, at the time of writing, negotiations

brokered by Sino-Dutch-East Africa Programme’s stakeholders are ongoing to promote the ultimate adoption of a single “National Bamboo Strategy and Action Plan”)*: a broader, “generic” policy framework instead simply assimilates bamboo resources to other forest products—as it typically occurs across most of INBAR member countries—and includes, most prominently, the Forest Management, Development and Utilisation Policy of 2007, the CRGE Strategy of 2012, as well as 2016’s GTPII, SLMP II and the Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute (EEFRI) Strategic Plan 2016-2025. Besides setting basic tenure and access rights (e.g. government authorisation necessary to gain access to state forests; tax required for transportation of both state forest and private bamboo), said policies fall short of defining precise sustainable harvesting or management requirements. Similarly, various entities—both national (e.g. Ministry of Environment; Ministry of Industry; Ministry of Agriculture; Small and Medium Manufacturing Industries Development Agency; Ethiopian Standards Agency; private sector representatives etc.) and international (e.g. INBAR; various NGOs etc.)—do play some role in the development of bamboo value chains, but still lack, at present, a consistently integrated strategy as well as the ability to coordinate solid incentives for the specific development of the bamboo sector*.

Both public and private value chain governance mechanisms appear weak (Kaplinski and Morris, 2000), hence remaining mostly market-based or modular at best (Gereffi et al., 2005).

Vertical and horizontal integration as well as product differentiation and specialisation are minimal, and there is still very limited ongoing research and innovation for progressively increasing value addition (Durai et al., 2018). www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 21

Perspectives

…considering the resource availability, its properties, the state of the market and the broad socioeconomic macrotrends in Ethiopia, virtually all of the abovementioned bamboo value chains offer significant opportunities for further development and upscaling…

David Emerich on Unsplash Bamboo Forest

Conclusions Overall, what emerges from the above assessment is that, at present, bamboo value chains in Ethiopia are only minimally developed, and that related industries are few and operating at a rather infant stage (Durai et al., 2018; Endalamaw, 2013; Wondimu, 2018).

While negotiations concerning a possible 22 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

groundbreaking “National Bamboo Strategy and Action Plan” are indeed taking place*, the governance framework is still weak, rather fragmented and thus only marginally effective at driving the expansion of the bamboo sector and at ultimately promoting the inclusive development that it could deliver, if better harnessed and managed.

Nevertheless, considering the resource availability, its properties, the state of the market and the broad socio-economic macrotrends in Ethiopia, virtually all of the abovementioned value chains offer significant opportunities for further development and upscaling. For instance, more sustainable, participative and coordinated management of both private farmland and state forest bamboo would fundamentally improve quantity and quality of the basic resource supply.

Enhanced industrial production of bamboo panels, boards, sticks, pulp and paper could contribute to the import substitution of almost half a billion USD (UN Comtrade 2017) worth of such wood-based products.

Similarly, the harnessing of abundant lowland bamboo stocks for bioenergy production could contribute to the preservation of other forest resources and to the reduction of imports of active carbon into a market where demand for fuelwood is steadily growing. Locally-made bamboo furniture would generate employment and help satisfy the rising domestic demand so

Perspectives far met with imported metal, plastic and wooden items, while bamboo construction materials could feed the booming real estate sector and reduce the utilisation of more environmentally-impactful components (Wondimu, 2018).

The development of the bamboo sector in the context of the ongoing Sino-Dutch-East Africa Programme can therefore become extremely beneficial to Ethiopia’s pursuit of sustainable development via three complementary routes that, at this partial stage of the Programme’s implementation, appear most crucial: a) consolidating the very resource foundation of the whole sector by improving access to and management of the abundant bamboo resources within both state forests and private land; b) prioritising the upscaling of industrial value chains of bamboo boards, sticks and bioenergy products, given their high potential in terms job creation, prospects of success, trade impact, compliance with broader government agenda; c) intervening in a coordinated manner on policy tools, so as to create a comprehensive enabling framework specifically for the bamboo sector.* * Right before the publication of the present article (October 2019), the Ethiopian Government finally adopted the country’s first “National Bamboo Strategy and Action Plan”, as brokered by Sino-Dutch-East Africa Programme’s stakeholders and implementation staff on the ground. This represents a major milestone for the development of the bamboo industry in Ethiopia,

Böck, F. (2014). Green gold of Africa - Can growing native bamboo in Ethiopia become a commercially viable business? Forestry Chronicle. https://doi. org/10.5558/tfc2014-127 Durai J., Assefa F., Assefa S., Fu J., Hunde T., Bekele W., Tsigaye Z., Reza S., Kebede B. (2018). Ethiopia: value

(2007). World Bamboo Resources: A thematic study prepared in the framework of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005. FAO, Rome.

Lobovikov, M. (2010). Bamboo: its potential rolein climate change. Non-wood News, 20:12–14.

Mekonnen, Z., Worku, A., Yohannes, T., Alebachew, M.,

chain analysis and market assessments of bamboo

Teketay, D., & Kassa, H. (2014). Bamboo resources

products. INBAR Working Paper. INBAR, Beijing,

in Ethiopia: Their value chain and contribution

China

to livelihoods. Ethnobotany Research and

Endalamaw T. B., Lindner A., Pretzsch, J. (2013).

Indicators and determinants of small-scale bamboo

Applications. https://doi.org/10.17348/era.12.0.511524

commercialization in Ethiopia. Forests. https://doi.

Ministry of Commerce, Government of China

org/10.3390/f4030710

Ministry of Environment and Climate Change

Gereffi G., Humphrey, J., Sturgeon T. (2005). The

(MoEFCC), Government of Ethiopia (2017). Ethiopia

governance of global value chains. Review of

Forest Sector Review: Focus on commercial forestry

International Political Economy, 12:1, February

and industrialisation. Technical Report. Available at:

2005: 78–104 Haile, B. (2008). Study on Establishment of Bamboo

http://mefcc.gov.et/ethiopia-forest-sector-review/ Mishra V., (2015). Bamboo and its connectivityto the

Processing Plants in Amhara Regional State. Addis

different fields of economics: a potential resource

Ababa University

for modern India. Journal of Innovative Research

International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2018).

Statistics and Databases. Ethiopia. Available

and Development 4(2) Mulatu, Y., Alemayehu, A., Tadesse, Z. (2016a). Biology

at: https://www.ilo.org/ilostat/faces/wcnav_

and management of indigenous species of Ethiopia.

defaultSelection?_afrLoop=317428586081892&_

Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research

afrWindowMode=0&_ afrWindowId=11c5upcb08_54 INBAR (2015) Bamboo, rattan and SDGs. Position Paper.

INBAR, Beijing, China INBAR (2016) Sino-Dutch-East Africa Bamboo

Institute (EEFRI) Mulatu, Y., Alemayehu, A., Tadesse, Z. (2016b).

Bamboo species introduced in Ethiopia: Biological, ecological and management aspects. Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute (EEFRI)

Development Programme 2016-2019. Bruchure.

Ogunbiyi, M.A., Olawale, S.O., Tudjegbe, O.E., Akinola,

INBAR, Beijing, China. Available at: https://www.

S. R. (2015). Comparative analysis of the tensile

inbar.int/project/dutch-sino-east-africa-bamboo-

strength of bamboo and reinforcement steel bars

development-project/#resources

as structural member in building construction,

INBAR (2017). Bamboo and Rattan: A Trade Overview 2016. INBAR, Beijing, China INBAR & Tsinghua University (2018). Remote sensing-

International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, Volume 4, Issue 11, November 2015.

Available at: http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/

based regional bamboo resource assessment report

nov2015/Comparative-Analysis-Of-The-Tensile-

of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, INBAR, Beijing,

Strength-Of-Bamboo-And-Reinforcement-Steel-Bars-

China INBAR & United Nations Office for South South

As-Structural-Member-In-Building-Construction.pdf Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

Cooperation (UNOSSC) (2017). South-South in

(2018). Global Multidimensional Poverty Index

action. Inspiring sustainable development with

Databank. OPHI, University of Oxford. Available at:

bamboo. INBAR, Beijing, China & UNDP, New York,

http://www.dataforall.org/dashboard/ophi/index.

USA International Institute for Sustainable Development

php/mpi/country_briefings Sachs J., Schmidt-Traub G., Kroll C., Lafortune G., Fuller

as well as an important benchmark of both regional

(IISD), (2018). Barc 2018 Summary Bulletin.

G. (2018): SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2018.

and global relevance that shall be further assessed in a

Available at: http://enb.iisd.org/barc/2018/html/

New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable

follow-up article in the next issue of Solutions Journal.

enbplus208num26e.html Kaplinsky, R. and Morris, M. (2000) A Handbook for Value Chain Research. IDRC.

References Alem, S. (2015). International trade of different forest products in Ethiopia. African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development.

Alkire S., & Robles G. (2016). Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2016. OPHI. https://doi.org/www. ophi.org.uk

Available at: http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/global/pdfs/ VchNov01.pdf Kassahun, T. (2014). Review of Bamboo Value Chain in Ethiopia. Journal of Biology, Agriculture and Healthcare. https://doi.org/10.11648/j. ijber.20150404.13 Lobovikov, M., Paudel, S., Piazza, M., Ren, H., Wu, J.Q.

Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Song, X., Zhou, G., Jiang, H., Yu, S., Fu, S., Li, W., Wang, W., Ma, Z., Peng, C.. (2011). Carbon sequestration

by Chinese bamboo forests and their ecological benefits: Assessment of potential, problems, and future challenges. Environmental Reviews. 19.

10.1139/a11-015.

State Forestry Administration (SFA), Government of China (2011). National Bamboo Development Plan 2011-20 (as translated by INBAR), Beijing, China

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 23

Perspectives Van de Logt, P. (2018). Trilateral cooperation in East Africa. Presentation. Global Bamboo and Rattan

Appendix

Congress (BARC) 2018, Beijing, China, June 26, 2018 Vorontsova M.S., Clark L.G., Dransfield J., Govaerts R., Baker W.J. (2016). World Checklist of Bamboos and Rattans. INBAR, Beijing, China, & the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK Vorontsova M.S., Clark L.G., Dransfield J., Govaerts R., Baker W.J., Wilkinson T. (2016). World Atlas of Bamboos and Rattans. INBAR, Beijing, China & the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK United Nations Comtrade (2017). Databases. Available at: https://comtrade.un.org/data/ United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (2018). World Population Prospects 2017. Available at: https://population. un.org/wpp/ United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (2016), Human Development Report (HDR) 2011-2016. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/ content/human-development-report-2016-humandevelopment-everyone Widenoja, R. (2007). Sub-optimal equilibriums in thecarbon forestry game: why bamboo should win but will not. Tufts University

Figure 1. (INBAR & Tsinghua University (2018). Remote sensing-based regional bamboo resource assessment report of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, INBAR, Beijing, China)

Wondimu A. (2018). Market and investment potential of bamboo sector in Ethiopia. Presentation. Global Bamboo and Rattan Congress (BARC) 2018, Beijing, China, June 26, 2018 World bamboo resources: a thematic study prepared in the framework of the global forest resources assessment 2005 Non wood Forest Products 18.

Rome, Italy: Food and Agricultural Organization World Bank (2017). Agriculture, value added as % of GDP. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/NV.AGR. TOTL.ZS. World Bank. (2018a). Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals 2018, Washington, DC: World Bank Atlas, World Bank World Bank (2018b). World Bank in Ethiopia. Overview.

Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ ethiopia/overview Zhao, Y., Feng, D., Jayaraman, D., Belay, D., Sebrala, H., Ngugi, J., Gong, P. (2018). Bamboo mapping of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda for the year 2016 using multi-temporal Landsat imagery.

International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jag.2017.11.008 Zhou B., Fu M., Xie J., Yang X.. Li Z. (2005). Ecological functions of bamboo forest: Research and Application. J. Forestry Res.. 16. 143-147. 10.1007/ BF02857909.

Figure 2. (source: INBAR & Tsinghua University (2018). Remote sensing-based regional bamboo resource assessment report of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, INBAR, Beijing, China)

24 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Perspectives Creating an Ecologically Cognizant and Socially Beneficial Monetary Regime: Why money needs to be transformed and key strategies for its transition.

By Joshua Breen

T

he current monetary regime is debt-based and interest-bearing, meaning that debt is greater than the money supply. The current creation and structure of money, consisting of positive interest rates, demands perpetual economic growth and the subsequent conversion of natural and social capital into financial capital.

Evidently this is incongruent with a finite planet. In addition, it also contributes to income inequality and social disintegration. Understood as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value, its validity is supported by its acceptance by the state for the payment of taxes and its acceptance for goods and services. It is therefore best perceived as a social agreement that is amendable and subject to change.

Money and the institutions surrounding it have evolved throughout history as conditions have required or demanded. Current issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity and species loss, climate change and burgeoning inequality necessitate consideration of an ecologically cognizant monetary regime. Silvio Gesell’s proposition of negative interest rates has garnered recent mainstream attention, albeit for its potential to stimulate economic activity. However, this demonstrates the feasibility of implementing decaying currency, partially remedying the aforementioned ills. This paper explores monetary creation and accompanying institutional and policy arrangements that would generate a form of money that is societally and ecologically beneficial.

Introduction In exploring potential policies and methods for transitioning economies away from extractive systems founded in perpetual growth to ones that realise their ecological dependence and embeddedness, it is essential to consider the role and form of money. The current money system and its creation is debt-based and interest-bearing; which results in market volatility and the continued conversion of natural and social capital into financial capital.1 It is becoming increasingly clear that this economic system is incongruent with a finite planet. In addition, Picketty identifies the rate of return on capital as one of the major factors that contributes to inequality.2 Silvio Gesell, who drew significant attention from Keynes, noted that interest rates are

an occurrence that is unique to money and is a feature that explains why it is pursued and hoarded.3 Money plays a crucial and often defining role in social interactions as well as human interaction with the planet. However, money is not a universally-fixed reality but rather a human creation, and is therefore a form of social agreement subject to change.

Consequentially, it has evolved over time in response to different historical moments and crises. As humanity faces the challenges of climate breakdown, biodiversity and species loss, as well as extreme levels of inequality, it is inevitable that change to the current forms of money and monetary systems will occur. This paper explores propositions that would facilitate a transformation of money to a form

Pixabay www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 25

Perspectives that is more ecologically cognizant and socially constructive. It also outlines how these propositions might be implemented.

Implications of debt-based, interest-bearing money How money is created, and who creates it, has significant implications for society and the activities that are favoured or overlooked. The notion that central banks create money is incorrect, as majority of money creation occurs through commercial banks via fractional reserve banking.1 With a requirement to only hold a small fraction of deposits, usually 10%, commercial banks essentially loan money into existence.1 This has resulted in a system where debt is greater than the money supply.

To ameliorate this condition the continued conversion of natural and social capital into financial capital is required. The prominence of debt helps partly explain the increasing commodification and subsequent extraction of nature, as well as of human creativity, capacities and care.

Further to this, a compound interest rate has meant debt has grown at a greater rate than this conversion has been able to satisfy, meaning the gap between debt and the money supply is increasing.4 In light of this system there is little surprise that the severity and frequency of financial crises, with accompanying social conflict, has increased over time.5 As noted

by Farley et al.,1 not only does this system facilitate the relocation of wealth and resources to the financial sector but it also favours market goods over public goods, as these can create enough income to repay both the initial loan and the interest. As such, money, which is a social agreement for exchange, value, and accounting, is created in a way that is ignorant of human well-being and, as is becoming 26 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

increasingly evident, indirectly detracts from human well-being by promoting activities that deteriorate natural and social capital.1 In light of these detrimental features of money and credit/debt dynamics, it is necessary to also consider what contributed to the emergence of this system. Historically the primary motivation for people to borrow was, and continues to be, the need to buy food and agricultural inputs; due to the inherent unpredictability of agriculture and consequences of seasons of low yields.6 In addition, the development of tax systems that demanded payment in currency, which were proliferated by colonial conquest, has also been a major reason people took on debt and incidentally also provides explanation of the emergence of markets and the use of money.6 This insight weakens the conventional origin story of money; that it simply came into being to overcome the inconveniences of barter.

Presumably, money solved the issue for the baker who wanted meat

but the butcher who wanted a pair of shoes instead of bread. This has been referred to as the ‘myth of barter’, as there is no historical example of a village or community making the assumed transition from barter to money and then eventually to credit.7 Rather, Egyptian and Mesopotamian archaeological finds have shown that systems of credit existed thousands of years before the invention of coinage.7 The main problem with the myth of barter is that it projects the rational, self-interested and utility-maximizing vision of humanity throughout history, whilst ignoring how social ties, kinship, violence, and power have all influenced exchange and the emergence of money.7 Human exchange has always been deeply social and reveals the inter-dependency of people that is necessary for human survival and flourishing. A vision of humanity that emphasises sociality, generosity and adaptability is an essential component for a beneficial economy.8 It is evident that the current system of money creation and resulting levels of debt are not serving that reality.

Pixabay

Perspectives Beyond being debt-based the current monetary regime is also interest-bearing. In examining the reasons for positive interest rates, or money’s liquidity premium, the neoclassical explanation suggests that humans prefer to consume in the present rather than in the future; so interest exists as a reward for those who delay consumption.9 However, other explanations suggest that interest is not the result of human preference but is rather a characteristic of money itself; due to the fact that it does not deteriorate and provides people with autonomy and vast choice it is therefore greater than goods, services and labour.9 Historically, positive interest, or usury, has been prohibited and condemned by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith traditions, as well as

by Greek philosophers, as it was seen as an evil practice that often exploited the poor and caused social conflict.10 Following the Renaissance perspectives changed from interest being inherently evil to considerations of how much interest was usurious; with justifications for interest as a reward for delayed consumption and the risk of lending emerging from thinkers like John Locke soon afterwards.10 Interest has now become an accepted and unquestioned norm within current credit and debt relations. However, Picketty has observed that the relationship between preference for saving, slowed economic growth and the rate of interest on capital in recent history has been a primary contributor to the growing income inequality that now characterises contemporary economies.2 This dynamic is occurring on the macro and micro levels, as well as within and between countries.

Developing countries have paid over $4.2 trillion in interest payments alone on foreign debt since 1980.11 Meaning many countries have already paid

the initial loan several times over, yet are still servicing debt.11 Evidently, positive interest greatly hampers the capacity of both people and countries to develop as money that could be spent on food, health and education is consumed by debt payments. The current monetary system rewards those that simply possess or own money.

Whilst the types of credit arrangements available to the poor often have the highest levels of interest attached to them.10 The debt-based and interest-bearing nature of the current monetary regime clearly facilitates the conversion of natural and social capital into financial capital and creates increasing income inequality. Even if infinite resources were available there would still be default on debt if economic growth was not greater than the interest rate on the existing debt.1 In light of this, we will not be able to transition to post-growth or steady-state economies whilst positive interest rates remain a feature of the monetary system.9

Solutions: The potential evolution of money Money needs to be transformed so that it serves society and facilitates non-extractive interactions between humans and nature. The increasing sophistication of financial systems, the untranslatable terminology and language of banking and finance, and the fact that current discussion of money and banking is conducted by those with vested interests, are some of the main challenges facing the development and implementation of alternative monetary ideas and frameworks.4 Unfortunately, it has often required some form of crisis for new currency and monetary systems to emerge.1 In examining the destructive consequences of the current monetary regime, it is clear that who creates

money and how, as well as the role of positive interest rates are two factors that require reconsideration.

The idea of full reserve banking (FRB) was popularised within ecological economics by Herman Daly, who built on the ideas of Frederick Soddy.12 The Federal Reserve in the US has the authority to alter reserve requirements for commercial banks, and could gradually raise the requirement to 100% in order to remove the capacity of commercial banks to create money.13 This would significantly influence the types of activities and goods that receive loans.

This could work by central banks placing time deposits in commercial banks to cover all existing loans, with accompanying parameters in place as to the types of activities that the commercial banks fund for them to continue to receive further deposits once the initial deposit has matured.1 Alternatively, banking could become a public utility so that commercial banks simply become an extension of the central bank, which would also encourage localisation of finance to better assess risk.1 FRB would mean that every unit or dollar loaned would have to be one that has been saved and deposited, which would reduce growth by dis-incentivising borrowing and speculative investment.6 Whilst helping address the gap between debt and real wealth, and making money creation more of a public good, FRB is not a comprehensive solution.

FRB will still be subject to speculative bubbles and ensuing financial crises.4 The magnitude of the current ecological crises requires reforms and regulation that oversee the course of investment and comprehensively address the issues of distribution and power.4 In light of this, and to further ameliorate the divide between debt and real wealth, there is an argument for some form of debt cancellation.12 In www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 27

Perspectives

Benjamin Combs on Unsplash Planting

periods where virtual money systems were dominant there were always institutions created within societies, such as debt cancellation or jubilees, to protect debtors, however, the contemporary period of virtual credit money ushered in by Nixon in 1971 has been accompanied by institutions, such as the IMF, that exist to protect creditors.7 Therefore, in the current context some form of debt cancellation would have the added effect of reorienting or redesignating the rights to real wealth.7 From the previous consideration of debt payments by developing countries, debt cancellation would also permit a renewed autonomy in determining allocation of their resources.

Whilst FRB and some form of debt cancellation would be greatly beneficial, it is critical that positive interest rates also be addressed. Money’s 28 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

primary function is as a medium of exchange. Having it as a unit of account is useful, but how it operates as a store of value requires change.

Positive interest rates encourage the hoarding and accumulation of money as it becomes an end in and of itself.

Aristotle was critical of an object like money having the capacity to reproduce and insisted it best served society only as a medium of exchange.10 Zero or negative interest rates would mean money no longer functions as a store of value and becomes subject to decay as other materials are. In the early 1900s Silvio Gesell pioneered the idea of imposing an artificial carrying cost on money in order to prevent its accumulation and instead encourage its circulation in the economy.9 Majority of the interest in negative interest rates is in its

capacity to stimulate economic activity through discouraging hoarding.

During the Great Depression, an estimated 405 municipalities in the US favoured the creation of decaying currency or ‘stamp scrip’.14 In addition, the Bankhead-Pettengill Bill in 1932 proposed the creation of one billion one dollar ($1) notes of stamp scrip but was rejected in favour of the New Deal and central bank sovereignty.14 In the same year a relatively successful experience of stamp scrip occurred in the township of Wörgl in Austria, that resulted in increasing employment and economic activity such as the building of infrastructure and housing during a time of economic depression.6 Following this success roughly 200 other towns also wanted to implement decaying currency but it was made illegal due

Perspectives to the risk it presented to the central bank.6 In each instance, the goal was to stimulate economic activity during times of stagnation or crisis. Gesell was a businessman and similarly had intentions of prompting growth through increasing the circulation and velocity of money.6 Interestingly, there has been renewed interest in negative interest rates following the 2007-8 financial crisis. Central banks in Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary, Japan, and even the European Central Bank have all implemented negative interest rate policies post 2008.15 Negative interest rates or decaying currency are able to be implemented within the existing financial framework. As the idea is both possible and feasible, it is worth further exploring how it might facilitate a post-growth economy as well as other potential capacities. Though it may stimulate short term economic activity and growth through increasing the circulation of money, in the long run the effect would be a re-alignment of money with real wealth.16 The absence of interest would remove both the incentive and demand that natural and social capital be converted into money, as money would no longer be a commodity that grows indefinitely. This would need to be accompanied by policies that prevent other assets, such as land and gold, from also becoming stores of value.16 In addition, debt and the money supply would be decreasing rather than infinitely growing. Here some form of social dividend or credit would be needed to refresh the money supply. A universal basic income could be administered at the national level with decisions of further credit devolved to the local level in order to facilitate a more democratic economy.6 Negative interest and decaying currency would also likely have

an effect on inequality through discouraging hoarding and removing the reward of positive interest rates to those who simply possess money.9 Progressive taxation that targets throughput and economic rent would also assist in reducing inequality and environmentally deleterious activities.1 Further, through money losing its pre-eminence over other goods, services and labour, it is likely that alternative mechanisms and means of exchange would emerge that form and strengthen social bonds. Money as a commodity currently obscures the reality that people are inherently connected and dependent upon one another.

The environmental, economic, social and political crises presently unfolding reveal the need for a new form of money that no longer perpetuates these issues.

as a medium of exchange. It would also mean that money is no longer structured in a way that demands the perpetual conversion of natural and social capital into financial capital.

References 1. Farley, J, Burke, M, Flomenhoft, G, Kelly, B, Murray, DF, Posner, S, Putnam, M, Scanlan, A, & Witham, A. Monetary and Fiscal Policies for a Finite Planet.

Sustainability 5, 2802-2826 (2013).

2. Kennedy, P. Review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Picketty. Critique 43(1), 117-130 (2015).

3. Dow, S. Keynes and Gesell: Political and Social Philosophy, Epistemology and Monetary Reform Annals of the Fondazion Luigi Einaudi, 51, 77-92 (2017).

4. Røpke, I. Sustainability and the Governance of the Financial System: What role for full reserve banking? Environmental Policy and Governance 27, 177-192 (2017).

5. Zanalda, G. History of Financial Crises. International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioural Sciences, 2nd ed. 9, 183-190 (2015).

6. Gerber, JF. An overview of local credit systems and their implications for post-growth. Sustainability

Conclusion In seeking to transition to a postgrowth economy it is essential to examine the role of money and its current form and creation. Indeed, such a transition cannot occur with money remaining debt-based and interest-bearing. Whilst numerous actions and policies are required for a post-growth economy to function well, changing who creates money as well as removing positive interest rates are two fundamental components and catalysts of money’s much needed transformation. These changes can occur within existing institutional frameworks but would likely be pivotal reforms with revolutionary implications. It can also occur independently through complementary currencies as seen in Wörgl, Austria.

Full reserve banking would mean that money creation becomes a public good and negative interest rates would remove the feature of money as a store of value and increase its function

Science 10, 413-423 (2015).

7. Graeber, D. Debt: the first 5,000 years (Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn, NY, 2014).

8. Raworth, K. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist (Random House Business Books, London, 2017).

9. Loehr, D. The euthanasia of the rentier—A way toward a steady-state economy? Ecological Economics 84, 232-239 (2012).

10. Lewison, M. Conflicts of Interest? The ethics of Usury. Journal of Business Ethics 22, 327-339 (1999).

11. Hickel, J. The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions (William Heinemann, London, 2017).

12. Daly, HE. The economic thought of Frederick Soddy.

History of Political Economy 12(4), 469–488 (1980).

13. Daly, H. Nationalize Money, Not Banks. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy [online] (2013), https://steadystate.org/nationalizemoney-not-banks/.

14. Ilgmann, C, & Menner, M. Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals. International Economics and Economic Policy. 8(4), 383-405 (2011).

15. Arteta, C, Kose, MA, Stocker, M, & Taskin, T. Implications of negative interest rate policies: An early assessment. Pacific Economic Review 23, 8-26 (2016).

16. Kallis, G, Kerschner, C, & Martinez-Alier, J. The economics of degrowth. Ecological Economics 4, 172-180 (2012).

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 29

Feature

A Decade Of Action: The Case For A Planetary Emergency Plan The Club of Rome and The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

F

or 10,000 years, human civilisation has grown and thrived because of Earth’s remarkable climate stability and rich biological diversity. In the last 50 years, human activity has severly undermined this resilience. Our patterns of economic growth, development, production and consumption are pushing the Earth’s life-support systems beyond their natural boundaries. The stability of these systems—our global commons on which we so fundamentally depend—is now at risk. The science is clear that we are now accelerating towards tipping points and that the consequences of inaction will be catastrophic for humanity. The time to act is running out1.

This is a Planetary Emergency.

The definition of an emergency is a dangerous event requiring immediate action to reduce risk of potentially catastrophic results. The impacts of climate change and ecological destruction are more severe and are manifesting themselves earlier than many scientific predictions in previous decades had foreseen. The most authoritative global scientific assessments2 conclude that without major interventions, the risks will soon reach a critical stage. We need to stabilise the climate at 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures, halt the loss of biodiversity, slow polar ice sheet melt and glacier retreat, protect critical 30 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

biomes and store more carbon in soils, forests and oceans. This is how we will guarantee the long-term health and well-being of both people and planet.

To do that, however, our response to this complex emergency must reflect the intricate links between life on our planet and the systems that regulate it. It must address the convergence of crises and tipping points which have created this Planetary Emergency. We have no more time for incremental, siloed policy action.

2020 is a “Super Year” for international policy action. It is the 75th anniversary of the United Nations. It is the first opportunity for nations to increase climate ambition and meet 2050 net-zero goals. A new treaty on the oceans will be agreed. Biodiversity targets will be announced. And 2020 will mark the beginning of the decade to scale action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This decade must be a turning point, the moment when the world bends the curve, averts the impending disaster and opts instead to embark on the fastest economic transformation in our history. Declaring a Planetary Emergency provides a new compass for nations and injects the essential urgency into decision-making. It will ensure that all action from 2020 will be taken in light of its impact on the stability of Earth’s life-support

systems, and be underpinned by the social and economic transformations needed to secure the long-term health and well-being of people and planet.

While our efforts should be global, our responses must be local. They should be tailored to local needs, resources and cultures to ensure they have maximum impact and work to everyone’s advantage.

A Decade of Action: Emerging from Emergency The existential risk is real. Yet, the opportunities to not just avert disaster but to rebuild, improve and regenerate are readily available.

History has shown that humanity is remarkably resilient. We are well adapted to respond to disaster through cooperation and innovation. But the potential consequences we face this time are different—we have a narrow window to act now to reduce risk or avoid catastrophe. We don’t know how to reconstruct the cryosphere, the hydrological cycle, the rainforests, coral reefs and all other life-support systems on Earth. Once the emergency fully manifests itself, it will simply be too late to reverse the breakdown.

As well as halting climate change and protecting nature, these efforts will improve health, livelihoods and equity and create more liveable and sustainable cities and rural communities.

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 31

Our proposed commitments and underpinning action are of the scale needed to respond to the emergency facing people and planet. Our aim is to protect the Global Commons through 10 clear commitments, and ensure they are met by immediately implementing a set of transformational policy and market levers. This is our insurance policy to emerge from emergency and guarantee a just transition for all.

We invite nations to discuss the case for a Planetary Emergency Plan. We propose such a plan be founded on the urgent need to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, to reach carbon-neutrality by 2050, while halting biodiversity loss and protecting essential Global Commons.

Such an initiative is consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and improve quality

of life. We can emerge from emergency to a world which benefits all species, within planetary boundaries and leaving no one behind. This is the world we envisage, and the world to which we must all aspire.

The Rationale for Emergency Action The science is clear: the climate and biodiversity are fully integrated and interdependent. Every year since the Industrial Revolution, land-based and

Ten Commitments for Our Global Commons 1. By 2030, declare critical ecosystems as Global Commons and protected areas, through a regime of stewardship and co-responsibility by the entire global human community.

2. By 2020, set a universal global moratorium on deforestation, using a net-zero deforestation and degradation metric and, by 2025, triple annual investments in forest conservation and forest landscape restoration.

3. By 2020, sign an immediate moratorium on developing Arctic oil and gas reserves, support withdrawal from fossil energy exploration and use and establish a Cryosphere Preservation Plan to protect this critical ecosystem more broadly.

4. In 2020, significantly enhance public and private finance flows for restoration of critical ecosystems, including by mobilising $200billion for the GCF and GEF over the next decade.

5. In 2020, halt the decline of critical and vulnerable ocean ecosystems and habitats and secure a robust New Ocean Treaty (under UNCLOS) for the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, which constitute half of our planet.

6. In 2020, launch a permanent public-private Planetary Emergency fund for the Global Commons, building upon the G7 Amazon Emergency Fund and committing the necessary capital to insure humanity against present and inevitable future crises.

7. By 2020, ensure all sovereign wealth funds commit to defunding deforestation and, by 2025, halt all investments driving continued deforestation and unsustainable land-use change of intact and irreplaceable ecosystems.

8. By 2025, require all large publicly-listed and family-owned companies to commit to science-based targets, shift to green investments (climate mitigation and adaptation as well as ecosystems protections and regeneration), disclose using available taxonomies and report according to material risks from the Planetary Emergency.

9. By 2025, halt all conversion of wetlands, grasslands and savannahs for the production of agricultural commodities and triple annual investments in their effective protection, restoration and resilience.

10. By 2020, introduce financial mechanisms and policy instruments to support local farmers, foresters and indigenous people to secure their livelihoods and to shift to regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry and other sustainable land-use practices.

32 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Ten Urgent Actions for the Transformation Transforming energy systems 1. Halt all fossil fuel expansion, investments and subsidies by 2020 and shift investments and revenues to low-carbon energy deployment, research, development and innovation.

2. Continue the doubling of wind and solar capacity every four years, and triple annual investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies for high-emitting sectors before 2025.

3. Set a global floor price on carbon (>30 USD/ton CO2 and rising) immediately for developed countries and no later than 2025 for the most advanced transition economies, that internalises high-carbon energy externalities in all products and services.

Shifting to a circular economy

Creating a just and equitable society founded in human and ecological well-being 7. Introduce economic progress indicators that include socioecological and human health and well-being by 2030, recognising that the latter depends on the flourishing and stewardship of natural ecosystems3.

8. Provide legal tools, by 2025, that allow indigenous, forest and tribal communities to secure their rights to traditional land, recognising their vital role as stewards of these lands in mitigating climate change and ecosystem degradation. Such mechanisms must include funding and legal aid to guarantee that these communities have access to justice4,5.

9. Shift taxation from labour to the use of all natural resources, final disposal, emissions to land, air and water, by 2020.

4. Agree in 2020 to halve consumption and production footprints in developed and emerging economies and close loops in inefficient value chains, by 2030.

10. Establish clear funding and retraining programmes for displaced workers, rural and industrial communities, by 2025.

5. Internalise externalities in unsustainable and high-carbon production and consumption through targeted consumption taxes and regulation, as well as consumptionbased accounting, by 2025.

The manner and priority in which these actions are implemented will vary from country to country and between developed economies and economies in transition, but the overall objective of rapid carbon emissions reduction and nature regeneration should be a common goal over the next decade.

6. Develop national and cross-national roadmaps for all countries towards regenerative land-use and circular economies, including a reduction in global carbon emissions from basic materials to net-zero, by 2030.

ocean ecosystems have absorbed close to half of all emissions from fossil-fuel burning. Without nature’s ability to absorb and store our GHG emissions, we would have already exceeded

2°C of warming, with potentially disastrous consequences. Breaching this threshold of warming could push the planet towards irreversible and catastrophic biosphere feedbacks6.

When climate change alters a chink in the planetary system, it can set off a chain of negative feedback loops. Increasing droughts, for instance, are reducing the ability of tropical forests to store carbon, making them more prone to fires, releasing yet more GHG emissions.

The significant loss of the Cryosphere has reduced the albedo capacity of key Earth systems to reflect heat away from the planet. The higher the temperature, the more permafrost thaws, with greater emissions of both CO2 and methane, leading to even greater warming and triggering further negative feedback loops.

At least one million species risk disappearance, many within decades7.

Food chains could disintegrate and vital ecosystems collapse. Species diversity and ecosystems integrity play a fundamental role in regulating the climate, water cycles, carbon sequestration and food production.

The increase in costly, extreme weather events around the world is symptomatic of the increasing instability of our climate system.

Accelerating sea-level rise from polar ice sheets threatens millions in more intense storms. Loss of mountain glaciers and snowpack threaten reliable water supplies for billions, from the Indian sub-continent to the American West. Fundamental changes to the environment threaten to undermine the progress we have made in health and life expectancy.

More heat stress, for example, reduces labour productivity and causes more deaths, particularly in mid- and lowlatitude regions. Fires from intentional burning in agriculture spread to neighbouring farms and forests, damaging soil carbon capacity and productivity.

Declining crop yields in tropical and sub-tropical regions will increase undernutrition for many millions, stunting children’s growth. Land-use changes, pollution and temperature rise are causing more infectious and mosquito-borne diseases. www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 33

34 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Impact Researh, Stockholm Resilience Centre) Johan Rockström (The Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) Anders Wijkman (The Club of Rome) Supporting Authors: James Lloyd (Nature4Climate) George Biesmans (The Club of Rome) Contributors and Partners: Amy Leurs (Future Earth) Andy Haines (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) Bernadette Fischler (WWF-UK) Chad Frischmann (Project Drawdown) Chandran Nair (The Club of Rome) Claude Martin (The Club of Rome) Daniel Klingenfeld (The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) Gail Whiteman (Lancaster University, Arctic Basecamp at Davos) Herbert Girardet (The Club of Rome) Hunter Lovins (The Club of Rome) Ian T. Dunlop (The Club of Rome) Jinfeng Zhou (The Club of Rome) John D. Liu (Ecosystem Restoration Camps; Commonland Foundation) John Fullerton (The Club of Rome) John Schellnhuber (The Club of Rome) Juliana Gärtner (The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) Kaddu Sebunya (The Club of Rome) Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir (The Club of Rome) Luc Bas (IUCN) Maja Göpel (The Club of Rome) Mamphela Ramphele (The Club of Rome) Mark Wright (WWF-UK) Matthis Wackernagel (The Club of Rome) Nebojsa Nakicenovic (IIASA) Pam Pearson (International Cryosphere Climate Initiative) Peter Johnston (The Club of Rome) Petra Kuenkel (The Club of Rome) Sara Stefanini (Mission 2020) Sharon Johnson (The NewNow, NAMATI)

References 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a

Current economic assessments of planetary changes are deeply concerning and global economic and societal risks of accelerated planetary pressure are unimaginable. Yet we know that the costs of action are far less than the cost of inaction. The tools we need to respond boldly to the Planetary Emergency are readily available, and they will reap significant societal and economic benefits. The IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (SR 1.5) tells us that remaining at or below 1.5°C remains physically, technically and

economically within our reach if we act at sufficient speed. Over the next 10 years, we can steer our development path onto one which benefits all humanity and allows economies in transition to leapfrog and immediately seize the opportunities from a lowcarbon, well-being economy.

2. IPCC Special Report on Global Warming 1.5°C (2018), IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) and IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2019) 3. https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet PIIS0140-6736(15)60901-1.pdf 4. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/08/08/ un-science-report-shows-time-reboot-relationshipnature/ 5. https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/09/safeguarding carbon-stored-indigenous-and-community-lands-

Authors & Contributors

essential-meeting-climate

Main Authors:

6. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/

Sandrine Dixson-Declève (The Club

7. https://www.ipbes.net/global-assessment-report-

of Rome)

biodiversity-ecosystem-services

Owen Gaffney (The Potsdam Institute for Climate

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 35

Feature

Sustainability Reporting, Beyond TBL- TSM? Keith Murray

F

ollowing on from my thoughts published in the April 2019 issue of The Solutions Journal, I started to reflect on what was written and wondered if it would be of interest to readers to know how this management approach has been implemented within a business.

To re-cap, an organisation has “Un-sustainable Activities”, wherever it sits within the framework of “supplying needs satisfaction” to the population at large and because of the activities it is involved in it creates negative side effects, social and/or environmental. Looking at these identified “activities” the SD practitioner then has to try to address the issues that give rise to the “unsustainabilities”.

Almost 20 years ago the Chemical Engineering Profession was being reminded that it had to accept that SD was a concentricity principle1 (Fig. 1b) and not a co-planer one (Fig. 1a) as had been advocated earlier.2 It was pointed out then that Economics is constrained, firstly by Environmental and secondarily by Society limits. It is subservient to both in a sustainability context!

However driven by unsustainable economics and constrained by environmental laws, business has resorted to trade-offs on environmental damage or social degradation for economic gains; this amount of environmental degradation or social inequity is “acceptable” within the “Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Groupthink” compromise.

36 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

(A) Weak SD

(B) Strong SD

Figure 1. The conflicting views of sustainable development

Unfortunately, this TBL definition has alas been accepted within higher educational teaching establishments exacerbating the problem further.3 An insight to the present state of Sustainable Business practices; common perceptions of corporate sustainability professionals; shifting priorities and challenges in corporate sustainability4 illustrates the huge range of issues that these “professionals” have to cope with trying to present a meaningful “Corporate Image”.

This “beyond TBL” total sustainability approach should at least allow the Sustainable Development (SD) professional scope to identify, question and clarify those areas over which their company has serious long-term issues with respect to maintaining their company’s survival.

Total Sustainability (TS) thinking.

The term Total Sustainability (TS) has crept into the literature over the last 40 years without necessarily clearly defining exactly what it is describing or meaning. However, in an excellent review of SD-CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility reporting5 gives us the answer. If all three areas of SD have been “considered” that can be claimed as TS; the consensus being that this kind of integral thinking reflects good CSR. However the central concept to TS is the acceptance of the fundamental values6 which are not negotiable, namely: ecological sustainability, basic human needs, intra-generational equity and inter-generational equity, and, the true TS concept demands

europeseals.com Bottle Filler

foodsafetyhelpline.com Bottling Rack

that economics is constrained, firstly by environmental and secondarily by social limits. (Fig. 1b) This does lead to a rather crucial conclusion: an enterprise, wherever it sits within the process or system that supplies “welfare” must, if it is to achieve TS, accept that there is no undermining of resource availability either environmental or social in any of the processes or systems it has in place in supplying this welfare to the population or the individual.7

Total Sustainability Management-TSM As mentioned in the 10(2) article as there has been a rapid rise in the number of management systems (MS) published and adopted by businesses over the last three decades (Table1) it was only natural to try and “ride on the back of” the procedures that have now become common practice in managerial terms. So, using the style and format of ISO14001, and, with the capacity for continuance of a company being the guiding principle, the SD

practitioner can develop a strategy plan which can progressively move the company away from its current unsustainable behaviours/activities. In doing this he/she must: • Initiate a procedure that identifies the current risks from unsustainable behaviours; • Assess their significance in terms of the long term threat to company continuance; and • Plan strategies to reduce and even eliminate their effect on the company.

ISO Standard

Management System

Area of responsibility

9001

Quality Management Systems

Quality

30301

Information/Documentation/ Records

Business

55001

Asset Management Systems

Finance

14001

Environment Management Systems

Environment

45001

Occupational H.& S. Management Systems

Health and Safety

26000

Social Responsibility Guidance

Overall Company Performance

Table 1. Popular International Standards Organisation (ISO) Management Systems

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 37

The procedural framework8 has gone through changes over the last 15 years, helped by the need to “communicate” effectively with post-grad students3, but with the clearly defined reality of business SD, a simplified Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approach9 has made the ISO style framework into a rigid and dedicated Management Strategy Tool (MST) for continuance.

Sustainability Risk Assessment-SRA So, where to start?

To coin a Rogers and Hammerstein lyric: “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start”.

For any organisation this means: areas of “activity/ aspects” over which the company has direct control within their factory fence.

It is necessary to “build-up” a schematic of what actually goes on there.

(Fig. 2) And the initial steps then are to consider each and every “operation” separately, looking at the “activity” and what it takes in and gives out i.e., the “store” accepts the raw materials from outside of the factory fence; stores them, then they are distributed within the factory. (Fig. 2a) The awareness of those “operations” that take in and give out “across the factory fence” are of particular significance. For example, in this simplistic situation, the “washing activity”, water input and wastewater output cross the factory fence and at this initial stage of TSM it is those particular operations that inter-act with the external (beyond fence) social and environmental subject areas that need to be highlighted. This identification is carried out for all the “activities” within the factory.

However as things progress the sustainability practitioner will have to explore those external “aspects” up and down the supply chain beyond the factory, including transport (T) (Fig. 2b). It is advisable to “monitor” these through labelling (Fig. 3) as each will have some significance in respect 38 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

(A) Internal operations

(B) Up/Down-stream operations Figure 2. Simplistic profile of the internal/external operations

to the infringement of a resource on which the company relies.

The strategic plan at the heart of sustainability for the company is to try to eliminate as many of those aspects that cause a resource infringement not only within the factory but also up and down their supply chain.

So three things have to be done, (Fig. 4): 1. Identify what are the critical aspects i.e. activities, unit

operations, deeds, behaviours, cradle-to grave.

2. Review why these aspects are necessary and highlight their “significance” with respect to Resource Availability Infringement.

(RAI) 3. Set up a priority list of those “most significant” and explore the opportunities on how they may be alleviated.

Figure 3. External aspects labelling

However, removing that resource infringement can cause a “wee problem”, the classical business TBL dilemma: “Sorry but that is not profitable”.

However, using this approach, the SD practitioner can create an action plan basis on total sustainability with a “sky’s the limit” scenario where economic considerations are ignored. This in essence identifies what really needs to be done; what Resource Availability Infringements (RAIs) need to be removed to close the actual sustainability gap between current operation and a Totally Sustainable version of company operations.

However to calm down “The Board” and keep the Finance Director employed, a second action plan is set up with rearranged priorities within the prevailing economic constraints of the moment.

With the SRA completed, based on the significance given to the loss of the individual resource availability, a portfolio of RAI’s is built up and from this Assessment the Senior Management, at their “review meeting”, prioritise action with respect to the corporate image it wishes to reflect having been presented with:

1. Those RAI’s within the factories that have a direct relationship with the social and natural environment.

2. Those RAI’s that have an indirect relationship, namely those that are associated with the upstream or downstream activities, many of which will have serious direct and indirect relations with the social and natural environment.

Management Review (MR) As mentioned in the 10(2) article, any un-sustainabilities inherent in the company are easily identified without spending an unwarranted amount of time and energy on feasibility studies.

Often it becomes apparent that some operations are inherently unsustainable and should be removed, but, the frightening realisation is that some within the company will never be sustainable! The Management in their review have a clear long term strategy to consider: 1. Diversify, 2. Change direction, or 3. Phase-out that operation altogether!

In addition the studies will have highlighted key issues and activities over which the company has limited

Figure 4. Aspect analysis.

control within its supply chain and some of these "external operations" may well be accounted for by an inappropriate TBL vision of SD10 or even worse, not even been considered.

However, their negativities represent a risk to this company's future viability since those RAI’s are being imported into the factory and therefore cannot be ignored in the company’s own Management Review!

So, management now has a much clearer vision of those areas within their direct and in-direct control and influence. A strategic plan to tackle these RAI’s within the framework of the prevailing economic climate can now be implemented. This Review also identifies those “aspects” that are being “imported” from supply chain companies over which they have little control or influence. Strategic steps can now be taken to address these.

The MR now gives the Board of Directors a strategic plan that it can “hang its hat on.” 11

Finally I have been working with this concept for over 20 years and there is no doubt familiarity does breed www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 39

nist.gov Oil Refinery

contempt! My colleague, Dr. Boron and I, along with a small body of academics, have demonstrated how it can be taken on board by Undergraduate and Postgraduate students when they are asked to look at specific company‘s process operations.

The procedure, approach and definition of SD have been an integral part of the courses for at least 15 of those 20 years both here in the UK and France. It was also tested in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) funded program with a local industrial company.

It is frustrating therefore that the “group think” TBL acceptance has essentially remained un-challenged while the world out there adapts, modifies, and “re-calibrates” SD beyond all recognition: “business as usual” with a few tweaks!

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My grandchildren and now great grandchildren are being handed down this unsustainable legacy: “Why Great-Granddad did you not do something?”

“What was that, Henry? I didn’t quite hear you. Sorry, not got my hearing aids in.”

References 1. Mitchell, C. (2000). Integrating Sustainability in Chemical Engineering Practice and Education: Concentricity and its Consequences. Trans. IChemE (part B), Process Safety and Env.Protection .https:// doi.org/10.1205/095758200530754 2. Clift, R. (1998). Engineering for the Environment.

The 1998 Mc Lennon Oration, Melbourne University, Australia.

3. Boron, S., Murray, K. R., & Thomson, G. B.

5. Alshehhi, A., Nobanee, H., & Khare, N. (2018). The Impact of Sustainability Practices on Corporate Financial Performance: Literature Trends and Future Research Potential. Sustainability, 10, 494. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su10020494 6. Daly, H. E. (2007). Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly. Elgar, Cheltenham, UK. https://doi. org/10.4337/9781847206947 7. Murray, K. R. & Boron S. (2019). The Necessary Paradigm Shift in Sustainable Business Practice, part 1 J. of Man. and Sust. ; Vol. 9, No. 1; 2019 ISSN 19254725 E-ISSN 1925-4733 8. Boron S. and Murray K..R. (2004). "Bridging the Unsustainability Gap: a Framework for Sustainable Development". Sustainable Development, 12, 65-73.

9. Selmes D.G., Boron S. and Murray K.R. (1997).

Industry, Life Cycle Assessment and Sustainability. I. Chem. E. Research Event, Vol.1, 153-156.

10. Craig R. Carter, Dale S. Rogers, (2008) "A framework of sustainable supply chain management:

(2017). Sustainability Education: Towards Total

moving toward new theory", International

Sustainability Management Teaching. In Leal Filho,

Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics

Brandli, Castro, & Newman (Eds.), Handbook of

Management, Vol. 38 Issue: 5,pp.360-387, https://doi.

Theory & Practice(pp. 37-51, Vol. 1). Springer.

4. https://www.bsr.org/files/event- sources/BSR_ Globescan_State_of_Sustainable_Business_2018.pdf

org/10.1108/09600030810882816 11. Perspectives, pp.30-33, Solutions, April 2019 www. thesolutionsjournal.org

Feature

The High Happiness-Low Carbon Link A new study from Bolivia on well-being and sustainability William D. Powers, Karina Mariaca de Oliveira, Hilvert Timmer

Summary Projections suggest that two out of three humans will live in cities by 2030.1 However, emerging counterurbanization movements challenge this trend. In the heart of South America, several examples posit a new paradigm. Among these is Samaipata, a small town in eastern Bolivia, where the Amazon meets the Andes, with a population of 4,500 including foreign residents from more than 30 countries.

Historically known as the “Valley of Purification,” and home to civilizations from the Chané, to the Incan and the Spaniards, the town’s reputation for high levels of happiness and low levels of consumption inspired research into concrete data about the linkages between well-being and carbon footprint.

The driving question thus became: could hybrid towns in the Global South—instead of needing ‘western-style development’—be, rather, a models of sustainability and future-fit living? To probe this question, the research team chose measurement tools to determine levels of happiness and identify the precise carbon footprint of its inhabitants.

The team applied the internationally approved Gross National Happiness

William Powers Samaipata from above. Human well-being is tied to close contact with nature.

Index Survey, and the Happy Planet Index. The town’s carbon footprint was calculated by the internationally recognized Servicios Ambientales S.A. Finally, the data included the GDP per capita of Samaipata. These data points allowed for a comparative analysis between Samaipata, Bolivia, and countries that, like the United States, are

deemed to have obtained a high level of ‘development’ and for which data was available.

The result is startling in its magnitude: the analysis concludes that Samaipata shows higher levels of happiness than countries that have per capita income levels 17 times higher. Moreover, according to www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 41

Amy Rollo on Unsplash Locals on Lake Titicaca

calculations of the carbon footprint, Samaipata’s environmental impact is 17 times lighter than those same countries in the Global North.

These findings are especially important when we consider the multidimensional crisis we face as humankind, including the intensifying climate crisis which threatens all life on Earth. Three primary conclusions of the research are critical to expand our understanding of these relationships between consumption, sustainability, and happiness levels: It is possible to achieve high levels of well-being with low GDP levels and low environmental impact.

Models developed in the Global South, like “Buen Vivir” (Living Well) may be effective and sustainable alternatives to conventional development models.

The “re-villaging” movement (i.e.

42 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

a current trend countering “urbanization”) correlates with high levels of happiness and low environmental impact.

These conclusions confirm that the village of Samaipata, in many ways representative of numerous similar demographic contexts throughout Latin America, offers powerful solutions for a planet facing grave and intersecting crises of unhappiness and environmental destruction. Samaipata sets forth a compelling case for a town in the Global South that can share clear and insightful lessons for the Global North and for industrialized nations in general.

The Climate Crisis and Urban Development The global debate around the causes, principal drivers, and necessary response to the climate crisis

remains unresolved. It is a crisis that has no precedent and that carries risks higher than any other we have known.

For decades, scientists, academics, and politicians have explored the relationship across development models, levels of human well-being, and environmental limits. Climate change has become a central theme of 21st century international politics, as reflected in the high-profile global meetings of the UN’s Conference of Parties (COP), charged with reviewing the international agreement of the UN´s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC,) especially the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris.

The COP21 sought to achieve agreement on greenhouse gas emissions reductions to limit a global temperature spike to 2oC (3.6 oF). Although the greenhouse gases that cause

global warming exist naturally in the atmosphere, scientific research points to an alarming increase in the emission of these gases since the Industrial Revolution (IPCC, 2014). Most of the emissions are linked to the burning of fossil fuels in industrial activities and transportation.

Although cities only occupy 2.8% of the Earth’s surface, they consume around 70% of its natural resources.

Considering estimates of urbanization rates, which predict that 90% of the world population will live in cities by the year of 2050,2 it is imperative that we closely consider the role of cities and their development patterns.

Beyond alternative models of urbanizations—like energy efficient, “green” cities—we must seriously consider alternatives to urbanization, like the Transition Town, re-villaging, and Slow movements which promise lowcarbon happiness at a human scale.

Latin Americans, and which provides the underlying foundation to both the Bolivian and Ecuadorian national constitutions. According to Aymaran researcher Fernando Huanacuni, “Vivir Bien is life in a state of fullness. It is to know how to live in harmony and balance…with the cycles of Mother Earth.”

New paradigms are emerging in the Global South that offer nuanced interpretations about the human-nature

intercultural studies, there exists a radical contradiction between the Western “good life” (i.e. the American Dream) and the Amerindian “sweet life,” by virtue of their origin in distinct worldviews.4 The former promotes the individual, progress and development through increased urbanization and modernization, whereas the Amerindian “sweet life” emphasizes “the balance and suffi-

The unsustainable development model of the so-called First World—based on the myth that unlimited consumption will lead to the “good life”—are imposed on other cultures and societies, who tend to, within an unbalanced power relationship, adopt those destructive models. In this way, both the environmental as well as the happiness crisis are further deepened.

Development Models and New Paradigms The Western development model has been the subject of extensive debate and criticism for several decades, giving rise to an alternative: post-development theory and practice.

Uruguayan scholar Eduardo Gudynas asserts that the dominant Western model is based on the myth of unlimited growth.3 Development has been become a “zombie concept,” he writes, “dead and alive at the same time.”

Indeed, although the conventional Western vision of development— linked to the dual environmental and well-being crises—has repeatedly been declared “dead” in the last several decades, it continues to be promoted by major institutions as the only way forward.

Gudynas and economist Alberto Acosta have developed a new approach focused on alternatives originating in the Global South. They have extensively analyzed Buen Vivir (“living well”), a concept which places value on the worldview of indigenous

relationship. These proposals break from conventionally anthropocentric and individualistic development models and instead parallel Western holistic and bio-centric worldviews such as deep ecology, which understands the Earth to be a living entity.

Indeed, Gudynas´ wise conclusion that “living-well is only possible when living in community” may be the most important lesson the Global South can share with its Northern neighbors given the likely necessity for profound adaptation measures in the face of climate change.

The Road to Happiness: The Western “Good Life” or the Amer-Indigenous “Sweet Life”?

How does a given society articulate the path to happiness? The answer to that is shaped by how it defines the basic concept of well-being. According to Bolivian philosopher Javier Medina, an expert in indigenous American

ciency of the good,” through austerity and respect for diversity.

Urban life is linked to the Western notion of the individualistic “good life.” The search for happiness in modern cities—where marketing and publicity are most pervasive, and where there is a marked absence of nature—is essentially consumeristic.

Through consumption habits, based on “good life” assumptions about individualism, urban dwellers become accomplices to major corporate actors and the economic and political trends that are the primary driving forces of the climate crisis. If sustainability is defined in basic terms as the capacity to meet present needs without compromising the well-being of future generations, we are faced with a dilemma when we ask ourselves: “What are our true needs?” and “What is necessary to achieve well-being?”

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 43

emitted the same amount of greenhouse gases as the average citizen in the Global North, several planets of resources would be needed to sustain humanity. Herein lies the dilemma: The unsustainable development model of the so-called First World— based on the myth that unlimited consumption will lead to the “good life“— who, within an unbalanced power relationship, tend to adopt those destructive models. In this way, both the environmental as well as the happiness crisis are further deepened.

Measuring Happiness GDP, Human Poverty Index, and Happiness Indices

William Powers Samaipata kids, humans and nature balanced in community.

Our Ecological and Carbon Footprints Tools such as ecological and carbon footprints provide concrete measurements that help identify human impact on the environment and can inform policy decisions to address the discrepancy between overwhelming demand for natural resources and the actual availability of these resources.

The ecological footprint “is a 44 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

resource accounting tool that measures the extent of nature that we have, how many resources are used, and by whom.”5 Research indicates that industrialized nations generate a much larger ecological footprint compared to countries in the Global South. A simple hypothetical situation reveals a somber conclusion: If the average global citizen consumed the same quantity of natural resources and

Traditionally, “happiness” levels have been measured by the world’s key economic standard: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an indicator of the amount of goods and services produced annually within a country.

Dividing the total GDP by the population of the country yields per capita GDP. This approach is rooted in a capitalist logic that equates higher income per capita with greater wellbeing. Indeed, according to the World Bank, the five countries with the highest levels of “well-being” as defined

by GDP would thus be the United States, China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.6 In other words, the “developed” countries of the Global North.

A second conventional way of determining the well-being of a given population has been the Human Poverty Index (HPI), replaced in 2010 by the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). These indices focus on quality of life based on the probability of survival until the age of 40, literacy levels, and the percentage of the population´s access to drinking water. The development of the MPI expanded these measurements to 10 different indicators, but is still limited.

While these factors are closely linked to dimensions of happiness, they do not encompass the full scope of

well-being, and they distort the results to favor “developed” countries over “underdeveloped” ones.

As the debate has deepened around competing understandings of wellbeing, it has become clear that neither the GDP nor the HPI/MPI measurements are adequate. Consequently, measuring happiness has become fashionable, and a dozen new indices have already been developed. In the Kingdom of Bhutan, for example, Gross National Happiness (GNH), first introduced in 1972, forms an integral part of national politics. Other countries, like France, claim to follow Bhutan’s example7 and countries like the Australia and the United States have committed funds to investigate “alternative indicators” to GDP, but those indicators are far from entering the realm where they would influence policy.

Economist Amartya Sen helped develop the new well-being metrics on which another index, that of the World Happiness Report (WHR), was based. Though the WHR is a well thought out index, it continues to use an individualistic and economicsheavy basis for “happiness.” More recently, the academic world has undertaken an effort to understand and measure happiness by considering a broader set of indicators linked to Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index. A handful of universities in the U.S., including in Illinois and Oregon, along with British Columbia in Canada now use the Gross National Happiness Index Survey, which measures subjective parameters about well-being. This subjective approach is now widespread, and is especially common in the United States.

It is within this context that the current study was conducted to determine levels of happiness, economic throughput, and climate impact in the Bolivian town of Samaipata.

An Index for Samaipata

Methodology

Samaipata is a town of 4,500 inhabitants located in central Bolivia, a country that sits in the heart of South America, at an altitude of 1,650 meters. Its population is 97% Bolivian, who represent a diversity of regions and ethnicities. Approximately 3% of current inhabitants are foreigners who hail from over thirty countries.

Samaipata, which means “resting place in the highlands,” is nestled in a valley with a temperate climate and diverse natural landscapes. The region´s principal economic activities are agriculture and tourism.

Samaipata was chosen as the site of this study principally because its size—both in terms of demographics and income level—is that of a typical village in the Global South. However, it is important to note the factors that make Samaipata unique. The town receives an active migration flow from various Bolivian cities and from the rest of the world. As a result of this diverse migration and the fact that Samaipata is situated at the intersection between the Amazon and the Andes, it is a converging point of many cultural and developmental practices from across different communities.8 Several local economic activities seek a more friendly relation with nature and ways in which to maintain local supplies of food and goods. Moreover, many of the town’s models of social organization are based on traditional examples that are communitarian in principle.

The Research Indices

Two indices were used to collect data: the Happy Planet Index (HPI) and the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH).9 The former is calculated through subjective judgments of happiness in tandem with the society’s level of regard for the environment.

The latter is an adaptation of Bhutan’s index, and is meant to be universally applicable. Like the HPI, GNH it is based on subjective parameters of happiness, which seeks to address several spheres of life. The questionnaire is thorough, measuring the level of satisfaction with life in relation to various social, political, economic, and environmental factors.

The relationship between happiness and income level was determined by comparing the happiness index with the GDP per capita. The analysis also included a measure of the carbon footprint in order to account for the interconnectedness between human beings and their environment. Data on Samaipata was collected through interviews, reviews of public-sector institutional documents, estimates of demography, geography, tourism development and the size of the village in comparison with national figures.

The HPI is determined by a combination of objective (measurable) data and subjective (satisfaction) data and relies on transparent and comparable data from 151 countries.

It is calculated using three components—well-being, life expectancy and the ecological footprint:

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 45

The table below shows results for the five countries with the highest HPI scores:

IPF Ranking

Country

Life Expectancy

Well-being (0-10)

Ecological footprint (gha/capita)

Happy Planet Index

1

Costa Rica

79.3

7.3

2.5

=

64.0

2

Vietnam

75.2

5.8

1.4

=

60.4

3

Colombia

72.7

6.4

1.8

=

59.8

4

Beliza

76.1

6.5

2.1

=

59.3

5

El Salvador

72.2

6.7

2.0

=

58.9

Figure 1. HPI Top Five

Thus, the index integrates key internal and external factors, addressing the personal “inner world” as well as an individual’s environmental responsibility to the “outer world”. In this way, the index is directly compatible with the Bolivian constitutional concept of Vivir Bien (Sweet Life).

Evidently, this index yields results that depart sharply from those of GDPbased calculations. The index based on GDP results in a list of the more “developed” countries, while this index shows that the countries ranking the

highest in HPI are ones with lower levels of income. According to the HPI authors: “The success of Latin American countries demonstrates that it is possible to build a strong economy that delivers high well-being, and long life expectancy, without having a large ecological footprint.”

In fact, nine of the top ten countries in the HPI ranking are located in Latin America. Bolivia is 64th on this list, and the United States, 105th. The ranking of the U.S. according to this metric may be surprising, especially

considering the World Bank’s assessment of the U.S. as the most developed country in the world, with the highest GDP, and the leader of various development projects in countries across the Global South. Yet, when we transcend the strictly economic parameters of traditional assessments to include measures of environmental responsibility, levels of consumerism and the use of natural resources (or, the ecological footprint), the resulting sustainable happiness level of the U.S. is, in fact, very low.

IPF Ranking

Country

Life Expectancy

Well-being (0-10)

Ecological footprint (gha/capita)

Happy Planet Index

64

Bolivia

66.6

5.8

2.6

=

64.0

105

U.S.A.

78.5

7.2

7.2

=

60.4

Figure 2. HPI, Bolivia and U.S.

A second important observation to highlight is that Samaipata is the only one in the ranking that has reached a green score in all three evaluative categories (well-being, life expectancy and ecological footprint), an achievement not yet registered by any country included in the HPI until now.

46 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Category

Samaipata

Happycounts

% different to Happycounts

Cantril Scale

77.2

65.4

15%

Life Satisfaction

76.7

64.1

16%

Psychological

86.5

73

16%

Health

74.5

64.2

14%

Time balance

68.8

45

35%

Permanent learning, art

63.7

55.7

13%

Community

61.5

53.7

13%

Social support

83.1

62.3

25%

Environment

68.7

62.2

9%

Government

42.4

48.5

-14%

Economy

71.6

66.2

8%

Work

78.9

59.3

25%

Total

71.1

60.0

16%

well-being

and culture

Figure 3. GNH Comparison

Figure 4. Carbon Footprint Comparison

Results Result 1: The Sense of Happiness

Below are the results of the field study in Samaipata compared to the responses of 50,000 mainly North American survey participants. The United States is used as a point of comparison not only because the same questionnaire has been applied to various North American cities and towns, but also due to the fact that the U.S. is the highest GDP country in the world.

These figures reveal that the participants based in Samaipata score higher than their U.S. counterparts in nearly all categories of the survey, a fact which is reflected in the 16% difference. The contrast is especially notable in the areas of psychological well-being, time balance (freedom) and work satisfaction.

Result 2: Samaipata’s Carbon footprint

According to 2011 data from the World Bank, Bolivia’s CO2 emissions—its carbon footprint—are at 1.6 metric tons per capita.

The internationally accredited agency, Servicios Ambientales S.A., calculated Samaipata’s carbon footprint specifically for this study.10 The organization relied on data about the following components of consumption: electric energy, fuels (including firewood), transportation and tourism, natural gas for domestic use, and the generation of waste and its disposal.

The resulting carbon footprint for Samaipata was 4.453 tons of CO2 in the year 2015, or 0.99 metric tons per capita.

In order to make a comparative analysis, the above diagram illustrates the carbon footprints of various countries along with that of Samaipata.

The graphic allows us to discern, for example, that Samaipata’s per capita footprint is 17 times smaller than that of the United States, at 17 tons.

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Result 3: Happy Planet Index

We recall that the HPI is determined by three factors: subjective well-being, life expectancy and the ecological footprint. As to the first, the first question of on the survey distributed in Samaipata regards subjective well-being, for which HPI uses the Cantril Scale. Samaipata scored 7.7, placing it among the highest of those measured. Figure 5 depicts the different countries’ scores on the Cantril Scale in comparison to Samaipata.

As evidenced from this graphic, the sense of happiness does not differ significantly across the countries included.

In terms of the second HPI component, life expectancy in Samaipata in 2005 was 71.7 years.11 The estimate of life expectancy in 2013, following the general trend of growth in the country, is 75.7 years. Interestingly, this figure is similar to life expectancy in the United States (78.5 years), despite the significant gap in economic “development”.

Finally, in 2008, Bolivia had an ecological footprint of 2.6 global hectares per capita (gha), according to the Happy Planet Index.12 The 2015 estimate for Bolivia was 1.58 gha per capita.13 The carbon footprint forms 54% of humanity’s ecological footprint and is its fastest growing factor.14 Samaipata’s ecological footprint can be determined by collecting and synthesizing data through a directed investigation, or by following the relationship between both footprints. The result of the calculation is as follows (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Cantril Scale Comparison

William Powers Samaipata central square. Small is beautiful.

As Figure 7 on the following page shows, Samaipata scores an 81.9 on the Happy Planet Index, on a scale of 0-100, beating out the top-ranked country, Costa Rica, which scored 64 in 2012. Indeed, it is perhaps surprising

Figure 6. Calculation of Samaipata's Ecological Footprint

48 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

that a “poor” town in the Global South would contain inhabitants that are significantly happier than their counterparts in the 151 countries listed by the HPI.

These results confirm an observation of post-development theory: people are generally happier in rural areas, where communities have neither succumbed to high levels of consumption, nor to the pressures more generally generated by city life.15 A second important observation to highlight is that Samaipata is the only one in the ranking that has reached a green score in all three evaluative categories (well-being, life expectancy and ecological footprint), an achievement not yet registered by any country included in the HPI until now. While it is obvious that the comparison of a town’s measurement to that of a country’s is not the most precise, it does nevertheless point to some critical conclusions.

Figure 7. Samaipata HPI comparison

Result 4: Annual per capita income (GDP).

In 2014, Bolivia had a GDP of US $33 billion and a population of 10.56 million people,16 making the GDP per capita US $3,125. This same figure is used in the case of Samaipata.

As demonstrated by the Figure 8, Bolivia’s GDP per capita is the lowest among this set of countries from across the Global North and South. In fact, Samaipata’s per capita income is 17 times lower than that of the United States.

Figure 8. GDP Comparison

William Powers Samaipata Town Hall. A few musicians gather.

William Powers In the town market. Multiculralism and vivir bien.

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 49

Conclusions In order to simplify the comparative analysis between the eight countries included in this study, the following figure summarizes the relevant research data:

Happy Planet HPI Index No.

Cantril Scale

Happiness Questionnaire

Ecological Footprint

GDP per Capita

71.1

0.99

$3,125

1

Samaipata

81.9

[1]

7.7

2

Costa Rica

64

1

7.3

1.7

$10,414

3

Argentina

54.1

17

6.4

4.6

$12,510

4

Norway

51.4

29

7.6

9.2

$97,313

5

Switzerland

50.3

34

7.5

4.6

$85,592

6

Bolivia

43.6

64

5.8

1.6

$3,125

7

Netherlands

43.1

67

7.5

10.1

$52,184

8

Australia

42

76

7.4

16.5

$61,941

9

U.S.A

37.3

105

7.2

17

$54,625

60

Figure 9. Summary Results

Based on the research cited above as reflected in this summary table, three general conclusions are: 1. It is possible to achieve high levels of well-being with relatively low income and a low environmental impact.

Although the inhabitants of high-income countries attest to being “happy” (Cantril Scale), their consumption habits generate a very large carbon footprint, thus reducing the population’s comprehensive happiness. From a holistic perspective it becomes clear that the environmental impact of a given lifestyle influences happiness levels. As this study ultimately suggests, the environmental crisis is linked to the dominance of traditional development models, which in theory—but not always in practice— have the ultimate goal of ensuring the “well-being” of 50 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

communities. The results of the study demonstrate that the most developed countries of the industrialized world are not, in fact, happier than “developing” countries. Meanwhile, the former generates a significantly higher negative impact on the planet.

This research confirms that classic development models warrant scrutiny, as do the values they uphold and the tools they use to promote well-being. Given the extremity of the environmental crisis, this research suggests that individualistic notions of happiness do not justify extractivism and the overexploitation of natural resources. In this sense, it is critical that the Global North consider other forms of happiness which have been the foundation of cultures for thousands of years in the Global South.

A vital part of the overall survey was the last question, which asked respondents to define what made

them happy. The resulting responses showed that 100% of the participants find happiness in relational moments with family, friends, in nature and in relaxation, which corroborates the notion that well-being is determined by affective and natural bonds as opposed to material goods.

2. Proposals from the Global South, such as “Buen Vivir” o “Vivir Bien” (Sweet Life) may be effective and sustainable alternatives to the classic models of development.

New paradigms such as the indigenous concept of Buen Vivir emerge in a genuine search for alternatives to classic development theory, offering a roadmap toward profound structural changes. The results of this research confirm one of the basic principles of Buen Vivir: happiness is only possible if it exists in harmony with Mother Earth and with all of her living

According to the research, life in a rural village like Samaipata can yield higher levels of happiness than life in industrialized cities. Moreover, the smaller ecological and carbon footprints generated by living in a village rather than a city are linked to higher levels of happiness, likely due to the stronger interconnection between humankind and its environmental surroundings.

inhabitants. In other words, Buen Vivir upholds a “biocentric” worldview in which happiness is achieved by caring for the environment. This philosophy promotes the values of reciprocity, complementarity and community life, and offers an alternative to the competition, separation, and individualism of models from the Global North.

The re-villaging movement has demonstrated high levels of happiness and a low environmental impact.

It is imperative to pursue alternatives to urbanization and the individualistic vision which accompanies it. Cities foster high levels of resource consumption to satisfy the demands of their inhabitants, exhausting environmental as well as social resources in the process. In the face of this reality, we can observe worldwide re-villaging movements, especially in the Global South. In those examples, people seek more intimate contact with nature and experiment with various economic, productive, social, ecological and collaborative forms of life.

The results of the study support the importance of re-villaging movements.

According to the research, life in a rural village like Samaipata can yield higher levels of happiness than life in industrialized cities. Moreover, the smaller ecological and carbon footprints generated by living in a village rather than a city are linked to higher levels of happiness, likely due to the stronger interconnection between humankind and its environmental surroundings.

References 1. Flores, V. Proyecto Huella de Ciudades: Resultados Estratégicos y Guía Metodológica. (Banco de desarrollo de América Latina, La Paz, Bolivia, 2016 2. Ibid.

3. Gudynas, E. Buen Vivir: Today’s tomorrow.

Development 54, 441–447 (2011). Huanacuni was named Bolivia´s Foreign Minister in early 2017.

4. Medina, J. Suma Qamaña: Por una convivialidad postindustrial. (Garza Azul, La Paz, Bolivia, 2006).

5. Global Footprint Network [online]. www. footprintnetwork.org.

6. The World Bank [online]. http://databank. worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf.

7. Burns, GW in Positive Psychology as Social Change (Biswas-Diener R. (eds), Ch. 4, 73-87 (“National Happiness: A Gift from Bhutan to the World”) (Springer, Dordrecht, 2011).

8. Powers, W. Dispatches from the Sweet Life. (New World Library, San Francisco, 2018).

9. Happiness Alliance [online]. www.happycounts.org.

10. Servicios Ambientales S.A. [online]. www.sasabolivia.com. In addition to Samaipata, the agency has defined the ecological footprint for Latin America cities such as La Paz, Quito and Lima.

11. Statistics available from Bolivia’s INE allowed us to extrapolate, using national level statistics, to draw conclusions about Samaipata’s precise figures.

Since there is no data at all about this topic at the municipal level, we applied the same trend of growth from the national level, which is cited as follows: 63.9 (2005) to 68 (2013), a growth of 6.4%. http://www.ine.gob.bo/ 12. Global Footprint Network [online]. http:// happyplanetindex.org/countries/bolivia 13. Bolivian Research Center PIEB [online]. www. boliviarural.org.

14. Global Footprint Network [online]. www. footprintnetwork.org.

15. To butress these observations, we recommend conducting further research in other villages with comparable conditions to Samaipata.

16. The World Bank [online]. http://data.worldbank.org/ country/bolivia.

Pedro Henrique Santos on Unsplash Samaipata, Bolivia www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 51

Reviews Book Review

Review of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

By Elizabeth Walsh

W

“

hat time is it on the clock of the world?” The late warriorphilosopher, community-builder, and movement-shaper, Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) used to ask this question at the start of most meetings in her home in Detroit. In her 100 years on the planet, she witnessed a world of constant change. In 1974, two years after Donella Meadows and her team published Limits to Growth, Boggs and her husband, Jimmy, published Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century, outlining what it would take to create a revolution of consciousness and new economic structures that could support all life on earth. Meadows and Boggs knew that the social and ecological crises they witnessed reflected (1) a crisis of imagination, and (2) the perils of righteous attachment to mental models. Grounded in the lifework of their local communities, Meadows and Boggs danced with systems, embraced the power of generative tension, and understood the inexorable connection between the “local” and the “global” in living systems. As Boggs said: “Changes in small places affect the global system, not through incrementalism, but because every small system participates in an unbroken wholeness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.”

As time would have it, Boggs’ and Meadows’ lifetimes have ended.

Thankfully, their guiding questions

52 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

and pragmatic approaches are carried forward in Emergent Strategy: shaping change, changing worlds, by adrienne maree brown. This book is a lyrical testament to the timeless wisdom living systems offer human beings seeking to unleash our powers for radical imagination, intentional adaptation, and intersectional liberation. Looking to dandelions, starlings, mycelium, ants, ferns, the wavicle and other miracles of evolution for inspiration, Emergent Strategy is brown’s exploration of the core question, “How do we turn our collective, full-bodied intelligence towards collaboration, if that is the way we will survive”?

A student of Boggs, brown opens Emergent Strategy with a dedication in memory of her mentor, “who opened the door to emergence and pushed me through, who taught me to keep listening and learning, and having conversations.” Indeed, Emergent Strategy reads as an intimate conversation with brown, and the multitudes of human beings with whom she is in conversation. The dedication also includes Boggs’ key advice: “Transform yourself to transform the world.” This call to action is a central theme: brown makes clear that “how we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale” (p52). Embodying the leadership practices she recommends, brown generously, authentically, and vulnerably shares her experiences practicing love through her hybrid identities as “an auntie, sister, daughter, woe, facilitator, coach, mentor, mediator, pleasure

Courtesy of the author

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown

activist, sci-fi scholar, doula, healer, tarot reader, witch, cheerleader, singer, philosopher, queer, Black multiracial lover of life living in Detroit” (p29).

She notes, “What we pay attention to grows - this is a hard world, but it is also a world full of love and pleasure.

I am of that, attending to and growing that” (p34).

Brown’s unique voice, born of intersectional struggles for healing and liberation, offers important contributions to conversations on sustainability and regenerative development that have been historically

Reviews Book Review dominated by white, heterosexual (mostly male) environmental scientists and professionals. Emergent Strategy opens its readers to alternative ways of knowing and cultivating power, drawn from observing the natural world and from brown’s experiences organizing on the frontlines of the climate justice and Black Lives Matter movements.

Alternately sharing detailed accounts of the murmurations of starlings and her work with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, brown invites her readers to explore their own somatic intelligence. She finds that this full-bodied, sensory

awareness of oneself in space and in right relationship with others enables our intentional adaptation, individually and collectively. She’s learned that “feeling is an important and legitimate way of knowing” (p38). Moreover, “love leads us to observe in a much deeper way than any other emotion” and that “when we are engaged in acts of love, we humans are at our best and most resilient” (p9). She postulates that should we “wage love,” we could unleash the curiosity, compassion, courage needed to heal and create the world anew at a time of unprecedented change. She reminds readers that “regardless of what happens, there

is an opportunity to move with intention - towards growth, relationship, regeneration” (p71).

Essentially, Emergent Strategy offers a pattern language and nonlinear playbook for waging love in dark, uncertain times. As such, it is a must-read for any pragmatist seeking to develop the practical skills and expanded awareness needed to transform grief and trauma into hopeful movements for regeneration. It offers a fresh view into timeless strategies for transformational leadership inspired by living systems.

Book Review

Review of Compassionate Civilization by Robertson Work

By Cosmas Gitta

R

obertson Work joins a growing number of public intellectuals who warn of existential threats to humanity and the planet, while highlighting the unprecedented opportunities available to improve our life on a healthy planet. In the book A Compassionate Civilization, Work contends that the “world stands at the crossroads of interlocking crises of colossal dangers and exhilarating possibilities.” He then makes a prophetic call for a compassionate world order—one equipped with systems, policies, and institutions to address the challenges humanity faces with urgency and resolve.

The book is a fountain of wisdom for individuals and social movements

working to foster social and economic justice, environmental sustainability, women’s empowerment, democratic governance, and other human rights around the world. Beyond overly optimistic appeals for all human beings to be nice to each other and to the planet, Work presents a well-thoughtout action plan for global citizens to nurture a culture of compassion that invigorates human fellowship. What ails humanity in Work’s view is the breakdown of human solidarity due to oligarchy, misogyny, systemic poverty, racism, intolerance and violence.

Based on that diagnosis, Work employs a unique literary style to engage readers in a “multilogue” to help repair fractured human relationships and

corrupt institutions.

The most insightful aspects of the book are the reflections, ideals, as well as disappointments and heartaches resulting from the author’s work in over 50 countries and close to 30 years of living and working for the Institute of Cultural Affairs and the United Nations in Malaysia, South Korea, Jamaica, Venezuela, and the United States.

Like commentators such as Robert B. Reich and Thom Hartmann who are wary of super capitalism or corporate dominance and current threats to the liberal world order, Work denounces the existing economic system for “condemning masses to a life of grinding poverty and for favoring a few people to a life of opulence.” He also faults

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 53

Reviews Book Review

Courtesy of the author

A Compassionate Civilization by Robertson Work

this system for enabling powerful individuals and corporations to erode democratic institutions to advance their own interests.

The frank lessons one draws from A Compassionate Civilization are that economic and legal fixes are important but not enough to improve the human condition. Equally needed are personal

and civic virtues to respect women and to avoid an overly masculine culture that exalts harmful competition, violence, warfare and the destruction of the natural environment.

Work’s prudential roadmap for political and economic revolutionary change is brilliant for it endorses the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the framework for international collective action to improve the human condition. Rather than hailing military might, Work grounds a plausible human destiny on civic and social virtues promoted by Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, and other inspirational leaders. In appreciation of technological advances, Work allocates the task to build a compassionate civilization to innovative leaders and ordinary global citizens organized into a vast online network or a movement-of-movements.

In prose and poetry, Work makes a persuasive argument that mammals are wired to feel empathy towards their own kind. To him, compassion is ontological, biological and sociological. As such, what the movement-of-movements must strive to overcome is the distortion of

human nature that accounts for violence, warfare, poverty and injustice due to negative emotions of fear, anger, hatred, greed, ignorance, jealousy and pride. Following this logic, readers of the book might find it hard to resist doing their share to build a compassionate civilization to align the world order with our authentic human nature. The book also makes it imperative to embrace the civic dimension of such selfless compassion in support of humane policies, including the provision of food stamps, universal healthcare, affordable housing, job training, affirmative action and environmental stewardship.

In sum, A Compassionate Civilization gives the reader a glimpse into a desirable world order by a man who went from a life bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to alleviate the suffering of millions of the poor in slums and rural villages as part of a secular global movement of those who care. The book is also an open invitation to join such a caring movement to bring about the bright future that Work promises to his two grandchildren and all children around the world to whom he dedicates his book.

some businesses have limited knowledge of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their relevance to business. The Sustainable Development Goals Knowledge Platform and their top short films of 2019 are useful resources.

Most of the six films selected provided insight to both challenges and solutions. Broadly, they could have

been more powerful if the linkage to specific SDGs was explicit beyond the heading and if the universality of the challenge and/or solution were more fully elaborated. These could even be included in an introductory text paragraph to make it easier to create relevancy for various audiences. As is, to use these films in a business or classroom setting, it will be important

Media Reviews SGDs in Action: Short Films Review

By Sabrina Watkins Short films can be useful to spark conversation at the office or around the dinner table. In business, they can provide an educational moment about sustainability in a meeting, technical or leadership conference. In particular,

54 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Reviews Media Reviews Watch the films here: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ hlpf/2019/filmfestival#winners2019

Find out more about SDG's: sustainabledevelopment.un.org

to “translate” or describe the film in the context of the SDGs and connect to relevance for the organization and local/global community. Collectively, these short films span several SDGs, countries and circumstances. But overall, the solutions aspects in these films are limited in scope and only one is systems oriented. #6 Ensure sustainable management of water.

“Aqua Story” is six minutes long. It shows quite clearly and in a humorous, animated way the difference between responsible water usage and wasteful water usage. It includes both small family impact and implications regionally. This film is educational and widely applicable to both adults and children. #7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

In “1 Million Lights Zambales”, a nonprofit provides solar powered lanterns to small villages in the Philippines to gradually address the problem of 7 million people without access to electricity. Although the hundred lanterns that they distributed in the film are a very small number compared to the size of the problem, the positive impact to the people is well described. A brief mention of scale up plans would make this 10 min film more systems-oriented.

#4, #8: Ensure quality education and promote full productive employment: “Turning a Page” is set in Trinidad and Tobago, and is about the national school for persons with disabilities.

Although the solutions shown are common for persons with disabilities, the film includes some unique elements. One speaker talks about the value of creating recycled paper in terms of environmental learning, for example. This film is almost 10 minutes, and could have been shorter.

But the varied student, parent, and other stakeholder interviews are quite poignant and uplifting. The comprehensiveness of the interviews makes this film Interesting. #5, #16: Empower women and build peace: “Kumekucha: It's A New Dawn” addresses healing from trauma. The organization helps people to heal from their past trauma, engage with their neighbors, and have better tools to recover and move on from traumatic experiences in the future. It specifically addresses solutions related to violence, education and empowerment for women. Scale up training is included, but no systems context other than a sense of possibly prevalence of trauma in this society.

#1, #9: End Poverty and build resilient infrastructure.

In the special category “virtual reality/360 degrees” film “River of Mud”, we hear from residents that were affected by a breach of a tailings dam. But we are left without possible solutions either near term for the residents or longer term for improved dam design, policy and other mechanisms of prevention or response. The film uses virtual reality and wide angle photography which perhaps shows how the people are dwarfed and overwhelmed by the magnitude of destruction. This film feels long at 9 minutes although each personal story is devastatingly powerful. #10: Reducing Inequalities (and others): “Sadok (honest)“ is incredibly short (~40 seconds) and provokes us with the fact that ”some observe but only a few can see”. A painter observes things happening in the village and how people are impacted by “ordinary” life experiences. There were no English subtitles for this Italian film. Although harder to use as a result, it could prompt great discussion of poverty, work, domestic violence and our individual opportunities to take action.

The film itself, though, provides no solutions.

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On The Ground

It’s Not Game Over, It’s Game On

by L. Hunter Lovins

Pixabay

Planetary Emergency We are in a planetary emergency.1 Make no mistake about that. As the twinned crises of climate2 and biodiversity loss3 worsen, apocalyptic messages become more common.4 Yet is all really doomed?5 Mathis Wackernagel of Global Footprint6 puts it best: It’s not game over; it’s GAME ON! There is no doubt we are in a global emergency. Emergencies happen every day, somewhere around the world.

And emergency responders know what to do, and they do it. When a fire threatens, when a flood is coming, they act. Emergency responders train, frame plans and are prepared to act when the worst strikes. Emergency 56 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

does not mean the end. It means we all act to fix what’s gone wrong.

And help is on the way, in the form of economics. My colleague Eban Goodstein calls it the Solar Dominance Hypothesis.7 It will transform essentially everything about how we live, how we do business and how we solve the climate crisis—most all for the better.

Yes, polar bears are threatened,8 Yes, a million species are at risk of extinction. Yes, there is a true moral imperative to preserve a habitable planet for future generations.

What will solve the emergency we face today is the fact that it is now cheaper to use renewable energy, than it is to burn carbon-emitting

fossil fuels. When the Kentucky Coal Museum puts solar on its roof, rather than hook to the perfectly good, coalfired grid at its doorstep, you know that change is upon us.9

When the Kentucky Coal Museum puts solar on its roof rather than hook to the perfectly good, coal fired grid at its doorstep, you know that change is upon us.

On The Ground

No doubt, we are in a global emergency. But emergencies happen every day, somewhere around the world. And emergency responders know what to do, and do it. When a fire threatens, when a flood is coming, you act. Emergency responders train, frame plans and are prepared to act when the worst strikes. Emergency does not mean the end.

It means we act to fix what’s gone wrong.

Regenerative agriculture can then lock away in the soil enormous amounts of the excess carbon already emitted into the atmosphere. The holistic management practices that do this are more profitable for ordinary farmers and ranchers, than the industrial agriculture that now ravages the planet.10 Put these two opportunities together, and here is a chance that we will solve the climate crisis at a profit, well before the scientists of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warn that we must cut emissions in half (2030) and become carbon neutral (2050).

Yes, we will suffer enormous damage on the way. In the last two years insured damages11 from so called natural disasters have risen to over $225 billion. The loss of human life will be staggering. The flood of human climate refugees,12 already numbering in the hundreds of thousands, threatens to overwhelm recipient government’s current ability to cope.13 The young are right to take to the streets, as millions did around the world September 20.14 But they are wrong that no one else is doing anything to fight the climate emergency. They were joined by their parents, activists of all ages and even by business leaders. I listened to Greta alongside Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever.15 The kids are right to demand a new way of doing business,

but this new economy will only be implemented if we all shift the way that business is done. All of us: people who are making money, people who are making a living, need now to make a new reality.

In this, we face either the greatest threat of our time, or the greatest opportunity: the mother of all economic dislocations is bearing down on us, and in its wake, we will reinvent everything16 or we will be left with nothing. The more we do now to get ahead of this curve, the easier it will be, but make no mistake: it’s coming.

Solar Dominance Begun by tinkerers in their garages in the 60's and given urgency by the Arab oil embargo in 1972, renewable energy technologies brought to market an array of ways to meet our need for energy and the services it delivers. Remember, few of us want raw energy: we want the services it makes possible: cold beer and hot showers, the ability to power this computer as I write, or your ability to get online and read it. In the end, the cheapest way to do that will win.

In the latter days of the last century, many of us believed we would see a rapid shift to reliance on the sun, efficient use of energy and a solution to the threat of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. My first book on all this, Least Cost Energy:

Solving the CO2 Problem, was written in 1981. It all seemed so simple.

There is more than enough blame to go around for why we did not then implement the solutions that were to hand. Even then, they were cheaper than continued reliance on fossil energy. The Koch Brothers and big fossil should bear most of the blame,17 and as the full extent of their disinformation campaigns begins to emerge, we should demand that they be held accountable.18 But all of us bear some blame. We were just too lazy.

Throughout the eighties, nineties, aughts it began to seem as if humankind truly was doomed. The climate science became ever clearer, yet the necessary turning away from fossil fuels came to seem ever more remote.

We’ve now left it until almost too late. Churchill said, Americans can be counted on to do the right thing when they’ve exhausted all alternatives.

That goes for the rest of the world, too, apparently.

Suddenly this summer things changed. In June, General Electric announced that it was abandoning a natural gas power plant that had 20 years of projected life left because it could not compete with solar.19 Less than a month later, GE announced a partnership with Blackrock, the big financier, to deliver distributed solar and storage options to homeowners and small businesses.20 In August, Portugal announced what I call the Walmart award for everyday low prices: solar at 1.6¢ per kilowatt hour (¢/kWh) for 599 megawatts.21 The stuff that comes out of your wall socket costs you at least 10¢, and in many areas substantially more. China announced that unsubsidized distributed rooftop solar is cheaper than its coal-fired grid electricity.22 California which will hit its 2030 target of being half renewable by 2020, committed to getting 100% of www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 57

On The Ground its electricity from climate-friendly sources by 2045. More than 100 companies have set such a goal. A thousand cities too.

Similar results are coming in from India, where solar is now 14 percent cheaper than coal; Australia where it is cheaper than gas;23 from Europe, where the levelized cost of energy for solar plus storage is already below 2018 spot prices; 24 from Germany where one of every two solar installations now boasts battery storage, rendering utilities increasingly irrelevant.25 This snapshot of progress makes the demands of the young climate strikers to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 seem not so impossible.

Indeed, Stanford Professor, Dr. Mark Jacobson showed in a Scientific American article in 200926 that it is possible. His Solutions Project27 has calculated how to do it in every state in the U.S. and many countries. More recently, scholars like Christian Breyer have shown how to do this with photovoltaics alone.28

Do you believe it? You may soon have no choice.

In 2014, author Tony Seba warned that we face what he called a Clean Disruption.29 By 2030, he predicted, the world will be 100% powered by renewable energy. Four things will drive this transformation: Fall in the cost of solar, fall in the cost of storage (batteries), the electric car and the driverless car. These economic forces will be propelled by the business model of service instead of ownership.

The switch from fossil energy to renewables is, he argues, inevitable.30 Falling costs will see solar achieve not only global grid parity, as is now true in Europe and China, but soon what Seba calls “GOD parity.”

Generation on Demand means that the cost to put solar on your roof and storage in your garage will be cheaper than just having the utility produce even free power and maintain its lines.

In this scenario, which Seba believes could come as early as 2020, any central station would be more expensive than distributed solar. Tony writes, ”Don’t believe in the Clean Disruption? The

Hunter Lovins Solar dominance and regenerative agriculture.

58 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

International Energy Agency (IEA) wants you to invest $40 trillion in conventional energy (nuclear, oil, gas, coal) and conventional utilities. It’s their Kodak moment. It’s your money.” 31

Solar and Storage: Better with Both OK, we CAN run our society on solar energy, but what if the sun isn’t shining or the wind blowing?

Storage technology to make renewable energy available 24/7 is only in its infancy as an industry, but its prices are dropping, too.

In September, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power got into the battery game, sealing a deal to meet another 8 percent of its power needs with solar and battery storage at, for them, the record low price of 3.3¢/ kWh.32 “Any renewable energy project with solar, we’re looking to pair it with storage,” said a senior utility executive.

Combinations of renewable energy and storage are now cheaper than the fossil alternatives.

This means, however, that the race is on between the utility’s business model of being your monopoly power provider, and distributed energy.

Companies like SimpliPhi Power can sell you the ability to store renewable energy with batteries.33 Because they don’t mind getting hot, and are safer, SimpliPhi’s rugged units are deployed in more than 40 countries and preferred by aid agencies. They are in use across Africa, at Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan and on Whole Foods roofs in California.34 In the wake of the massive fires that forced the Pacific Gas and Electric utility into bankruptcy, California authorized utilities to deenergize their power lines whenever the wind blows or it’s hot—which is at least half the year. SimpliPhi now offers California residents the ability to retain function in these Public Safety Power Shutdowns.35

On The Ground

Pixabay

Here come the electric vehicles In late 2016 the Financial Times36 reported that Fitch Ratings warned: “Widespread adoption of batterypowered vehicles is a serious threat to the oil industry....The oil sector would not be the only industry affected. Big electricity utilities burning fossil fuels such as gas or coal face the risk of batteries solving the intermittency problem of wind or solar plants that cannot generate on windless days or at night….

It endangers the banks, as well: a quarter of all corporate debt, perhaps as much as $3.4 trillion is related to utility and car company bonds that are tied to fossil fuel use. Fitch, the ratings agency warned that low cost batteries could “…tip the oil market from growth to contraction earlier than anticipated. The narrative of oil’s decline is well rehearsed—and if it starts to play out there is a risk that capital will act long before” and in the worst-case

result in an “investor death spiral.”

Anyone doubting this risk must have been sobered when in September 2017 China announced that it was going to phase out internal combustion (ICE) vehicles.37 With a quarter of the global automobile market, China has already converted half its bus fleet to electric. With India, France, the UK, and Norway making similar announcements to ban ICE, this is an existential crisis for both the oil and car industries.

Robotaxis In Seba’s38 scenario, it’s the driverless, autonomous electric vehicle (AEV) that forces the real reduction in cost he claims will make the disruption inevitable. He predicts that it will cost you four to ten-fold less to whistle up an AEV than to pay to buy, fuel, insure and maintain a personal

gasoline-powered car.

Are AEVs more than just science fiction? Didn’t Tesla’s self-driving car kill someone?

Remember, 6,000 American pedestrians die every year in crashes with human driven cars, and 1.25 million people die annually in vehicle crashes around the world. General Motors CEO, Mary Barra is now calling for a future of “zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero fatalities,”39 from self-driving cars. It gets better. GM sees its future as offering autonomous electric vehicle Transit as a Service.40 It’s coming: the Google car has driven ten million real miles, and billions of simulated miles. Waymo, Google’s spinoff, has its service on the road now, and in 2018 logged more autonomous miles than all competitors combined.

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On The Ground

Pixabay

The Mother of All Economic Dislocations.

If the evidence laid out here is true, it has profound implications for, well, everything. It will mean the dissolution in value, likely complete loss of the oil, gas, coal, uranium, nuclear, utility, auto industries, the banks that hold the loan papers for all of these companies the pension funds and insurance companies that are invested in them.

In 2011, Mark Campanale of Carbon Tracker published “Unburnable Carbon—Are the world’s financial markets carrying a carbon bubble?” 41 This calculated that at least 80% of the fossil deposits still in the ground would have to stay in the ground if the world 60 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

is to avoid warming beyond 2 degrees C more that pre-industrial levels.

Given that those fossil assets are on the balance sheets of some of the world’s wealthiest companies and form the basis of the sovereign wealth funds of many nations around the world, John Fullerton, previously a Managing Director at JP Morgan, calculated the enormity of stranding these assets. His article, “Big Choice,” 42 reckoned that this implied a writeoff of at least $20 trillion dollars. In contrast, Fullerton warned, the 2008 financial collapse was triggered by the stranding of only $2.7 trillion in mortgage assets. In its 2018 report, 2020 Vision, Carbon Tracker estimated the about to be stranded assets at $25

trillion. And, they said, peak fossil will occur in 2023.

Mark Campanale recently told me that it’s actually worse: an October 2017 CitiGroup report calculated that if you count the foregone revenues from not digging up, selling and burning all that fossil fuel, the looming loss is $100 trillion, or more that global GDP. In contrast, American business leaders Tom Steyer, Hank Paulsen and Michael Bloomberg have shown that solving the climate crisis would unleash billions of dollars in investment and create millions of jobs.

So, we have a choice: transition to a future of renewable energy, save the climate and create the greatest

On The Ground prosperity known to humanity…or risk climate catastrophe, and crash the global economy.

Growing the Other Half of the Solution.

The climate crisis can only be solved by enhancing the ways that nature pulls carbon from the air and restores it to the soil. In nature, carbon is not the greatest poison: it is the building block of life.

Industrial agriculture is energy and chemical intensive. By breaking vast swathes of land, it decarbonizes the soil. Over-application of nitrogen fertilizers denitrifies the soil, driving emissions of nitrogen oxides, another potent greenhouse gas (GHG).

Confined animal feeding operations release massive methane gouts, a far worse GHG than carbon dioxide. Such agriculture causes about a quarter of the emissions of greenhouse gasses, and is itself vulnerable to climate change. It is degenerative of rural economic integrity and human health.

To counter this, there is increasing interest in what Robert Rodale called regenerative agriculture.43 Regenerative systems, he said, enhance the resources that they use, leaving them more abundant instead of depleted or destroyed. Such systems are holistic, enhancing innovation and delivering environmental, social, economic and spiritual wellbeing.

Agriculture that uses nature’s wisdom, not human brute force has been taught for decades by Allan Savory. The Savory Institute (SI) is now the leading proponent of ways to use agriculture to solve the climate crisis. SI44 seeks to impact a billion hectares by 2025 through the teaching and practice of Holistic Management and Holistic Decision Making.

Practitioners turn deserts into thriving grasslands, restore biodiversity, bring streams, rivers and water

sources back to life, combat poverty and hunger, all while reversing global climate change.45 Holistically managed grazing animals, it turns out, are one of the best ways to reclaim depleted land.

Savory’s approach mimics how vast herds of grazing animals co-evolved with the world’s grasslands: densepacked because of predators, moving as a herd, eating everything, fertilizing the land, tilling the manure and seeds into the soil with their hooves, and then moving on, not returning until the grass is lush again.

This interaction is one of the more important ways to create healthy communities of soil microorganisms.

These recarbonize the soil, and restore natural nitrogen cycles. Savory, in his many writings and a TED talk viewed by three and a half million people,46 argues that even achieving zero emissions from fossil fuels would not avert major catastrophe from climate change. Grassland and savanna burning would continue and desertification would accelerate as soils become increasingly unable to store carbon or water.47 Averting disaster, Savory says, will require a global strategy to cut carbon emissions, substitute benign energy sources for fossil fuels, and implement effective livestock management practices to put the carbon already in the atmosphere back into the soils. Profitable Holistic Management is the only way, he argues, to reduce biodiversity loss and biomass burning and reverse the desertification that is not caused by atmospheric carbon buildup.48 Awarded the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Prize for decades of work, Savory’s Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe and SI show how to transform degraded grasslands and savannahs into lush pastures with ponds and flowing streams. This award recognized Savory’s work to accelerate

development and deployment of whole-systems solutions to climate change, and sustainable development.

Dirt To Soil49 One of the best examples of regenerative agriculture is the work of Gabe Brown.50 Because he was going broke as a commodity farmer of corn and soybean, he converted his 2,000 acres near Bismarck, North Dakota to regenerative agriculture to cut costs.

When he began in 1993, his soil quality was poor, requiring annual inputs of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides to produce a crop.

In 1995, Brown stopped plowing his land. In 1997 he added the use of a wide variety of multi-species cover crops. In 2006 Gabe introduced Savory-style grazing practices, adding different livestock species. He now raises cows, sheep, broiler hens, bees and corn and soybeans.

Eliminating chemical inputs and fossil energy cut his costs and increased his profitability. These savings enabled Gabe to produce a bushel of corn for $1.35, which he could sell for more than $3.50. He cannot keep up with demand for his grass-finished beef and lamb, and his fields have never been healthier. The capacity of his acreage to cycle nutrients51 including carbon, exceeds that of his neighbors, who farm organically but without animals, and of two neighbors who practice no-till operations that use varying amounts of synthetic fertilizers.

The increase in water-extractable organic carbon (WEOC) in the soil, may be the most amazing result of Gabe’s agricultural practices. When he bought his farm in 1993, it had shallow soils with 1.3 percent soil organic matter (half of which is soil carbon).

By 2013, he had plots with more than 11 percent soil organic matter. By 2018, it was up to 15 percent. www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 61

On The Ground Gabe is rolling climate change backwards, recarbonizing his soils at a profit. As he puts it, if your soil is healthy you will have clean water, clean air, healthy plants, healthy animals and healthy people. You will have a healthy ecosystem. You can be a part of this. Gabe sells his regeneratively produced, grass-fed beef at Nourished by Nature, that allows supporters to mail-order healthy meat that is helping to solve the climate crisis.52 This sort of agriculture regenerates more than the soil.53 Will Harris converted White Oak Pastures,54 his family’s commodity cattle farm in South Georgia, to a successful regenerative operation. He now raises, slaughters and sells five kinds of poultry, five kinds of red meat (all pasture raised), eggs and vegetables. The products are sold on-line and to highend restaurants as far away as Miami, as well as to Whole Foods markets across the Eastern U.S. Will employees 167 residents of the once-decaying town of Bluffton. His commodity farmer neighbor, with the same acreage, employs four.55 White Oak Pastures features agri-tourism, a restaurant, a general store, and serves as the Savory Hub for the region.

Recognizing the power of such approaches, the French government in 2015, in the lead-up to the Paris Climate Summit, announced the 4 per 1000 Initiative56 to demonstrate that agriculture, and agricultural soils in particular, can play a crucial role where food security and climate change are concerned. The Initiative57 invites all partners to declare or to implement practical programmes for carbon sequestration in soil and the types of farming methods used to promote it (e.g., agroecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, and landscape management).

How much carbon can be 62 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

sequestered in properly managed grasslands and how fast? The truth is we do not know. But here are some illustrative numbers. In some California experiments, manure from dairy and beef operations is blended with green waste that would otherwise go to landfill, impose costs, rot and release methane. The mix is composted and spread on pastures.

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, take annual soil cores a meter deep and test whether that soil has soaked up additional carbon. One application of compost to rangeland, for example, doubled grass growth and increased carbon sequestration by up to 70 percent.58 Every year the carbon increases. The study found that this can achieve total greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation rates over a 30-year time frame of more than 18 tons of CO2-equivalents per acre of land treated with organic amendments.59 The researchers noted that: “Sequestration of just 1 Mg C ha-1 y-1 (or one metric ton per hectare—a hectare being 2.2 acres—per year) on half the 23 million hectares of rangeland in California would offset 42 million metric tons of CO2e, an amount equivalent to all of the annual GHG emissions from energy use for commercial and residential sectors in California.” 60 Dr. David Johnson,61 Director of the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural Research at New Mexico State University has developed a similar approach. His research has shown that: “...promoting beneficial interactions between plants and soil microbes increases farm and rangeland’s efficiency for capturing carbon and storing it in soil. These same interactions increase soil microbial carbon-use efficiencies reducing the rate at which soil carbon, as CO2, is respired from the soil. When this bio-technology is promoted in agro-ecosystems, it is feasible to capture and sequester an average of >11

metric tons of CO2 per hectare per year in rangeland soils62 and >36.7 metric tons CO2 per hectare per year in transitioning farmland soils63 all for less than one-tenth the cost of EPA’s recommended Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies.”

Put all of these numbers together and what does it add up to? Current emissions from fossil fuels are about 10 GtC/yr. Dr. Richard Teague and his colleagues have calculated that almost a gigaton could be soaked up just in North American soils.64 The world’s permanent pasture and fodder lands amount to roughly 3.4 billion hectares. Back-of-the-envelope calculations with Seth Itzkan of Soil4Climate show that multiplying Teague’s carbon capture findings of 3 tC/ha/yr (conservative when compared with the 8 tC/ha/yr values Machmuller identified) by the global hectares of pastureland gives 10.2 GtC/ yr potential soil carbon capture via grazing. That, alone, would offset all human emissions.65 Clearly, it is a big “if” to say that Holistic Management will be practiced on all of the world pastureland, but coupled with the composting approaches of David Johnson, the organic cropping practices of Rodale Institute, the perennial wheat of the Land Institute, and the reductions in carbon emissions possible and profitable. it is clear that we can solve the climate crisis and do it in ways that are profitable.

Daniel Riordin, in his book Averting Global Collapse, described the numbers necessary to scale this approach. Using current global livestock numbers of 2.24 billion standard animal units, rangeland and crop/ pasture land could carry 10.33 billion livestock. Doing this would require a minimum of 2.5 million herders (assuming 1,000 head/ herder). Like most sustainable agriculture, Holistic

On The Ground it is divesting of ownership in fossil industries.71 BNP Paribas, the large French bank sold its holdings in a tar sands pipeline.72 Change Finance73 offers an Exchange Traded Fund that is entirely fossil-fuel free. For the price of a pizza, ordinary individuals can now hold companies that are not subject to the looming fossil risk.

Where do you source your energy?

Are you dependent on an industry that is at risk? Millions of people, communities and cities are going 100% renewable.

Where does your food come from?

Do you know the farmers and ranchers who are producing what you eat? Buy local, if you can. If not, mail order your food from the regenerative ranchers like Gabe Brown and Will Harris.

Is your job at risk? Companies will either become part of the solution or they won’t be a problem, because they won’t be around. The emerging industries are creating millions of jobs, but millions are at risk. Will we substitute a Guaranteed Jobs program, as the Green New Deal calls for?

Dane Deaner Local Farmers Market

Management is more labor-intensive, not a bad thing in a world needing jobs.66

What can be done?

For starters, it appears unwise to have any of YOUR assets in the industries that will be disrupted. Bevis Longstreth, former Securities and Exchange Commissioner, observed,67 “It is entirely plausible, even predictable, that continuing to hold equities in fossil fuel companies will be ruled negligence.”

As I write CNBC asks “Did we just witness the beginning of the end of Big Oil?” citing how Exxon has just dropped off the S&P 500’s top 10 stocks for the first time in 90 years.68 Even beady-eyed investors are waking up to the fact that fossil-laden portfolios are not performing as well as fossil free ones.69 The amount of assets held by investors pledging to divest from fossil stocks has hit $11 trillion and rising fast. A year ago, it was $6.2 trillion, up from only $52 billion five years ago.70 Norway recently announced that

it appears unwise to have any of YOUR assets in the industries that will be disrupted.

Bevis Longstreth, former Securities and Exchange Commissioner, observed, “It is entirely plausible, even predictable, that continuing to hold equities in fossil fuel companies will be ruled negligence.” www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 63

On The Ground Will we entrepreneur our way to a Well-being Economy? Will we descend into unimaginable darkness? Or will we create a Finer Future?74 As ever more people wake up to the Planetary Emergency, cries rise for mechanical solutions: release pollutants into the atmosphere to replicate a volcanic eruption, run massive machines to capture carbon from the air and mechanically convert it to carbon that can be pumped into deep earth reservoirs….

Wouldn’t it make more sense to lay out all of the possible solutions, prioritize them based on efficacy and cost, then start with the ones that work best and that cost less (or are even profitable)?

Men in powerful positions have a great propensity to invest in fancy sounding solutions that cost a lot.

Either way, we will totally transform the global economy. The crises we face, and the inevitabilities of change described here WILL drive this change.

The change is here. How will you change to deal with it?

September, https://www.footprintnetwork.org/ about-us/people/ 7. Eban Goodstein, L. Hunter Lovins, A pathway to

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Carbon%20Sequestration%20with%20IP%20 Agriculture.pdf 62. W.R. Teague, S. Apfelbaum, R. Lal, U.P. Kreuter, J. Rowntree, C.A. Davies, R. Conser, M. Rasmussen, J.

www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 65

On The Ground

Chinese Malaysian university students discover a world of opportunities venturing abroad, transcending affirmative action quotas at home

by Robert C. Thornett

Charting a New Path to Ireland: Set Jin Lee This June, eighty kilometers north of Dublin, Set Jin Lee was the only Malaysian student to graduate from Ireland’s Dundalk Institute of Technology (DKIT)—closing the chapter on a four-year adventure that also took her to Finland and the US for work and five other European countries on excursions. Four years earlier, at a fall college fair in Kuala Lumpur, Lee had bumped into a representative from DKIT, and by spring she was admitted with a generous deal including free accommodation and tuition averaging about 9000 Euros per year—roughly a third of the average for international students in the US or UK. Lee finished her studies at DKIT with zero debt, covering her living expenses with part-time jobs after classes. She was the first Malaysian ever to receive a degree from DKIT in Social Care, a broad field focusing on the social welfare of people who are

immigration and refugee services.

Lee chose a college on the other side of the world from home, in a country where no one from her high school had ever studied, and a major no Asian student had ever chosen there. “There are hardly any Asian faces in social care in Ireland,” says Lee. “Maybe it’s because Asian parents often tell their kids to go into medicine, law, or IT, and that social work doesn’t bring in money. Or maybe it’s because social care systems are not as developed in Asia, so people don’t know about social work jobs. To convince my parents that Social Care was a good major, I had to explain what social work was, because they did not understand the job.”

Set Jin Lee’s less-traveled road to a college degree is one example of how Chinese Malaysians have long bypassed Malaysia’s race-based public university admissions system, often called “educational apartheid,” by studying abroad. Malaysia has a

Lee chose a college on the other side of the world from home, in a country where no one from her high school had ever studied, and a major no Asian student had ever chosen there. marginalized, disadvantaged, or have special needs. Her classes explored everything from addiction, disability, residential care, and homelessness to 66 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

unique demographic mix of Malays (69%), who control the government, along with Chinese (23%) and Indians (7%). In 1971, Malaysia launched its

highly controversial New Economic Policy (NEP), the first of a series of social engineering and affirmative action policies in jobs and public college admissions. Long criticized by the United Nations, what made this affirmative action unusual was that it was designed to favor not minorities but the ruling Islamic Malay majority. For decades, 90% of the seats at Malaysia’s public universities have been legally reserved for Malays under a quota system, leaving Chinese and Indian Malaysians to compete for a tiny number of seats or go elsewhere.

The silver lining, however, is that many Chinese Malaysians have gotten a better education overseas than they would have at public universities at home. With some 56,000 college and university students studying abroad each year, Malaysia today ranks eighth in the world—just behind the US, which has over ten times its population—and Chinese Malaysians are at the forefront of this study abroad exodus. Long experience has made Chinese Malaysians especially knowledgeable and adept at study abroad—and they come well-prepared by the network of Chinese Independent High Schools in Malaysia, funded almost entirely by donations from the Chinese community. And Chinese Malaysian students are especially suited to life overseas: they are typically trilingual if not quadrilingual—speaking Mandarin and/or Cantonese Chinese in addition to English and Malay—and they are accustomed to being in the minority,

On The Ground

“I learned how social care systems work together in a holistic way, how programs for working with children, families, immigrants and other groups are interconnected.”

-Set Jin Lee

Sarastus Clubhouse During her semester work placement at the Sarastus Clubhouse in Pori, Finland, Set Jin Lee roasts traditional sausage at a community event. She found the placement through ERASMUS+, the European Union’s student exchange program.

giving them a greater comfort level abroad than many mainland Chinese.

“My first few years in Ireland, I thought of myself as an international student from Asia, and the other Asian students I met only worked in restaurants or language jobs, as Chinese teachers or admin staff in language schools. So I thought it would be very hard to get a professional job in my field in Ireland. In fact, many of my Asian friends told me Irish employers rarely hire Asian students for professional jobs. But it turned out to be a myth—I actually got my first job in social work a year before I graduated.

My field is in high demand here now.

The number of social service users is increasing, since it links to rising problems like homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and broken families.

And because I worked at so many practice placements, when I apply for jobs I can show I have a lot of experience.”

One of these work placements was in the remote subarctic town of Pori, Finland, where Lee spent the spring semester of 2018 working at the Sarastus Clubhouse for adults with mental health issues through the European Union’s ERASMUS+ student exchange program. Far from the sweltering streets and skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur, “Pori is a small town, very clean and quiet,” says Lee. “In winter there is snow everywhere. Ireland is very green, and Finland is very white.”

During her semester in Finland, Lee made friends with other ERASMUS+ students from France, Italy, Spain, and the Czech Republic, who were working in nursing and psychiatry at

local hospitals. She also organized a group bus trip to Helsinki and ferry trips to Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia. And she took advantage of free Finnish language classes and monthly social events, like trips to local towns and traditional Finnish meals, organized by her host school, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences. “At the first event I tried the local salmiak liquorice and loved it. I was not as into the siskonmakkara soup, they squeeze raw sausage into the soup by hand.”

DKIT requires Social Care majors to complete two 300-hour work placements, and for the other Lee worked at the ABACAS school for children with autism in Drogheda, 35 km south of DKIT. There she worked one-on-one with autistic students teaching math, English, and social skills. Based on her experiences at the ABACAS school, Lee later wrote her final research project on the challenges of sustainable living and wastefulness in children’s residential care centers.

Lee says working at residential care facilities in both Ireland and Finland revealed important differences in approaches to social care. “In Ireland, most service centers I’ve worked in want you to read a service user’s file before you meet or work with them, which gives me an impression before www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 67

On The Ground

Sadie Teper on Unsplash Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I even start interacting with the person,” says Lee. “So you tend to skip a lot of processes in getting to know them. But in Finland, they purposely didn’t tell me any background on service users until the end of my work placement, so I would just treat them as regular people. And in fact, if I had never read their files, I would never have thought the people I worked with were very different or had a mental health problem. Only at the end did I find out their specific issues, like schizophrenia, depression, and autism.

I understand the reasons behind both approaches, but I prefer the Finnish approach because you focus on the person, not the disease or background.”

68 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

DKIT professors gave Lee the tools to evaluate social care programs comprehensively and compare them across countries and cultures, she says.

“I learned how social care systems work together in a holistic way, how programs for working with children, families, immigrants and other groups are interconnected. Malaysia does not have complete and well-organized social care systems like in Ireland. For example, Malaysia doesn’t have laws distinguishing between refugees and undocumented migrants. Malaysia also has much lower government funding for social services: in Ireland there could be four staff taking care of three children in a residential care

home, whereas in Malaysia it would be more like five staff taking care of twenty children. And the residential care homes in Malaysia are funded largely by donations, whereas in Ireland they get 5000 Euros per week for each child—and the care company is given the autonomy to manage the money as it sees fit. I got to understand how social welfare works in developed countries.”

International graduates of Irish colleges are eligible for a renewable one-year work permit, and Lee plans to work in Ireland three or four years.

She is now working at her first full time job there, at a children’s residential care home, and has bought a car.

On The Ground Looking back to when she first applied to DKIT, Lee says “I never thought I would be able to have all these jobs and experiences—or work and support myself in Ireland. But gradually, I discovered there were professional job opportunities, and I found out about programs like ERASMUS+. And whenever I saw the opportunities, I would go for it.”

Mandarin and Microchips: Shi Yi Lee For Set Jin Lee and tens of thousands of other Malaysian Chinese students, studying abroad in Western countries means full immersion in a foreign language and culture—stepping out of their comfort zone. But for tens of thousands more who choose Chinese-speaking colleges in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, going abroad often means stepping into a new comfort zone. Malay and English—not Chinese—are Malaysia’s official languages, even as the percentage of Chinese speakers is as high as 39% in the wealthy state of Penang. So for many Malaysian Chinese students, studying abroad in a Chinese-speaking culture is a ticket to a new life in a country where they can finally feel like part of the mainstream.

“Taiwan is the biggest comfort zone for Malaysian Chinese—everything is in Chinese,” says Shi Yi Lee, Set Jin’s cousin, who will graduate this year from National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, Taiwan’s former capital and oldest city. NCKU ranks fourth among Taiwan’s 163 universities in the QS World University Rankings and has a highly-respected program in Electrical Engineering, Lee’s major. Stretching along Taiwan’s southwestern coast overlooking the South China Sea, Tainan is known for its colorful Taoist and Buddhist festivals, historic architecture, and traditional street food. “In fact, many

Malaysian Chinese college students in Taiwan plan to stay after graduation,” says Lee. “They won’t return to Malaysia.”

But Chinese language and culture was not the reason Lee decided to study abroad in Taiwan. Like many multilingual Chinese Malaysian students, he could have chosen a Mandarin- or English-speaking college.

“I got accepted at English-speaking schools in Australia and Hong Kong,” he says, “but Taiwan had the lowest tuition and NCKU’s program in electrical engineering was recommended by some of my teachers. Most semesters I only had to pay tuition, all my other living expenses were free because I got scholarships from the Taiwanese government, faculty, and even Malaysian alumni. In some semesters, the scholarships were even enough to pay tuition as well.”

Casting its net around the globe, hefty scholarships like Lee’s are among the strategies Taiwan has used to transform itself into a major destination for international students over the past decade. Faced with massive brain drain as well as declining enrollment due to years of low birthrates, in 2011 Taiwan began accepting large numbers of mainland Chinese international students for the first time in sixty years. Then in 2016, Taiwan launched its New Southbound Policy, aimed at strengthening ties with South and Southeast Asia—including enrolling up to 60,000 international students from ASEAN countries like Malaysia by 2019. Meanwhile, many Taiwanese universities also began offering full-English degree programs, such as the Global MBA at National Taiwan University and NCKU’s Master’s in Medical Device Innovation. With these broad changes, Taiwan’s international student enrollment nearly tripled from 43,957 in 2012 to 126,997 in 2018, of which Malaysia sent 13%,

the second-largest source after China.

Taiwan has played a central role in Chinese Malaysians’ rich collective experience of study abroad, which dates back to the Cold War. In the 1950s, the US gave grants to ethnic Chinese living in Southeast Asian countries to study in Taiwan, “Free China.” After the US grants ended, Taiwan continued with grants of its own, launching its “Overseas Chinese Education Policy.” Today over 70,000 Malaysians have attended college or university in Taiwan, and many have stayed and made a new life there.

Shi Yi Lee is now back in Malaysia hunting for jobs, with the help of NCKU’s alumni association, which has its largest branch there. He says while 80% of his classes at NCKU focused on microchips and electronics—no surprise as Taiwan is the world’s biggest chipmaker—he’s looking to try something new, maybe the business side of engineering. “I want to do something

Taiwan’s international student enrollment nearly tripled from 43,957 in 2012 to 126,997 in 2018, of which Malaysia sent 13%, the second-largest source after China. that has an impact on the world, like solar energy. It has a great potential for the future.” Lee has his sights set on +Solar, an award-winning Malaysian startup that develops customized large-scale solar farms, including web apps that allow clients to design their own solar energy systems.

While he enjoyed Taiwan, Lee says www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 69

On The Ground he’ll be leaving after graduation. “For me, Taiwanese society is too competitive and stressful.” It’s a familiar refrain among Taiwan’s graduates, both international and domestic. Some 30% of all bachelor’s degrees earned in Taiwan are in engineering, and this has flooded its job market. As a result, engineering salaries are low and vast numbers of new graduates continue directly into Master’s or PhD programs in hopes of making themselves more competitive—and sometimes even this is not enough. As NCKU education professor Chia-Ming Hsueh wrote in a 2018 Inside Higher Ed article: “Taiwanese higher education has gone through the ‘elite” and ‘mass’ stages, reaching universal enrollment within only few decades. It produced highly-educated citizens for society and valuable human resources for the development of the country, but it also created an oversupply. Employers face difficulties in determining which

the salary of Taiwanese engineers.

Shi Yi Lee says making friends from new parts of the world has been among the best aspects of his time in Taiwan. His friends from wealthy Macau—which has the world’s second-highest per capita GDP—are backed by generous financial assistance from their government, and so tend to live a life of luxury compared to most of their classmates. “The guys from Macau like to hang out and have fun,” says Lee. “They travel around every weekend and are more friendly towards people from other countries.

They have a laid-back style, unlike the typical fierce competition here for grades.” At times Lee’s multicultural Malaysian background has helped bridge gaps on campus: “We had an exchange student from the United Arab Emirates who wouldn’t eat anything, and a Taiwanese student was offering him food. I explained in Mandarin that he was fasting and that

For students seeking to study abroad, the Asia Pacific region abounds with respected universities, from Singapore to Hong Kong to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The problem is, tuition for international students can be prohibitive—often three to five times domestic rates. applicants are the most competent because of the increased number of degree holders, particularly with master’s and doctoral degrees.”

Facing intense competition and low salaries at home, many of Taiwan’s new engineering graduates are heading abroad—especially to China, where booming technology companies can often double or triple 70 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

it was Ramadan, a Muslim religious tradition.” Lee volunteered several times for NCKU’s Buddy-Buddy Program, which helps international students who don’t speak Chinese with adjusting to a new environment. As a buddy, he helped students from the Czech Republic, Indonesia, and Vietnam in their first month on campus with everything from

registration and getting settled in dorms to buying pillows and ordering at restaurants.

For students seeking to study abroad, the Asia Pacific region abounds with respected universities, from Singapore to Hong Kong to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The problem is, tuition for international students can be prohibitive—often three to five times domestic rates. For example, at the University of Melbourne, Australia, international engineering undergrads pay about $30,000 USD per year in tuition while domestic students pay only $6,600 USD. At the National University of Singapore, international engineering undergrads pay $12,900 USD tuition—plus $28,000 USD in fees unless they agree to work in Singapore for three years after graduation—while citizens pay only $8200. By contrast, combined tuition and fees for international engineering undergrads at NCKU is just $2000 USD per year, and at National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan’s top-ranked school, just under $4000 USD. Add generous government scholarships to international students for both tuition and room and board, and education in Taiwan is often nearly free.

Outside the classroom, Taiwan’s universities offer the chance to experience the country’s multi-layered culture and landscapes, including rustic mountain towns, tropical beaches, and high-tech cities. It’s capital Taipei is a global air hub with cheap connections all over Asia, allowing students to explore the region. With a rare combination of low costs, a high standard of living, and increasing full-English degree offerings, Taiwan’s respected universities are attracting students from an ever-increasing number of countries around the world.

On The Ground

Hui Ling Thung With her younger students, Hui Ling Thung takes a break from her volunteer job teaching computer science in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

International Education at Home Opens Doors Abroad: Hui Ling Thung While Malaysian university students head overseas in droves, a growing number of foreign universities have set up campuses in Malaysia.

Taking advantage of the country’s multilingual population, modern capital, and geographic location as a global air and tourism hub, ten foreign universities from China, Australia, the UK, and Ireland have set up campuses in Malaysia since 1998.

Officially termed Foreign University Branch Campuses or FUBCs, these are universities that have been invited by Malaysia’s government to establish

an overseas campus there. The FUBCs offer a wide array of undergraduate programs such as Surgery at Newcastle University (UK), New Energy Science and Traditional Chinese Medicine at Xiamen University (China), International Relations at the University of Nottingham (UK), and Petroleum Engineering at Curtin University (Australia)—which is located in the remote oil-rich state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

For many Malaysian students, attending an FUBC at home is the next best thing to studying abroad.

But ironically, for Hui Ling Thung, attending the FUBC of Australia-based Monash University in her home town

of Kuala Lumpur became a springboard to studying and working abroad.

Since starting at Monash-Malaysia in 2015, Thung has traveled far and wide teaching and learning about her major, computer science. With the help of grants and scholarships, she spent six weeks teaching in Cambodia, four weeks attending summer school at the University of Liverpool in England, and a semester as an exchange student at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

“Overseas I met the people who don’t want to stay in their comfort zone. I know the world is big, but I didn’t expect it to be so huge and interesting.” www.thesolutionsjournal.com | Fall 2019 | Solutions | 71

On The Ground As a volunteer in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thung taught computer science and English to kids and adults over the 2015-16 winter break. She found the position through AIESEC, a global youth-run non-profit aimed at developing youth leadership potential, which has a booth on campus at Monash Malaysia. “Cambodians are very kind, and I made friends with many of the locals,” says Thung.

To her surprise, the school was in a townhouse—and her housing was an upstairs room above the classrooms, without a bed or mattress. Undeterred, Thung made a bed from towels and blankets and used her backpack as a pillow. “The school had the old big computers that you see in the 90s.

Cambodia is pretty remote, but people do have access to the internet—they

to study in Liverpool by the main Monash campus in Australia.

In the fall of 2018, Thung studied computer science as an exchange student at the University of Waterloo in Canada, a school famous for its innovative co-operative education program, the largest in the world. She joined Hack the North, the university’s hackathon, as a volunteer. Held over thirty-six hours each September, Hack the North is the biggest Hackathon in Canada, attracting over one thousand students from around the world. For Thung, it was valuable exposure to projects in the Internet of things, blockchain, machine learning, and other cutting-edge fields.

While studying in Canada, Thung received a grant to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and

“I feel like there aren’t many women studying computing where I’m from in Southeast Asia, so when I saw twenty thousand women all into computing in the same place, I felt a strong sense of belonging when I was there. It made me want to be part of this world even more.”

-Hui Ling Thung have iPhones better than mine.

However, they seldom take advantage of resources online, which I think is important for learning new things and looking for new opportunities,” says Thung, who first learned to program in Visual Basic—and taught herself basic Japanese—by using the internet.

Thung spent the summer of 2018 at the University of Liverpool in England, taking classes in linguistics, psychology, and international business.

Tuition was free, as she was one of only five Malaysian students sponsored 72 | Solutions | Fall 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.com

Computing in Houston. She was the first scholar from a Malaysian college to attend the conference, organized

by AnitaB.org and the Association for Computing Machinery. “I feel like there aren’t many women studying computing where I’m from in Southeast Asia, so when I saw twenty thousand women all into computing in the same place, I felt a strong sense of belonging when I was there. It made me want to be part of this world even more.”

Thung did find going to college in English—her fourth language—a

challenge at first after a lifetime of schooling primarily in Mandarin.

“I was considered good in English classes in high school, but college was difficult when I started. But I joined activities and did project presentations that forced me to speak, and now I can speak fluently.”

After graduating from MonashMalaysia this June, Thung is now interviewing with firms from Beijing, Barcelona, and Singapore for software engineering jobs in Kuala Lumpur.

In July, she attended the week-long Southeast Asia Machine Learning School in Jakarta, Indonesia, co-organized by members of Google Brain (US) and DeepMind (UK). “I didn’t expect to travel this much,” she says. “But I’m glad the old me did it—chose to go to college in English, to go to Cambodia alone, to fill out all those scholarship applications, to volunteer, to take the risks. If I hadn’t done it, the current me would not exist. Now, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.”

Before setting out for college four years ago, Set Jin Lee, her cousin Shi Yi Lee, and her high school friend Hui Ling Thung had not traveled much.

Like hundreds of thousands of Chinese Malaysians over the past seven decades, they took the risk of studying overseas. But today the geography of international higher education is far more vast and complex than ever before. Embracing opportunities that they discovered along the way, now the three together have attended colleges in six countries and traveled to twelve.

As they enter the globalized workforce and the next chapter begins, they take with them not only valuable skills in their majors but a deep knowledge of foreign cultures that will last a lifetime.

“The Chinese in Malaysia, we have a saying,” says Hui Ling Thung. “If anything is to be sacrificed, it’s not education.”

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