Reflections are only that, reflections, nothing more nothing less. Often these reflections are related to books I read, but occasionally also other things. These are often written very late, very fast, using notes from my mobile phone, so the grammar and spelling is horrible.
The Natural Step might be one of the few organizations that have a framework, the system conditions, that allow companies to know where they need to go. I would like to explore how key sectors that is in a position to develop solutions could use a framework to guide their strategy development. So far most tools have focused on how companies can reduce their problems, not provide solutions to others.
“The Commission will encourage the ICT sector, which at present accounts for 2% of global CO2 emissions, to lead by example the drive towards carbon neutrality. This will be done by reinforcing research, development and deployment of components and systems, complemented by voluntary agreements, for example on green procurement. The real gains from green ICT will come from developing energy efficient ICT solutions that impact the other 98% of global emissions.”
This is great and if it can result in concrete policy changes that would be amazing. One way to ensure that results will be achieved would be to use the roadmap for EU that WWF and ETNO put together in 2005, “Saving the Climate @ the Speed of Light”.
IT will also be important that the commission thinks carefully about "carbon neutral" as this in most cases is a PR tool today, might be a good thing to put a paper together on what a "Carbon Neutral Winner in a low Carbon Economy" would look like for the first meeting
The communication: "Addressing the challenge of energy efficiency through Information and Communication Technologies" can be downloaded here.
Did a joint presentation with Simon Mingay at the Gartner Expo in Barcelona this Monday, "Gartner and WWF's 'Green Rating' for Major Vendors". It was the results from the second phase of our joint project to assess IT companies. We now have a quite impressive list of leading IT companies and how they approach environmental issues, with a special focus on climate change. Especially the opportunities they have identified. Some real surprises.
In Barcelona we presented some information that the framework can help with, such as:
• who’s mainly talking and who’s done their homework
• who’s interested in helping customers with new services in a low carbon economy and who’s standing right where they are
• Who’s changing the rules of the game and who is playing it and who’s only watching
• the Battle of Giants (e.g Microsoft vs. Google) is it a blind leading a lame, you decide…
Was also happy to see Mike Yorwerth from Tesco there and we discussed briefly to “translate” the framework from the ICT sector so it also could be used in other sectors, such as the retail sector… There are now a number of companies that have shown interest in this and this could be a project for the fall once the report is out.
I could not have been put in a better spot, or more difficult. On a panel during Globe Forum I was sitting beside Dipal Barua from Grameen Shakti and had Edward Law from CCTVs Bizchina as a moderator asking questions.
This is a setting that I hope we will see more of in different settings. Having world leading people from emerging economies like Dipal, makes it clear that a lot of initiatives in OECD that are called “green” are nothing more than marginal end-of-pipe solutions without any global relevance. The “Grameen approach”, both in finance and for energy solutions, is really amazing and I hope to explore ways we can collaborate to expand this in China and India.
Then with questions and reflections for China helps to put things in perspective and avoid the usual marginal thinking that usually dominates events in OECD.
Congratulation to the organizers at Globe Forum for this session, this challenge I want to get over and over again. I also hope that the politicians and business leaders will be in similar situations often enough for them to integrate concern for the emerging economies and have a global perspective in everything they do.
Participated in parts of Globe Forum 2008 with the theme: "Business Innovation for Sustainable Growth", Wednesday and Thursday. Like most conferences with a focus on global challenges there were quite a few people there with good ideas. The question I have if we will see a new generation of gatherings where people identify opportunities and challenges already before the conferences, pledge to work on certain areas before. Use the conference to explore synergies and revise the pledges. The conference would then become a launching platform for real action.
This would obviously require conferences to always have follow-up meetings where the results are presented, new pledges are made if necessary, etc. Instead of a single event, that is a break from the everyday life, this could create a process where processes are created that help people to deliver results they never could deliver on their own.
Will look for an opportunity to try to implement this.
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