Welcome to the The Discussion project notes

DEFINITIONS

Is sustainablity just about the environment? what are the metrics for sustainabilty - its more than carbon emissions - its about introducing externalities - upcycling and resuing resources.  What are large companies doing in their production lines.

value of ICT to track consumption and energy - create. 

Is there an inherent conflict between luxury and sustainability? does luxury have to be material?? less about the product, more about the experience.  also luxury is relative.

POLITICAL

Lib Dems advocating 100% carbon reduction in the UK by 2050

http://www.libdems.org.uk/latest_news_detail.aspx?pPK=5624bc4d-f8e7-49f7-af0f-10d417ac1f66&title=Nick_Clegg_launches_Liberal_Democrat_environment_manifesto

Both Conservative and Labour advocating 80% domestic reduction in the UK by 2050 - this could infer that a 10 year goal would mean no increase in carbon emissions. (need to check on what year's level)

Labour: 34% reduction by 2020 from the UK, 80% by 2050.

http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto/a-green-future-for-britain

Conservatives: aim to reduce 80% by 2050, generate 15% of energy from renewables by 2020.  Questions: does this include nuclear as renewable?

http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Climate_Change_and_Energy.aspx / http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Environment.aspx

 

TRANSPORT

Automobile:

Edie: Cash for Clunkers - example of government incentive to drive people to swap cars to more efficient.

Better Place - UK, Denmark, Israel launches - slow to happen but getting electric cars to the market (4x cars on market by 2012 than now)

Hybrid and hydrogen cars - Honda has hydrogen car, River Simple - river simple has done open source car manufacturing - anyone can build it, using the web....  does that mean that by 2020 we could see open source automotive designs bringing Internet to the car industry. - this could result in rapid innovation for the auto industry!

European City Model of car sharing - Zipcar and other services in the US.  UK councils moving 

P2P Car sharing in the UK - renting parking spaces peoples driveways - crowd sourced, collaborative sharing options for automotive usage.

Councils collaborating with people to share off road parking spaces to place shared automobiles - a few per neighborhood.

Bikes: Value of bike sharing programs - Paris and Barcelona both experiencing problems with theft and vandalism, and in the UK its no longer free.

Overall promotion of bike sharing 

UK bike sharing project - up to £50 a day! unsustainable model, first 30 minutes free, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/12444.aspx

Bike vs. Car ratio in cities - call to change setup of urban landscapes to accomodate pedestrian and bicycle traffic.  What needs to make this an integrated format.

Boats/Shipping:  Return to sail as means of transport - Sky Sails - using large format sails for container vessels. depending on wind conditions, reduces average annual fuel cost by 10-35% and optimal by 50%.  http://www.skysails.info/english/products/skysails-for-cargo-ships/
 

Air:

Dirigibles - Extremely energy efficient means of transport. Could there be a market for consumer travel? http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ih5-WPrJgqz6JAONtBlF7HOHiyXwD9F3D2S80

What's going to make airplanes move toward sustainability - bio fuels and algaeics as a means of fuel production.

Breakthroughs in carbon free/friendly air fuel - lower emissions as a means of reducing the carbon emissions of these things. 

 

FINANCIAL

How do we look to include financial sustainability into this 2020 Model?

sustainability reporting is something John Elkington and Harvard groups are working on - going beyond CSR reporting and making the company and clients become more sustainable - standardized rankings similar to P&L metrics to measure progress on this front.

The Dow Jones Index of Sustainability - depending on internal and external metrics of sustainability.

SEC and other "real" organizations are looking to integrate these metrics into corporate requirements which would provide an enforcement measure for these issues. requires listed companies to report on environmental commitments, and how targets are being achieved. - 

1% for the planet - growing global movement of 1291 companies that donate 1% of sales to a network of 2074 environmental organizations worldwide.  sets new standards in the allocation of capital resources for companies. http://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org
 

collaboration between companies across organizations - GreenXChange - new patent sharing and crowd sourcing of information from companies for social good, 1%, P2P or C2C collaboration - evidenced in Copenhagen where governments failed to act, companies are taking up the lead to drive new standards by using peer pressure.

Is Interest sustainable as a model for the financial system when finance itself is moving toward a p2p model?  Can banks and institutions continue to charge at current rates and margins as money exchange becomes more tradable?

CONSUMER

eco is part of better not just sustainable.

how do you get to a sustainable communications strategy if its about using less/better - i.e. Method - using less product and water.

Can it only be a disruptor - where a disruptor is increasing efficiency to a point that the old product i.e. Tide - looks inefficient.

Packaging:

beunpackaged.com - going back to olden days.  make lounge - making do and mending.

Ecover - bring your own packaging and fill it up - huge reduction 

Is sustainability really just a byword for efficiency?  consumer, product, packaging, energy...

the lowest hanging fruit is energy efficiency: do we need to set efficiency requirements for products and services, energy?

plumen - high design for low energy bulbs http://www.plumen.com/

does consumer sustainability become led  by high design vs. high morals - becomes aspirational - "aspirational efficiency"

products more enticing. 

http://www.psfk.com/2007/01/product-design-inspiration-eric-ryan-of-method-on-video.html
 

http://www.3tier.com/en/

 

Food:

seafood watch - applications that help us to monitor our consumption in real time. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_iPhone.aspx

edutainment - monterrey bay aquarium - order with background to items.

linecaught.org - who caught my fish? - data linkages through the consumer production line. http://www.linecaught.org.uk/

foraging - 

are there time share and fractional models for these issues. - pay someone to forage, cook, grow

http://www.psfk.com/2010/05/backyard-farming-network-in-brooklyn.html

http://www.doleorganic.com/

http://www.psfk.com/2009/03/local-foods-at-loews-hotels.html

- ratings - guidance

http://www.goodguide.com/

 

DATA VISUALIZATION and PERSONALIZATION

by 2020 we can expect a personal carbon bubble to exist that looks at data visualization to track our own personal carbon footprint.

health information and geo locational awareness will be standardized and comprehensive. which means that our carbon and sustainability footprints will be visible, a market will develop to trade this information and the footprint metrics.  

huge growth in a whole new trading sphere for personal information and the monetization of areas of life that are currently un-monetized/tracked = economic growth at large.

who gets the money?

Sensors in everything - everything created and consumed will have sensors, allowing for tracking - the web of people, places and things will allow us to track out activities and aggregate them to produce reports that track our life and allow us to truly see/measure/price our actions.

Amanda: moving from a society of selfish to a society of self. (personal tracking and responsibility)

http://www.psfk.com/2010/05/video-nick-felton-psfk-conference-2010.html
 

ENERGY

move toward decentralized from centralized

P2P production

full tracking. 

generalized marco targets for sustainably generated.

using organisms to create batteries - phone etc. - nano  - angela belcher.

CITIES

Integrated city development. Creation of hubs that mix gardens, growing, business and residential to create smaller eco footprints.

urban vs. surburban - 40% carbon footprint for urban dweller than suburban but rural depending on developed or undeveloped varies widely.

Decade trend; will there be the rise of fully sustainable cities - Masdar, Dongtan, Incheon Eco City - will these places be more competitive and thus richer.  http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/08/31/foster-partners-to-design-south-korean-eco-city/

Vertical farming and verticalfarm.com 

http://www.psfk.com/2008/10/26-story-vertical-farm-skyscraper-coming-to-singapore.html

bio-architectural movements - engineering organisms to self create and self organize. - dr. rachel armstrong at the bartlett "living architecture" http://www.rachelarmstrong.me/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/rachel_armstrong_architecture_that_repairs_itself.html

architecture that grows itself - carbon eating cement, bio structures, green walls, carbon eating paint. carbon negative architecture - 

http://www.dimecreations.com/home.html

carbon positive energy production - cars houses - selling back to the grid - solar panels micro energy production.

http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/

http://www.sentientcity.net/exhibit/

 

SUMMARIES:

This is the decade of a sustainability revolution - driven by the need to save money = efficiency = move to sustainability

period of change coming around convergence of nano-bio-info cognitives that will radically change the relationship between energy/info/architecture/biosphere as an integrated process.

young talent - driving the change.

Nike Considered - designers designing in real time to create sustainable projects and products.

CRAP: Do we need the crap?  How do we change the metric and economic model for all the crap?  space, growing cities, people need to rent not buy. storage - people live with everything in storage. do we need libraries, content, stuff -  by 2020 will we have two lives ? a stored life and an available life.

will we spend more on some communications (mobile phone) than rent - which products and services are "vital"

have this idea that content is free.  what things are free what things are not? VITALITY - 

consumption may continue to increase, but a huge explosion in barter vs paid for. - vegetable allotments

skills bartering - sustainability --- is barter a function of sustainability? - creates p2p finance system.

What kind of things are people going to buy? basics