MAYOR PIERCYS SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE SBI

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MAYOR PIERCYS SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
INITIATIVE (SBI)

Bob Doppelt, Director, Resource Innovations

University of Oregon

[phone]

E-Mail
bdoppelt_at_uoregon.edu
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• EUGENE FACES MANY CHALLENGES
• ECONOMIC ISSUES
• Unemployment
• Increased Economic Competition
• Rising Energy Costs and Insecure Supplies
• SOCIAL ISSUES
• Food Security and Health
• Cost and Accessibility of Health Care
• Reduced Tax Revenues for Public Services and
  Schools
• Homelessness
• ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
• Climate ChangeOne of Most Pressing Issue of
  This Century
• Endangered Salmon, Forests, and Other
  Environmental Issues

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TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO COMPLEX
CHALLENGES Break the complexity into separate
problems and try to solve
each one separately
(Jobs, housing, health
care, education, environment etc.) We seek
to incrementally improve each area in
isolation. Assumption is that the whole
(community, economy) will be better off if each
of its parts are improved separately.
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However, due to interdependencies, improving the
parts of complex systems like a
community or economy often

does not make the whole perform better.
To the contrary, it often makes things worse!
Example Maximizing economic development seems
to harm the environment and public health,
maximizing the environment seems to depress
profits, jobs, and wages.
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ALTERNATIVE APPROACH Start by building shared
understanding of how the whole system
(community/economy) functions. Seek basic
understanding of the connections and
interdependencies that exist. Then, spur
business and job development and create new
solutions by stimulating innovation throughout
the whole system.
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Sustainable Development Process of
understanding and building upon the
interdependencies within economic, social
environmental systems Focuses on creating ways
to improve the whole, not each
component in isolation. Process is generating
new businesses and jobs around the globe
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Sustainabilitythe
Goal Sustainable Development--The thinking,
practices, and behaviors needed
to achieve that goal
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• Term first coined by the U.N. World Commission on
  Environment and Development (Brundtland
  Commission) in Our Common Future (1987).
• Sustainable Development was defined as
• Development that meets the needs of the present
  generation without compromising the ability of
  future generations to meet their own needs.

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• NATURAL CAPITALISM
  Paul
  Hawken, Amory Hunter Lovins
• Book Natural Capitalism Creating The Next
  Industrial Revolution
• Radically increase productivity in the way we
  use energy and natural resources.
• Shift to biologically inspired production models
  and materials.
• Move to a service-and-flow business model.
• Reinvest in natural capital.

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• ZERO EMISSIONS RESEARCH INITIATIVE (ZERI)
• Begins with premise well known to most
  businesses eliminate waste
  everywhere you can because waste is a resource
  you have paid for but get no value from.
• ZERI encourages businesses to do more with
  less until everything is done without producing
  waste.
• All forms of waste should be eliminated
  including all environmental wastes liquid,
  gaseous, hazardous solid wastes.
• Outcome is closed-loop systems that eliminate
  waste by making the byproducts of one process
  feedstock for another.
• Closed-loop cycles can create new technologies,
  products jobs, protect employee health,
  improve the environment.

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• ECO-EFFECTIVENESS
  Bill
  McDonough Michael Braungart (Book Cradle to
  Cradle)
• Guided by the Principle Found Everywhere in
  Nature Waste Equals Food.
• Design processes, goods, and services so that
  materials can be safely recirculate back into one
  of two distinct global metabolisms
• The biosphere, which includes the cycles of
  nature
• The technosphere, which are the cycles of
  industry and include the extraction raw materials
  from nature
• This Process is Creating New Industries And Jobs,
  Protects People, And Conserves The Environment

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• ALL APPROACHES AGREE ADOPTING A PATH TOWARD
  SUSTAINABILITY REQUIRES ENHANCED
  SOCIAL EQUITY
• Applying sustainable development requires every
  individual, culture, and social class must be
  treated fairly and have access to an equitable
  share of the stocks and flows of nature.
• This is not just about altruism. It's also
  about self-interest.
• An additional 80-90 million people are joining
  an already crowded planet each year. The demand
  for family wage jobs, good homes, affordable
  energy, healthcare, education, good food etc is
  consequently rising exponentially.
• If a community does not provide these basic
  goods and services in an equitable manner and
  create the infrastructure to foster openness and
  diversity, unrest as well as unsustainable
  practices will grow.

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THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE
Financial Bottom Line Considering the impacts
on financial capital The most common
bottom line of all organizations includes
todays cash flows, profits, shareholder value
and tomorrows economic viability. Social
Bottom Line Considering the impacts on social
capital employees, local
community, people in other regions/ counties
where raw materials are produced or are disposed
of, and fu ture generations. Environmental
Bottom Line Considering the impacts on natural
capital (the stocks and flows of ecological
processes and species).
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TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE IS
RAPIDLY EXPANDING Triple Bottom Line
Management Triple Bottom Line Investing Triple
Bottom Line Accounting Numerous businesses in
almost all sectors here and abroad
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AT THEIR CORE, DEFINITIONS DESCRIBE SHIFT FROM
Linear Take-Make-Waste Economic Model To
Circular Borrow-Use-Return System
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THE LINEAR TAKE-MAKE-WASTE
ECONOMIC MODEL Todays Economy Operates As
a Linear Take-Make-Waste System Linear model
is used by almost all organizations today
public and private, large and small

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SUSTAINABILITY INVOLVES SHIFT FROM LINEAR TO
CIRCULAR PRODUCTION SYSTEM
(BORROW-USE- RETURN CLOSED-LOOP
CRADLE-TO-CRADLE)
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SAMPLE BUSINESS JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Upstream Organic Sustainable
Agriculture (Farms, food
processors, distributors, retailers) Sustainable
Forestry
(forests, manufacturing) Renewable Energy
(solar, wind, biomass)
Midstream Green Building
(architects, product manufacturers and suppliers,
contractors, landscaping) Energy Efficiency
(building trades, windows, HVAC systems,
motors) Bio-Products
(Non-food agricultural products like corn based
plastics, lubricants, biofuels, pharmaceuticals,
building materials, nutraceuticals)
Downstream Reuse
(direct reuse of existing products)
Recycling (upcycling of
industrial by-products for further use such as
metals, wood) Bio-cycling
(plant wood composting for fertilizer, mulch,
food waste compsting etc)
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Triple Bottom Line Example Green Building
Designing, constructing, and remodeling
buildings with high energy and water efficiency,
low/no toxic materials, natural daylighting
and ventilation etc

• Reduces operating costs
• Improves employee health and productivity
• Optimizes life-cycle economic performance
• Enhances asset value and profits

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AN ALTERNATE WAY TO LOOK AT
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT How does a new products
or process come into being? At its core,
Sustainable Development is about
stimulating creativity and new ideas that lead to
new designs.
IDEA
MFG
DISTRIB
RD
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Many experts see the shift to circular
production model as the
NEXT INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION FOCUS OF
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS INITIATIVE How Can Eugene
Become A Leader In This
New Industrial Revolution?
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• RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES JOBS
• Lane County Research, October 2003
• Summary Of Research And Final Recommendations
  For Growing The Sustainability Sector(s) In
  Lane County.
• Growing the Green Building Industry in Lane
  County
• Eco-Industrial Development Eco-Industrial
  Parks, Bio-Refineries, Renewable Energy, and Zero
  Waste Opportunities for Lane County
•  Growing the Green Building Industry in Lane
  County
• Status And Trends Of Sustainability Practices In
  Lane County An Analysis Of Survey Data
• State of Oregon Research, March 2005
• Status, Trends And Needs Of Selected Businesses
  Applying Sustainability Practices In Oregon
  Analysis Of Survey Data.
  
  A Report for the State of Oregon
  Sustainability Board, March 30, 2005
• Research Found at
  http//ri.uoregon.edu

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TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EMERGING BUSINESS AND
JOB OPPORTUNITIES We need to keep asking two key
questions What are we striving to
create? What is our theory of
success? REQUIRES THAT WE LOOK FORWARD AND
CAPTURE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FROM EMERGING
TRENDS
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FOUR STEP PLANNING PROCESS 1. DISCOVER Search
for, highlight, and illuminate the qualities that
give life and vitality to your sector/community,
the best of what is of the past today. These
qualities are your core building blocks. 2.
DREAM Dream new options and envision how you
would like conditions to be in the ideal (in say,
5-10-20 years). Then, move backwards to identify
the closest approximation to the ideal that can
be achieved in comparatively short order (6 mo.,
1 yr). 3. DESIGN The planning stage focused on
selecting priorities and (re)designing the
sector/communitys infrastructure (social,
physical, financial, educational, decision
making, and ways of doing things) to bring the
dreamsthe closest approximation to the ideal--to
life. 4. DESTINY The implementation phase
focused on constructing the future through
innovation, action, and constant learning. Once
the closest approx. is achieved, start with the
Dream phase again.
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• TODAYS INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
• In pairs, one person interviews the other by
  asking the questions below (take 3 minutes max.
  each).
• Then switch roles.
• In 1 minute, the interviewer will introduce the
  person they interviewed to the whole group.
• 1. Your name and what you do?
• 2. During your time in Eugene, name one
  highlightan event or occurrence that made you
  especially proud to live here?
• 4. What qualities exist in the community that
  contributed to that highlight (e.g. processes,
  systems, relationships, ways of thinking)?

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TWO WAYS TO APPROACH CHALLENGES Problem
Solving Seeks to make something go
away. Creating Seeks to bring something new
into existence. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IS
ABOUT CREATING SOMETHING NEW!