Sustainability: Let’s Get Rid of the Myths & Bring on the Metrics

If myths surrounding sustainability are getting in the way – face up to them and counter them, says  Dr Kenneth Amaeshi is the director of the Sustainable Business Initiative. And Steven Cohen Executive Director, Columbia University’s Earth Institute says we must have reliable sustainability indicators. Without measurements, it will be next to impossible to tell if any management actions are making the situation better or worse. As such, it is of utmost importance for a set of indicators of sustainability, or sustainability metric, to be created to measure and report the efforts of companies, cities or nations. Read more

Steven Cohen Executive Director, Columbia University’s Earth Institute

We Need to Accelerate the Development of Sustainability Metrics

Steven Cohen in Huffington Post (14 October 2013):

If we are to make the transition to a renewable resource based economy, we need to do a better job of measuring the sustainability of our organizations, cities and nations. In an excellent article published in 2002 entitled “Using Sustainability Metrics to Guide Decision Making,” Jeanette Schwarz, Beth Beloff and Earl Beaver proposed a framework for developing measures of sustainability within organizations. In that piece, the authors identified what they called the “five basic indicators of sustainability”:

Material intensity

Energy intensity

Water consumption

Toxic emissions

Pollutant emissions

Their very accessible article provides details that define and further explain these measures. Since that time a wide variety of organizations have begun to develop and implement an even wider variety of sustainability measures. The retailing giant Walmart requires its vendors to measure and report their performance on sustainability indicators before Walmart will purchase their products. Many companies are measuring and reporting their sustainability performance in annual reports to their shareholders. These are all important steps in bringing sustainability into routine management decision-making. As Peter Drucker once famously observed, “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.” Without measurement, you can’t tell if your management actions are making the situation better or worse.

While the development of these organizational level indicators is critical and must be continued, it is time to begin the process of settling on organizational sustainability indicators that everyone can use. We need a generally accepted set of definitions and indicators for measuring sustainability. We also need independent auditors to verify that these numbers are real. Numbers without verification are ultimately useless.

Just as we have generally accepted accounting practices and clear definitions of financial indicators, we need to extend that process into these more tangible and physical measures of organizational performance: sustainability metrics.

These measures should ultimately be part of overall private sector organizational performance measures, as important as market share, return on equity and profit and loss. In the public and nonprofit sectors, the organization’s overall performance measures would be different, but of equal importance: Sustainability metrics would be reported along with data on crime reduction, graduation rates, medical treatment outcomes, emergency response time and other indicators of public sector performance.

They should also be added to or included within normal organizational process and output measures such as labor productivity/efficiency, value of goods and services delivered, employment, labor turnover and so on. Ultimately these physical dimensions of sustainability must be defined as a key, but routinized element, of organizational management.

In the near future, any organization that is not run to maximize sustainability performance would be considered a poorly managed organization, comparable to a private firm that could not turn a profit or a police department with a rising crime rate. Before long, all effective managers will need to be sustainability managers.

In order to contribute to the process of sustainability metric development, I recently initiated a new research program on Sustainability Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. This research program has initiated a long-term project on sustainability metrics. Our metrics research recently began with an effort to take inventory. We have started to develop a database on all the sustainability metrics we can find. We will attempt to describe these indicators and understand them. Next we hope to analyze the indicators for commonalities in order to identify the world’s most utilized sustainability indicators. This analysis would then form the basis for a conversation about generally accepted sustainability metrics.

Another part of this discussion will focus on the development of local, state and national sustainability indicators. One example of a national sustainability metric was the Labor Department’s effort to measure and report on green jobs. This very important project was suspended last spring due to the budget sequestration in a very short-sighted and even petulant decision by the Obama Administration to respond to the budget cuts. This effort should be restored immediately, and other aggregate measures of sustainability at the macro level need to be developed and implemented.

Measurement may sound like an arcane, technical and unimportant subject, but it is actually critical to action. Its importance to management decision making in a data driven environment cannot be understated. Anything pursued in a serious way in a modern organization is measured. The absence of measurement encourages the most talented people in the organization to gravitate away from unmeasured and therefore unimportant activity.

A sign of the growing importance of sustainability management is the impressive number of efforts to develop and utilize sustainability metrics. Some of this is related to the huge influence of Walmart on its supply chain. By definition, Walmart is in the business of retailing the consumer items having the broadest appeal in the American (and increasingly global) marketplace. By requiring sustainability metrics from their suppliers, those producing goods sold by Walmart must require their suppliers to provide metrics as well. This is having a massive impact on the movement to incorporate sustainability into routine organizational management. However, it is not clear that the measures under development are appropriate, reliable or valid. Moreover, the collection and reporting of these metrics is voluntary, self-completed, inadequately audited and there is no penalty for deceptive, incomplete or incompetent reporting.

The effort to develop an effective system of sustainability metrics is still in its infancy. Academics, business leaders and government officials must work together to develop and refine acceptable indicators. A standardized system of data collection, verification and audit needs to be put into place. In addition to organizational level indicators, we need to do some hard thinking about developing some multiple indicator scales that might chart local, state and national progress toward a sustainable economy. An easy-to-understand measure like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the unemployment rate would help guide public policies encouraging sustainability management.

One possible approach would be to do a better job of including environmental benefits and costs in the GDP measure itself. A revival of the Labor Department’s effort to track green jobs should also be a high priority.

While the American national government seems too busy self-destructing to take on a new and constructive task, it would be quite helpful if a national effort were undertaken to develop and build consensus around a set of sustainability metrics. One of the problems of the current drive to develop sustainability metrics is the absence of an authoritative and potentially objective moderator of the discussion. Corporations and environmental interest groups are key stakeholders in any metrics discussion, but they each have their own axe to grind and cannot be allowed to have the final word. Government has a key role to play.

The good news is that we are ready to have these discussions and develop a way to measure organizational sustainability efforts along with our nation’s progress in making the transition to a sustainable economy. It will take a number of years to complete this work, but the sooner we get started the sooner we will be able to make the transition to a renewable resource based, sustainable economy.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The seven myths of sustainability from The Guardian

Kenneth Amaeshi  in Guardian Sustainable Business Blog (14 October 2013):

Common myths have grown up around sustainability, and if left unchecked they will stand in the way of real progress, writes Kenneth Amaeshi

Of the business leaders surveyed in the UN Global Compact CEO Study on Sustainability, 76% said they “…believe that embedding sustainability into core business will drive revenue growth and new opportunities”, albeit with “…a sense of frustrated ambition”. The study also found that many business leaders felt “they have taken their companies as far as they can” and many “are growing skeptical that addressing global sustainability challenges will ever become critical to their business success”.

As realistic as these findings may be, they tend to reinforce some of the myths that have grown up around the sustainable business agenda. From experience in the field, there are a set of common myths often taken for granted.

1. Sustainability is going the extra mile for society

Every business creates negative and positive impacts. Some of these impacts can be social, environmental and or economic. Commitment to sustainability is the quest to reduce negative impacts and enhance positive impacts – also known as the internalisation of externalities. This is at the very heart of economic justice and should not be seen as doing something extra. It should be the normal course of doing business, otherwise, what is counted as profits could be, in some circumstances, the life opportunities lost by a child miner in Congo or the low wages of an under-paid worker in Bangladesh.

2. Strategy precedes or directs sustainability

We often hear companies claiming to embed sustainability in their strategies. While such claims do suggest sustainability is more than an add-on, they also inadvertently perpetuate the view that sustainability is different to strategy. Unfortunately this myth undermines the view that sustainability is a necessity (and not necessarily a strategic choice). It’s a mindset, which should inform strategy. Sustainability should lead strategy, and not the other way round.

3. Sustainability is profitability

Treating commitment to sustainability as a strategic choice invariably exaggerates the myth that sustainability should be profitable. If sustainability is seen as a firm’s commitment to minimise its negative impacts and enhance its positive impacts, it is obvious that commitment to sustainability should not automatically lead to profitability. However, commitment to sustainability will require imagination, creativity, and innovation to be profitable. In reality, the quest for sustainability is an extra constraint on organisations, which could either make or mar organisations.

4. Every company can be sustainable

There is a view that every legal business can be sustainable. This myth is perpetrated by the view that any business that does some good and does well financially is sustainable. A good example is the oil and gas firms, as well as the tobacco and gambling firms. As much as they are legal, their products and services can be inherently unsustainable (ie their negative impacts on society could be more than their positive impacts). In that regard, no matter how much they try to embed sustainability in their strategies, they can never be sustainable as long as their products and services remain the same. For such industries, sustainability will require a radical shift and innovation – e.g. the tobacco firms’ move into e-cigarettes or oil and gas firms investing in renewable sources of energy.

5. Commitment to sustainability is context dependent

It is often said that sustainability practices vary between industries and countries. It is true that some contexts are more suitable to sustainability practices than others. For example, some argue that the strong institutions (eg markets, governments, civil society, laws) in the OECD countries make it easier to practise sustainability than in many developing countries which often have very weak, institutions. This makes it tempting for businesses to tailor their “sustainability strategies” to different geographies. But sustainability should not be context dependent. The quest to reduce negative impacts and enhance positive impacts should be constant irrespective of contexts. Gas flaring in the Niger-Delta, for instance, is no less a negative impact than it would have been in Alaska or the North Sea.

6. Sustainability is a destination

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that commitment to sustainability is a static point – something reviewed once in a while depending on trends or the organisation’s frame of mind at a point in time. In reality, commitment to sustainability should be a way of life. It is a dynamic journey. It means paying attention to societal trends and expectations. An example is biofuels. As much as they are thought to be better than fossil fuels, they become unsustainable once they start to crowd-out food production and threaten the eco-system. Investing in biofuels and not paying attention to the societal dynamics around them is to treat sustainability as a destination and not as a journey.

7. Sustainability is a fad

Some people compare sustainability with such concepts as total quality management and see it as a transient practice. As much as the proliferations of terms – eg corporate social responsibility, creating shared value , bottom of the pyramid – are not terribly helpful, they all have one thing in common, which is the reduction of negative impacts and enhancement of positive impacts. To treat this as a fad is a myth. As long as the quest for economic justice is at the heart of the contemporary capitalist system, sustainability will ever remain relevant. The form may change, but the substance will persist.

If unchecked, these myths will continue to stand in the way of mainstreaming commitment to sustainability. Learning to deal with them is the beginning of sustainability wisdom.

Dr Kenneth Amaeshi is the director of the Sustainable Business Initiative, and an associate professor (Reader) in strategy and international business, at the University of Edinburgh and a visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management and Lagos Business School.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Can Climate Change Vulnerable Singapore Start to ‘Electrify’ the World?

Singapore occupies a rather precarious position in this world. On one hand, it is one of the most vulnerable countries in the face of climate change. According to researchers in Hawaii, come 2028, temperatures here could rise such that even the coolest years in Singapore would still be hotter than the hottest year now on record.  This year, it seems, the city is seeing more serious storms and worse flooding. On the other hand, its small size can ease its transition into the first country in the world to have an all-electric fleet of vehicles, making the nation the global poster child for sustainable transportation. Read more

Can Singapore ‘electrify’ the world?

It should lead by being first nation to switch to all-electric fleet of vehicles

Kishore Mahbubani, Straits Times (12 October  2013):

SINGAPORE’S great weakness is that it is an absurdly small nation. Paradoxically, one great strength of Singapore is that it is an absurdly small nation. Hence, Singapore can try things out on a national scale that few other nations can dream about.

Let me suggest one such bold national project. Let Singapore become the first country in the world to have an all-electric fleet of vehicles: cars, trucks, taxis, buses, etc. Singapore can create a new chapter in world history by becoming the first country in the world not to have petrol-fuelled engines on the road. And why should Singapore do this? There will be at least three massive benefits from doing so.

Healthier population

FIRST, Singaporeans will breathe much cleaner air. Without petrol and diesel engines, there will be much less carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter and other pollutants in the air. As a result, I have no doubt that the health of Singaporeans will improve. There will be fewer instances of asthmatic attacks, and incidents of cancer may also go down. Singapore will also become the quietest city in the world.

Economists have not yet established simple and easy ways of measuring such “positive externalities” that will flow from an all-electric fleet in Singapore. Yet, there is no doubt that the environment will improve massively. Singaporeans will become a happier nation and Singapore will become an ever more attractive destination for the best global talent. (Oops, maybe I shouldn’t say this!)

Second, Singapore would be positioning itself for the day when a global carbon tax or emissions trading system is introduced.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just released its latest climate change report. The evidence is now irrefutable. Human activity, especially in the form of greenhouse gas emissions, is warming the planet.

Many countries will suffer the negative effects of rising sea levels and bouts of extreme weather. Singapore will be one of the biggest losers if the worst-case scenario unfolds. While Singapore is too small to make a large difference to climate change mitigation efforts, an all-electric fleet would help us deal with a global carbon tax, thus boosting national competitiveness.

Delay climate change

BY CREATING an all-electric transportation system, Singapore can help to delay climate change. How? Singapore’s behaviour alone will not make a massive difference. But bear in mind that the Asian middle-class population is about to explode, from about 500 million now to 1.75 billion by 2020. If these new middle-class citizens begin buying petrol-burning cars, the planet will be literally, not metaphorically, fried. Clearly, some powerful examples will be needed to demonstrate that the world would be better off not buying petrol-burning cars. By going all-electric, Singapore will act as a key catalytic agent to help to prevent global warming.

The manufacture of electric cars emits more carbon than that of traditional vehicles because of the energy-intensive methods used to mine, smelt and process the iron, lithium and rare earth elements that go into the batteries and other components of electric cars. But studies have shown that electric vehicles make up for this by having much lower carbon emissions when they are in use.

Most of Singapore’s electricity is generated from natural gas, a relatively clean fossil fuel. Using electric cars will result in an effective 66 per cent reduction of carbon emissions in comparison with petrol- and diesel-powered cars.

Cars as status symbols

THE third benefit of creating an all-electric fleet is that it will help to reduce the obsession with cars as a status symbol, as electric cars will simply be seen as functional vehicles to get from point A to point B. For the few Singaporeans who insist on having status symbols like Maseratis, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, I would like to strongly recommend the Tesla, the environmentally friendly status symbol. By moving to an all-electric fleet, we shift the status competition in Singapore away from having the most powerful and fastest cars to having the most environmentally friendly ones. So who should lead the charge to convert Singapore’s car fleet into an all-electric one? I think I know what is going on in the mind of any Singaporean who is reading this sentence. Every Singaporean will expect the Government to take the lead. Unfortunately, this is the wrong answer. If the Government tries a top-down strategy, there will be a lot of resistance. The only way such a massive change can take place smoothly is for it to be a bottom-up initiative.

New developmental approach

INDEED, as Singapore approaches the 50th anniversary of its independence and Singaporeans ponder on the next 50 years, the country should consider a major change of approach to the future development of the country. Singapore has been extraordinarily successful in our first 50 years because of a remarkable number of government-initiated policies. Let me just cite Singapore Airlines, Changi Airport, PSA, and the Singapore Newater story as a few examples. None of these were citizen initiatives.

However, for the next 50 years, we will need a balance of government-led and citizen-led initiatives. Making Singapore the first electric vehicle nation should be the first citizen-led initiative in the nation’s history.

Anyone who thinks that a single citizen cannot make a significant difference should look at the record of Tesla Motors and its chief executive Elon Musk. Mr Musk is giving a personal guarantee (including with his personal money) that the Tesla will retain as much second-hand value as the equivalent Mercedes.

Even more astoundingly, he has begun building charging stations so that you can drive from Los Angeles to New York in a Tesla. If you can drive across a large country like the United States in an electric vehicle, it is surely possible to do so in Singapore. No charging station in Singapore will be more than a few kilometres away. In fact, charging stations could even be installed in private parking lots and driveways.

The Government can help by creating an infrastructure that supports electric vehicles. It could also provide tax and other benefits. Currently, because of the high cost of electric vehicle batteries, such cars cost more, thus placing the vehicle in a higher tax bracket than cheaper but less environmentally friendly cars.

Even the recently introduced Carbon Emissions-Based Vehicle Scheme does not offset the higher costs. Sadly, Tesla had to close its dealership in Singapore without selling a single fully electric car after less than a year because it was not able to receive “green tax benefits” from the Government.

But the benefits that would flow from the creation of an all-electric fleet would be far greater than the tax revenues that the Government stands to lose in giving out tax benefits.

In short, it is a “no-brainer” for Singapore to become the first country in the world with an all-electric vehicle fleet. No other country can do it as easily as Singapore.

The benefits in all dimensions – environmental, health, social – will far outweigh any costs. Indeed, I cannot think of any real cost to making the change. So the big question is: Which citizen of Singapore will stand up and take the lead? If the movement succeeds, it will “electrify” both Singapore and the world. The hour has come. Let the right man or woman stand up and lead the movement.

The writer is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He drives a hybrid vehicle.

Source: www.wildsingaporenews.blogspot.sg

The Straits Times (13 October 2013):

SINGAPORE – Singapore may feel the impact of climate change sooner than expected, with a new detailed study suggesting that the city will hit tipping point in as little as 15 years.

Come 2028, temperatures here could rise such that even the coolest years in Singapore would still be hotter than the hottest year now on record, say University of Hawaii researchers.

Data on Singapore’s hottest year on record was not available at press time, although the National Environment Agency said the hottest single day occurred on March 26, 1998. That day, the mercury hit 36 deg C. That year was also one of the hottest, with an annual average temperature of 28.3 deg C. If projections hold, it would mean the record high will be beaten every year and almost guarantees more scorching days.

Assistant Professor Jason Cohen of the National University of Singapore, who specialises in climate change models, said the results drive home the importance of acting to curb emissions.

“The longer that action is delayed, the sooner this extreme set of conditions will come. Furthermore, these extreme conditions, at least for temperature, will have large impact on current infrastructure relating to Singapore’s water, since they will change biodiversity and evaporation,” he said.

And Singapore will not be the only one sweating. Kingston, Jamaica, will be off-the-charts hot in just 10 years. Mexico City will hit tipping point in 2031, Cairo in 2036, and eventually the whole world in 2047.

To arrive at their projections, researchers used weather observations, computer models and other data to calculate the point at which every year from 2047 will be warmer than the hottest year recorded over the last 150 years.

Study author Camilo Mora and his students divided the earth into a grid, with each cell representing 10 sq m. Averaging the results from 39 climate models, they calculated a date they called “climate departure” – the date after which all future years were predicted to be warmer than any year in the historical record for that spot.

The 2047 date for the whole world is based on continually increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gases. If the world manages to reduce its emissions that date would be pushed to as late as 2069, said Dr Mora.

“One can think of this year as a kind of threshold into a hot new world from which one never goes back,” said Carnegie Institution climate scientist Chris Field, who was not part of the study.

Dr Mora calculated that the last of the 265 cities to move into its new climate will be Anchorage, Alaska – in 2071. There is a five- year margin of error.

Unlike previous research, the study highlights the tropics – where temperature change has more impact – over the polar regions. His team found that by one measurement – ocean acidity – earth has already crossed the threshold into a new regime. That happened around 2008, with every year since then more acidic than the old record, according to study co-author Abby Frazier.

AFP, New York Times and Grace Chua, Straits Times

Source: www.news.asiaone.com

Last Word

Power to Purchase Green & Energise Clean

Think about it: Between 6,000 and 7,000 procurement professionals control the vast majority of institutional buying. Their purchasing power, if well coordinated, has the potential to drive sweeping change in greening supply chains.

It will be on my mind as I speak at the Green Summit in Taipei on 29 October on the rather broad topic of “The Global Trend Towards Green and Sustainable Production, Procurement and Supply Chains”.

I’ll be reminding all of the clear message in my book “Race for Sustainability”:

As long as we continue to dig up and burn fossil fuels; as long as we       continue to destroy and burn rainforests; as long as we continue to make,   drive, consume, waste products and resources, we stay on the path to destruction.

Taiwan recognises the importance of sustainable business and the necessity for expanding the trade in green goods and services, as it plays a critical role in the supply chain in many fields around the world.

And we must tell you the story about the small island off the coast of Denmark, where a group of potato farmers have turned into power brokers, owning the wind turbines that have made their island a net energy producer. Read More

The power of procurement: can sustainable purchasing save the world?

The purchasing power of procurement professionals has the potential to make sweeping changes in greening supply chains

Lisa Palmer in theguardian.com, (24 October 2013):

In 2008, students at the University of Texas at Austin left an average of just under six ounces of edible food on their lunch plates, which food service workers measured during a five-day waste audit. A year later, after identifying reasons for the waste and implementing programs to reduce it, such as better quality food, sample tasting and getting rid of trays, students reduced food waste by 48%.

According to Jason Pearson, of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, reducing food waste in higher education is one of the major ways sustainable purchasing can help improve the planet.

Waste seems the unlikely focus of a purchasing group, but as Pearson sees it, the goal of his organization is to “buy less and buy better.” The Council officially opened for business this summer. It has been five years in the making and is closely modeled on the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification program. By developing a system of guidance for best practices, measurement and recognition that can be applied to a wide array of organizations, buyers can be much more strategic in their sustainable purchases, Pearson says.

Take the example of higher education. Of all the goods and services they purchase, 65% falls into five categories: electricity, food, fuel, agriculture and food products, and waste services. Roughly 85% of the environmental impacts in their supply chain can be attributed to those five categories, Pearson explains. Reducing food waste also reduces the social and environmental impact of those purchases in at least three categories: food, agriculture and food products, and waste services.

Outside of higher education, hotels chains, public institutions, and corporations face similar challenges. These challenges reflect those the green building market encountered in the 1990s before the
LEED program offered sweeping guidance to builders and developers. With a flood of new products and services making green claims, and both buyers and marketers are increasingly frustrated by the bounty of options. People need clarity around what claims are legitimate.

Universities and colleges have been at the forefront of sustainable purchasing, along with federal, state, and local governments and Fortune 500 companies, because their sustainability goals tend to track carbon emissions of their supply chains. By zeroing in on each of the purchasing categories that contribute most to greenhouse gas emissions, purchasers can become more strategic in how their purchases affect the environment.

Yalmaz Siddiqui, senior director of environmental strategy at Office Depot, is a founding member of the Council. As a supplier, he says the Council provides a clearing-house that examines the environmental impacts of purchases. He says that clear guidance will help Office Depot, and other suppliers, provide the best prices for sustainable goods and services that impact the environment the least. In his words:

“The main thing that the SLPC can offer is a macro level view of what methods exist to reduce social and environmental impacts through purchases with a combination of life-cycle analysis and eco-label standards, and to help people focus on what matters most.”

“At the moment we’re sort of accidentally buying greener products without necessarily stepping back and saying, ‘What are we trying to do?’ And what we are trying to do is reduce the environmental impact of organizations through the way people buy. There’s a lot of interest in this area with a plethora of approaches, and none of which necessarily addresses ‘Where can we reduce the impacts the most?’”

Siddiqui says that by identifying the hurdles to making sustainable purchases, suppliers can have a clearer market signal on which products have the least impact on the environment and provide better pricing.

“We’re now in the zone of independent creation where the City of Portland has one approach, one position and one methodology of green procurement, the federal government has another, Target has another, JP Morgan has another, and and so on, so it’s not efficient both with the intellectual power going to independent efforts and by connecting the value chain.”

Over the past five years the Council has been developing a system of best practices that can be applied to a purchasing program and result in a certification. Like the LEED certification program, the program is trying to make buying green an easier task for procurement professionals in governments and large institutions, as well as service providers such as hospitals, hotels, banks, airlines and schools, which together account for about 75% of all consumer spending.

Between 6,000 and 7,000 procurement professionals control the vast majority of institutional buying. Their purchasing power, if well coordinated, has the potential to drive sweeping change in greening supply chains – a far more feasible task than trying to change the mindset of six billion people.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Potato farmers to power brokers: Danish island hits 100% renewables

By Laurie Guevara-Stone  for Rocky Mountain Institute and Reneweconomy (24 October 2013):

On a small island off the coast of Denmark, a group of potato farmers have turned into power brokers, owning the wind turbines that have made their island a net energy producer. In less than ten years, Samsø went from producing 11 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, one of the highest carbon emissions per capita in Europe, to just 4.4 tonnes (the U.S. is at 17.6), and has proven that running on 100 percent renewable electricity is possible.

Denmark is a leader in renewable energy development. In March 2012, the Danish parliament passed a historic new energy agreement to bring the country closer to its target of 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The agreement set a goal for renewables to provide 35 percent of energy consumption by 2020, and including 50 percent of electricity from wind power. The country is well on its way there—it received more than 30 percent of its electricity from wind in 2012.

Back in 1997, Denmark’s renewable energy ambitions, coupled with an oil supply crisis, prompted the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy to hold a renewable energy contest. Competing islands had to present a convincing plan for converting their entire energy systems to renewables within ten years, in order to study how high a percentage of renewable energy a well-defined area could achieve with no major grant funding.

All the energy being used on Samsø (population: 4,100) was imported. An engineer thought the island would make a good candidate and submitted a plan. To the island residents’ surprise, Samsø won.

The island now heats 60 percent of its homes with three district heating plants running on straw, and one which runs on a combination of wood chips and solar panels. People outside of the heating plants’ reach have replaced or supplemented their oil burner with solar panels, ground-source heat pumps, or wood pellet boilers. Eleven onshore wind turbines provide 11 megawatts of power, enough to power the entire electrical load of the island (29,000 MWh per year). And 10 offshore wind turbines produce 23 megawatts, enough to compensate for the carbon dioxide emissions generated by the island’s transport sector. This was all accomplished within eight years, two years ahead of schedule.

The most remarkable part about the transformation on Samsø is the involvement of the residents themselves—none of the projects have been imposed by outsiders or funded by major energy companies. Local farmers own 9 of the 11 onshore turbines. The other two are owned by local wind cooperatives. Usually the wind turbine owner/shareholder realizes the initial investment in about eight years, and then starts earning a profit. One of the four district heating plants is also divided into shares and owned by local consumers.

At first, it wasn’t easy convincing this conservative island of farmers that they could, or even should, become a renewable energy showcase. NIMBYism, especially in regards to the proposed wind farm, affected many residents, just as it does in communities around the world. But Soren Hermansen, a local farmer and environmental studies teacher, took up the cause. He spent months going to community meetings and talking up renewables.

The key, according to Hermansen, was to convince Samsingers to participate themselves. “There was a certain fear that the project was just another hippie bureaucracy project sent out by some smart Copenhagen top-down politicians and consultants,” Hermansen told RMI. “My job was to tear these presumptions apart and break it down to daily things that related to everyone in one way or another.” He coined a term “commonity”— a combination of community and commons—which he referred to in his persuasive discussions with the locals to get them on board with the idea of becoming investors in local energy resources.

By owning the turbines themselves, people didn’t feel as if the technology was imposed on them, but that they were making a smart business choice. They also came to realize the benefits that the green development would bring to the island as far as new jobs, new businesses, and increased business from more visitors. The island’s tourism website, Visit Samsø, includes a major section on Samsø as a renewable energy island.

Samsingers now export millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity from renewable sources to the rest of Denmark. The Samsø Energy Academy, opened in 2007, is a source of renewable energy research, education, and training. The academy arranges exhibitions and workshops that attract more than 5,000 politicians, journalists, and students from around the world every year. Researchers from both Danish and foreign educational institutions are able to do energy research at the Academy and island residents can get free advice on sustainable solutions. Furthermore, it functions as a conference center where companies, researchers, and politicians discuss renewable energy, energy savings, and new technologies.

Hermansen has since been named one of TIME magazine’s Heroes of the Environment, and travels around the world telling the story of Samsø’s success. He believes that Samsø’s progress can be a lesson for other places, even though it’s a small rural community. “Scaling can not be done the same way in a city,” Hermansen admits. “But the lesson learned is that it is more about people, communication, and common interest than about technology. When you realize this, it is more easy to see the scalability.”

This article was originally published on the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Outlet blog

Source: www.reneweconomy.com.au