Category: Sustainability

Cutting traffic jams in cities is often about more roads and keeping pedestrians safe from cars – off the road. The idea of shared space is turning this logic on its head – mixing traffic with pedestrians and observing real improvements.

The picture, left, shows Zentralplatz in Biel, Switzerland. Biel’s town square has become an encounter zone mixing cars with pedestrians, removing traffic lanes and markings and often traffic lights. Traffic improves for everyone.

This is not just happening in Europe. Bendigo Australia has an ambitious program for shared space* – removing pedestrian crossings and creating an city where people prefer walking over cars.

Dr Rodney Tolley, Director Walk21 and author of the Bendigo transformation study says a study of such shared spaces finds they are incredibly safe. ‘We are yet to find a death’ in such spaces worldwide, he said in Adelaide today.

As a bonus car traffic is actually cut. Previously people drove between shops in the Bendigo space. Now it appears they walk. This has real economic benefits – shopping district come alive, along with more obvious community and environmental outcomes.

* See page 5 | Pictures: Christian Thomas

Wubbo Ockels describes the incredible speed he experienced lifting off into space in the Challenger space shuttle. Within 2 minutes blue sky fades to black, 8 minutes later he’s weightless just 200 miles from earth and outside the atmosphere. Minus 200 degrees outside. No oxygen.

From Challenger astronaut to Professor of Sustainable Engineering and Technology at Delft University in the Netherlands Ockels, speaking in Adelaide after the World Solar Challenge, is a passionate solar advocate. He says ‘solar is growing exponentially’. From 2007 to 2008 growth was greater than 100%.

If we continue to grow at this rate, 8 years from now solar panels will equal today’s global electricity generating capacity. Sound’s extraordinary? The numbers are in the table below.

Year	Solar Installed	Global Total Solar Installed	Global installed electricity
	GW/Yr	TW	TW
2007	3	0.0
2008	6	0.0	4.1
2009	12	0.0
2010	24	0.0
2011	48	0.1
2012	95	0.2
2013	190	0.4
2014	381	0.8
2015	761	1.5
2016	1,523	3.0
2017	3,045	6.1

You’ve seen the banners: It’s simple. Save energy, save money and the environment; Save yourself $350; Cost effective energy savings opportunities for industry.

Is it too good to miss an offer like this? Turns out we often do.

People generally try to avoid a future loss more than they try to achieve a future gain. This can occur even when the size of the financial loss or gain is similar. We know such an outcome occurs for finances and money and researchers David Hardisty and Elke Weber have just shown the same applies for environmental decision making.

In other words, if we are trying to encourage people to take action today – action that has long term benefits for themselves and the broader environment – we are likely to be far better off saying stop wasting $350 rather than the save yourself $350 message.

The UK Energy Saving Trust, despite it’s name and proclaiming energy saving week rather than stop wasting money and energy this week, does have a bet both ways. Stop wasting energy and money is on it’s home page. | Picture: irtsurveys.co.uk

In the lead up to the Copenhagen Climate talks, amid the carbon cut numbers, cap and trade or tax policy there are some real, smaller picture, stand out initiatives being announced. A few include the French government’s announcement of 2.2 billion for electric car charging stations and making it mandatory for office car parks to have charging stations by 2015 (picture inhabitat.com).

In Korea it’s hydrogen from landfill gas for hydrogen vehicles and a commercial hydrogen fuel cell that powers 3000 homes (cost comparisons here).

In a slightly different vein – but a sign of the times none the less – Apple, Nike, PG&E and Exelon quit the US Chamber of Commerce over it’s climate stance. And UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has put a size on the low-carbon sector. It is now larger than defense and aerospace combined.

Clearly there’s some business and government action at these levels. For the moral imperative, Simon Longstaff of the St James Ethics Centre documents the uncomfortable similarities between climate responses and slavery, as argued in the UK Parliament in 1806!

For anyone who’s wondered what’s actually going into their quarterly power bill, electricity at home just got smarter.

Google’s powermeter promises to show your electricity use from any internet connected device, including your mobile phone. By knowing your power use every day, rather than every three months, the aim is to give you information that helps cut wasted money on power bills.

Trouble was you had to have a smart meter and buy electricity from one of two – Florida and Germany – power companies. And, as Nicholas Stern highlights in his Climate Change review for the UK government: Behaviour is driven by a number of factors, not just financial costs and benefits (see summary). Easy access to information is a step towards such change.

The answer? The Energy Detective a monitor that sends your home’s power use to the web. It’s not quite all there yet however, 240 volt Australian / Europe versions are due early 2010.

In a sign of the times, this month the Harvard Business Review proclaims Green Will Save Us on its front cover while Newsweek has published green rankings for the USA’s 500 largest companies.

The Harvard Business Review’s bold statement sees that “Once and inconvenient truth, climate change is now an incontrovertible problem… Consumers are ever greener, and their support for sustainable products and practices is growing worldwide.”

The Review’s writers argue that: “organizations can turn sustainability into innovation’s new frontier – achieving competitive advantage and influencing economic recovery in much the same way that the breakthrough products and business models of computer companies led the way out of previous recessions.”

We can think of such development in stages – for example:

1. Viewing Compliance as an opportunity
2. Making Value Chains Sustainable
3. Designing Sustainable Products and Services
4. Developing New Business Models
5. Creating Next Practice Platforms

It’s all adds up to big call to find your business’s sustainable and carbon advantages.

Google Earth has just released climate change layers showing the world as it responds to and is impacted by climate change. Narrated by Al Gore, you can tour the world from large scale renewable energy to the Greenland icesheet – as illustrated in the picture – and from Amazon community reforestation to the impact of climate change on global human health.

The world climate change tours are also on youtube. And try the Carbon Footprint project for maps of emissions etc. in the UK.

In Australia, the ACF’s Consumption Atlas provides local information.

Whatever your business, the truth is that there are green advantages waiting to be found. The case for small and medium business is just as compelling as for big business as this Pharmacy article shows. At the very least there are competitive supplier and direct profits to be found.

At the big end Wal-Mart is a leading example. Its CEO, Lee Scott, says “our goals are to be supplied 100% by renewable energy … to create zero waste … and to sell products that sustain our resources and our environment. Helping customers buy more sustainable products … is something that I think all of us can be proud of.”

Boots in the UK ran a 2007 trial putting a carbon footprint reduction label on products. It’s now working with the UK Carbon Trust for a country wide labelling standard. At a store level it’s spent £5 million cutting energy use – expenditure that helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the company’s power bills. And in 2007, 99% of the UK Cooperative Pharmacy’s electricity came from green (renewable) sources.

So where’s the Gold for the Green pharmacy? Read more here.

A revolutionary example of progressive and sustainable development, says the Murray Valley Standard, is on its way for Murray Bridge in South Australia. It’s a fully commercial residential site setting new world-class and affordable standards. These include the:

• Reuse of all water (including stormwater, grey and black water).
• A cut to the Carbon Footprint associated with home use by 85%.
• Cutting potable water use by a factor of 10.
• Highly energy efficient households.
• Initiatives that deliver a significant cut to the Ecological Footprint associated with the homes and living in them. 
• Fitting all 320 houses with 1 kW of Solar PV each.

At this site GreenMode is helping SAID Property Developments deliver a unique package. Many of the initiatives are likely to cost less, or no more, than those that would have a much greater environmental impact at a similar but conventional residential site. The initiatives are detailed here and the work shows how we can simultaneously get excellent results for the environment and economy.

As you produce more of a specific product – like a solar panel – the price comes down.

Is it really that simple? Over the last year, the price of a solar panel at the factory gate has come down by nearly 50%. From a US$4.20 cents per watt to under $2 and ‘still profitable’ is the finding from UK’s New Energy Finance company.

This positive news is however complicated by the market and global financial crisis. None the less, only a few years ago people installing solar electric power on their houses were calculating 20 to 25 year payback periods. For some the good news, according to the Boston Business Journal, is this payback is now only 5 years.

Picture: Solar power at the same cost as UK grid power by 2013