In September, Anderson (with Robin White) published his second book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Planet - Doing Business by Respecting the Earth. This wide-ranging work not only tells Interface’s story in detail, but also provides a blueprint for how a large, well-established company can literally reinvent itself as both a profitable enterprise and a business that learns to operate in harmony with natural systems.

The word “confessions” in the title is very appropriate: Anderson is very frank about Interface’s successes and setbacks in its climb up “Mt. Sustainability” (a phrase he coined). He also discusses the efforts of other companies, and makes bold, and hopeful, cases for environmental and social responsibility as pillars of successful business strategy in the 21st century. The book is an engaging and thoughtful read for business people, environmental activists, and consumers concerned about the impact of industry on the planet’s future.

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In a stark contrast with how construction used to be thought of, the green building movement has been a shift away from the traditional concerns about money and time. The betterment of our planet, as it turns out, is quickly becoming a bigger priority. Since March of this year, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program has seen around 20,852 new LEED registered and certified projects.

Most of this can be attributed to the fact that builders view green buildings as more economical in the long run, and recent incentives on the part of the government have added an extra encouragement.  But while these positives have been talked about pretty often, there are some risks associated with going green that still leave many builders wary.

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Researchers at the University of Huelva have proven that high-oleic sunflower oil has the efficiency it takes to be an environmentally-friendly base for industrial lubricant.

The study found that the biolubricant shared similar characteristics to traditional lubricants, only sunflower oil has a lower volatility and is entirely biodegradable. Using the sunflower oil as an alternative should also help reduce the cost of keeping industry clean.

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Economic problems today are in many ways a result of environmental missteps in the past. If we want a healthy economy in the future, we have to take the environment into account more than we have. The Swedish Minister of the Environment agrees and says that there should be no hesitation to combat climate change due to the current economic situation.

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Major US renewables company Astonfield is set to invest a massive $2 billion in India over the next five years, the largest single cash-injection in renewable energy ever seen in the sub-continent.

The deal will generate about 1,000 MW of power, most of it from solar sources.

Much of the proposed $2 billion investment will go towards building solar-photovoltaic powered projects with a capacity of 500 MW.

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A far reaching report has called on the aviation industry to drastically increase the use of biofuels, to make a 60% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The study, called ‘Green Skies Thinking‘, was published today by right wing think-tank Policy Exchange, and advocates the phase-in of an EU Sustainable Bio-Jet Fuel Blending Mandate by 2020, which would force aviation companies to commit to a rising proportion of jet fuel from sustainable bio-jet fuels.

Crucially, the report also reckons that growing the feedstock needed for advanced biofuels would require significantly less land and be more sustainable than first generation biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel, generally used by road transport.

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The administration is increasingly thought of as favouring large payments to the very bankers who got us into this mess, while being prepared to allow ordinary workers’ jobs to go en masse. Very likely the Left strongholds in the South will link up with disaffected urban youth across the country and particularly in Paris: a powerful combination. The people protesting this week have not been particularly encouraged by the opposition Socialist party, either, which they see as little different to Sarkozy’s centre-right administration, much as those on the traditional Left regard “New Labour” in Britain. Street protests have brought French governments down in the past: they will doubtless do so again.

That feeling – that bankers get enormous bailouts while ordinary people go to the wall – is not solely a working class concern. Jim Rogers (a former confederate of George Soros, one of the few people who in my view really knows what is going on) recently opined that it was wrong for the British government to be bailing out the banks and that instead they should be allowed to go bust. Only by doing so, he suggested, would the country be able to start with a clean slate; the present course, on the other hand, would lead to debts that could take a generation or more to pay off.

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Harnessing the Earth’s Heat for Food and Power

As the rumbling temblors beneath Yellowstone National Park continue (over 900 hundred such weak quakes in 2008), media attention shifts to two topics: the possibility of a super-volcanic eruption (not likely, according to most geologists), and secondly, the harnessing of geothermal energy.

This latter consideration is all the more fashionable these days as America struggles to embrace an alternative and sustainable energy future.

Geothermal energy offers the promise of a virtually unlimited source of power. Although less energetic in terms  of total constant power output compared to the sun, harnessing the geothermal venting from a single, sufficiently high-grade, hot-spring could conceivably provide power for a population of tens of thousands, and it’s not weather dependent.  But there are also plenty of “lower grade” springs that can be put to other uses, such as growing hothouse produce (and the spring water is also used for watering the plants) and  naturally warming water for fish farming (the Talipia species, a popular dinner fish, is one species farmed this way). Not all animals that are farmed this way are used for food, some, like the farmed alligators in Mosca, CO (see photo), are raised for their skins primarily (though some do eat the meat).

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Environmental Defense Fund has just launched the Innovation Exchange, a first-of-its-kind online resource that allows businesses to quickly identify steps they can take, from greening their fleets to reducing paper use.

The new EDF site provides companies with recommendations, case studies, publications and tools to make changes that are good for the environment and the bottom line, for example:

• Advice by industry, from financial services to transportation.
• Dozens of case studies from a range of companies.
• Five simple steps to get started.

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Worldwide, many industrial processes depend on steam boilers that are powered by what’s called heavy fuel oil (HFO). In the US, where coal and natural gas are plentiful, boilers are not typically run on HFO, but many homes in the Northeast US are still heated with furnaces that use HFO. These boilers are notorious for spewing out toxins into the environment when untreated.

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In 2004 the three major users of electricity in South Africa were Industry (64.6%), Residential (17.4%) and Commerce (12.0%). It was therefore logical that once Eskom, with the “urging” of Government, faced the situation and took co-ordinated action it went to industry.

Discussions with industries and especially the large users in mining and manufacturing, were based on Eskom admitting that it was unable to guarantee supplies to industry, presenting a long term plan of action and requesting that industry manage itself to achieve an immediate 10% reduction in its consumption.

Industry supported the request although it lead to week long shut downs of a number of mines which were unable to immediately reduce their consumption without effecting the complete process.

This was termed Phase 1 of the National Emergency Response Plan and was mainly aimed at stabilising the system to avoid catastrophic shut downs that could result from instability induced by too small a margin between demand and supply.

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A new report says that global warming could cost the Californian economy billions of dollars each year, through a combination of rising sea levels, and the increased frequency of wild fires and extreme weather events.

The comprehensive study (PDF), published by researcher’s at UC Berkeley, also claims that $2.5 trillion of Californian real estate assets are at risk. The clear message, says co-author Prof. David Roland-Holst, is the strong economic case for timely action to slash carbon emissions and adapt to the already unavoidable effects of climate change.

“Our report makes clear the most expensive thing we can do about climate change is nothing,” he said. “As we learned in New Orleans, turning your back on the threat of natural disaster doesn’t make it go away.”

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Utility company Southern California Edison (SCE) has confirmed plans to build a massive 909 MW wind farm in Oregon. When completed, the facility will be one of the largest fully permitted wind power sites anywhere in the world.

The installation will be located in Morrow and Gilliam counties in North-Central Oregon, and will consist of 303 3MW wind turbines spread across a 30-mile radius. The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, will generate around two billion kWh of energy, roughly 10 per cent of SCE’s total alternative energy portfolio.

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Dear Readers,

Some of you have inquired about how I’ve been spending my time since wrapping up production (and living) on the Sust Enable project at the end of July.  As I wrote in my post “Voyage to the Center of the United States,” my August was spent travelling the country, experiencing its still awe-inspiring natural beauty.

Since mid-September, I have taken work waitressing nearly full time at a restaurant.  And no, that isn’t sustainable.

Sust Enable, my three month foray of 100% sustainable living, taught me a lot of things.  The first thing I noticed after the project concluded is that I was hopelessly broke.  Trying to innovate a radical new eco-conscious way of living doesn’t pay… rather, it sapped money, as I watched my planned resources for feeding and housing myself in a “100% sustainable” way fall through.

Partly, I am okay that the Sust Enable project didn’t pay me at all–it was an educational experience to me about how money works from an outsider’s perspective.  On the other hand, I was teetering near the brink of not being able to provide for myself–literally!  As much as I loathe the fact, nearly all systems for providing for one’s basic needs exist within the money-exchange system.  The ones outside of such a system and potentially sustainable, as I learned, are either insufficient, unavailable, or sabotaged at every possible opportunity by the capitalist system–by business owners, managers, policies, laws.

So, come September, I decided I really would like a place to myself.  I really would like to be warmed in freezing weather.  I really would like to have food readily accessible to me.  Basic ideas, no?  Certainly, each of these systems in their current states are unsustainable in terms of the environment.  But at the very least, I now have a perspective on how that might be different in the future, and can hopefully work to create a society that doesn’t have to trade the health of our air or water for our immediate stability and livelihood.

Working as a server in a restaurant has been a difficult situation for me.  I know I need the money… but holding that thought aloft every day above a sea of swirling, conflicting passions has been challenging.  I watch perfectly good food go uneaten and thrown out–but paid for–because of the sentiments that day of the purchaser.  I see inordinate amounts of cruel and unsustainably-harvested meat–from steak to seafood–served with enhancing garnishes on plates to carefree consumers, who will never feel or see the horrors of a meatpacking factory.  Money accounts for all.  I see servers, some of the hardest working people I have ever met, go untipped (our main source of income) by a table of cheerful business people.  But most of all, I see a continuous flow of garbage–paper, plastic, glass, and food–into the trash bins.

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“It’s only irrelevant in the context of one who still feels entitled to the comforts and privileges that being white in Western civilization has afforded her.”

Overall, I think the most crucial component of changing the world is not privilege: it is responsibility. As someone who was born into a world with social systems favoring her, it is my responsibility to address and counteract these effects. As someone who enjoys the benefits (but not the costs) of systems that hurt the environment for future generations, I have the responsibility to try to undo the harm done in my name or the name of the dollar I spend.

You disparage psychology, but I believe that our shared psychological needs-take Maslow’s pyramid, for example-absolutely influences the immediate decision-making process of every human being. For Americans, it means that we often don’t opt to do the most responsible thing, if it is not also the most convenient and most personally-positive thing as well. Once again, this all goes back to perspective-if a hot shower feels good to me immediately, and I will never feel the worldwide damage that such an action causes, then I can hide from such knowledge and forgive myself for a single shower. With millions of people making such inner decisions-in situations with varying stakes-well, most of us can see the problem we are facing now.

I think psychology will be key, too, in fixing this little biological oversight-we can create social systems which enforce a global responsibility in personal situations (where our limited perspectives are failing us). If we can unite on truly valuing the Earth’s biosphere, then we as people, as lawmakers, can create systems of justice-environmental justice-that as validly as possible account for additions and subtractions of valuable assets within the Earth’s limited resources. This idea may sound radical-but it is amazingly simple. Often, the average person forgets that he or she is a lawmaker-that laws are not sacred nor eternal. People make them and break them according to their needs.

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In fact, Lovelock is anything but an “environmentalist” in the traditional sense. Nor is he a staunch advocate for rigorous conservation and “dehumanization” of the planet, at least in his first book, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979). He quite often criticizes as fatuous and downright silly many environmentalists’ claims, using evidence gathered from his work in the sciences.

One passage in Gaia struck me as extremely provocative despite being written nearly thirty years ago. Discussing the atmospheric gases, specifically those produced by human industry, Lovelock writes,

In our persistent self-imposed alienation from nature, we tend to think that our industrial products are not ‘natural’. In fact, they are just as natural as all the other chemicals of the Earth, for they have been made by us, who surely are living creatures. They may of course be aggressive and dangerous, like nerve gases, but no more so than the toxin manufactured by the botulinus bacillus.1

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Two soybean growers’ groups have suspended $1.5 million in funding from the University of Minnesota, due to research showing that biofuels could worsen global warming:

The study, by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman and others, said that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn, soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically change the landscape and worsen global warming. Farmers in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia and other countries will need to clear forests, grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale to grow more of those crops, according to the research, unleashing far more carbon dioxide from natural vegetation than is saved by the lower emissions of the biofuels.

Is anyone really surprised about this finding? Suspension of the funds appears to be only temporary, until the groups have a chance to meet with the Dean of agricultural science. Jim Palmer, the executive director of the two soybean groups, summed up the situation: “The university hurt the farmers’ feelings, OK? That’s probably the best way to say it.”

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Now, the outgoing government of Korea has passed new legislation to combat this pollution and join in the international battle against climate change.

The aptly named “Act on Climate Change” will establish an emissions trading market, raise the bar for renewable energy, assist in reducing industrial, home, and vehicle emissions, and increase carbon capture.

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Farmers now can use B100 on nearly all Case IH medium- to high-horsepower tractors, combines, windrowers, and most self-propelled sprayers and cotton pickers — so long as proper protocols are followed for engine operation and maintenance.

“With record prices for crude oil, Case IH committed to exploring better ways to use environmentally-friendly biofuels made from renewable raw materials. We have conducted rigorous laboratory and in-field tests to evaluate how our engines perform with various biodiesel blends,” says Don Rieser, Case IH director of tractor product management. “As always, our ultimate goal is greater productivity for our customers. That’s why we also are committed to educating our dealers and customers on how to get the best results with biodiesel fuels — especially when using higher-level blends.”

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