Cleantech Troubles in 2013: Predictions from Kachan

As reported in an Environmental Leader article, Kachan & Co, a boutique cleantech research and advisory firm, is predicting that Global cleantech will “backtrack” in 2013. According to their bleak predictions, venture capital investments will decline even further than they did in 2012 and long-term risks are emerging in the solar, wind and electric vehicle market.

Kachan's latest predictions indicate cleantech venture capital investment won’t ever return to the highs it achieved before the financial crisis of 2007-2008. In 2013, the sector will lose venture investors because of disappointing returns, poor policy support worldwide and a lag time in the pullback of equity and debt investment.

But, this doesn’t mean the end of cleantech, the firm says. Corporate capital is filling in for traditional venture capital, and this investment should help clean technologies that are already “de-risked” reach meaningful levels of scale, according to managing partner Dallas Kachan.

However, solar and wind won’t see strong growth in 2013, Kachan predicts. The markets already suffer from margin erosions, allegations of corruption and international trade issues. Despite falling prices per kilowatt-hour, in 2013, the firm says poor progress in grid-scale power storage technology — and the cost of batteries and other means of storage — along with continuing progress in emerging nuclear technologies, natural gas and cleaner coal will put downward pressure on solar and wind.

Meanwhile, the firm predicts 2013 will be the year a new set of technologies will emerge aimed at capturing particulate and CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants. The barrier to capturing coal emissions has been cost and power plant output penalties. Kachan research has identified new technologies without such drawbacks, and forecasts the world will begin to see them in 2013.

Innovations in internal combustion engines could further delay the timing of an all-electric vehicle future, says Kachan. In 2013, the firm predicts new fuel economy innovations in internal combustion engines will enter the market, including new natural gas conversion and heat exchange retrofits of existing engines aimed at lessening fuel needs. Some of these technologies, when combined, claim to be able to reduce fuel costs by 90 percent, the firm says.

Additionally, Kachan predicts more adoption of mining cleantech innovation in areas such as tailings remediation, membrane-based water purification, sensors and telematics, route optimization software intended to lower fuel and equipment maintenance costs, and low-water, low-power hydrometallurgical and other processes for mineral separation.

The firm also says that 2013 will be the year the world’s leading agricultural companies accept consumer-driven GMO backlash and work toward more sustainable, “greener” ways of producing food. A Kachan report published in November says Advanced BioNutrition, GreenScene Agritek and Urban Barns are among the 57 companies at the leading edge of agricultural cleantech.

Source: Environmental Leader

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Will 2013 Bring a New, Sustainable World?

This article was written by Pavan Sukhdev and published in Guardian Sustainable Business Blog on January 4, 2013. Pavan is an environmental economist and board member for Conservation International. He is also the UN Environment Programme's goodwill ambassador. A former banker, he led the UNEP's green economy initiative and is author of a new book, Corporation 2020.

The new year brings with it a host of ecological, governmental and social issues but a new world is, and has to be, possibleThey were right, the world has ended. The world as we knew it came to an end more or less when the Mayan calendar ran out, on winter solstice, 2012.

The old world that died in 2012 had a stable climate, cheap commodities, governments managing change, high growth in output and consumption, and corporations driving economies and serving societies all deeply infused with a blind belief in free markets.

The new world that begins now, in 2013, will be defined by frightening climate instability, commodity and food prices ratcheting skywards, impotent governments reduced to spectators in their own countries, continuing recession, and corporations either being hounded as common criminals or laurelled as champions of virtuous change. An internet-enabled anarchy of the wronged will pull entire countries along unplanned roller-coaster rides through a Disneyland world of commotion and crises. Briefly, here is why I think so.

Breaching the Limits of the World's Ecosystems

Our world is rapidly approaching planetary boundaries – across climate, biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorous, ocean acidification, freshwater scarcity, inter alia. Economies worldwide are still headed in the wrong direction – towards resource exhaustion, social disparities, and persistent poverty. What we need is change at the speed of light, driven by bold leaders. What we have is change at the speed of change, hesitantly nudged by cautious governments. Too little, too late, such prevarication will spill into natural disasters. We saw some as 2012 ended – we shall see more as the earth's ecosystems do what all systems in equilibrium try their best to do: stay in equilibrium, until they simply cannot. Until what we call "resilience" is replaced by "thresholds" being breached, planetary boundaries being crossed.

Breached thresholds will lead ecosystems into new states of equilibrium, which may not be any good for human life, society, or economy.

The Vulnerable will Suffer Most

Increasing climate disruptions will cause higher price volatility in agricommodities, due to crop failures and crop losses. The world is over-invested in intensive agriculture, and due to a corresponding lack of investment to improve yields and resilience for smallholder farming, the poor will actually suffer the most from these supply disruptions and price shocks.

Bold Leadership

In the absence of political leadership, others will provide bold leadership, such as corporations, who are the lion's share of today's economy, GDP and jobs. Some have already shown real leadership in 2012, such as by measuring and disclosing their externalities (Puma), or lengthening their investor and analyst horizons by stopping quarterly reports (Unilever). Many more will follow these trendsetters in 2013.

An End to Crony Capitalism

At the same time, adherents of the old model of corporation – profit-fixated, externality-churning, disconnected from social purpose – will find the going tougher. Public patience with being exploited by the freedoms of freemarket capitalism is running thin. Public outrage at investment banking excesses has not died even four years after the global financial crisis. "Corporate externalities" is no longer an obscure term hidden at the end of economics textbooks, but a common phrase in news media.

Corporations that habitually free-lunched off global and national governance weaknesses and cheap natural resources will realise that their free lunch is nearly over; mainly because the "crony" governments of their crony-capitalist alliances are either emaciated, or bankrupt, or cannot toe the line of corporate profitability any longer in the face of scientific evidence and citizen activism. Indeed, from the first Arab Spring uprising to a campaign of moral outrage in Britain over corporate tax avoidance, which immediately yielded millions from Starbucks, the internet-enabled anarchy of the wronged has become the vehicle of successful change.

Many years ago, Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things said: "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Winter solstice, 2012, was a quiet day. The earth's magnetic field did not flip. Planes did not fall out of the sky. A nuclear holocaust was not launched. A giant meteorite did not slam into earth.
But if you had listened for a quieter strain, you would have heard her. A new world had begun.

Source: Guardian Sustainable Business Blog 

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2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 2)

This is the second part of a two part series reviewing the best practices in responsible management for 2012. It was written by Giselle Weybrecht the author of  The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Prior to this she worked for many years with the United Nations internationally in sustainable development. Today she works with government, universities, NGOs, business and with social entrepreneurs in sustainability around the world. She is committed to ensuring that the next generation of business leaders fully understand sustainability by working with business schools and businesses to embed these issues into their programmes. She is a dynamic and sought after speaker in sustainability issues and also writes on sustainability and business issues for a variety of publications including the Economist and Forbes.

2012 has been an interesting year for sustainability and management education and through Primetime I have tried to share some of the incredible work that PRME signatories are doing to mainstream responsible leadership and management education around the world. Primetime has become quite a repository of examples and in the final few blogs of the year I wanted to summarize the range of resources and experiences that have been featured.

Getting faculty engaged

Faculty are key when it comes to bringing about change in sustainability on campus. Several blogs focused on how to get faculty on board with sustainability (9 April) as well as a range of examples from signatories featured in the Inspirational Guide (23 August). Faculty including those from Maastricht University (22 October – Outside the Classroom New ways to feature sustainability in business courses) and Kozminski University (16 January), have initiated a range of innovative courses around sustainability. Several have also initiated Certificates in Sustainable Business, taking a variety of different and innovative approaches (26 April).

We also focused on a range of methods for teaching sustainability, in particular the increasing number of tools available online for faculty to use in their courses, including lectures (19 March), discussion spaces (23 January) as well as online games developed by NGOs (27 February), the business sector (5 March) and universities (15 March).

Finally we focused on bringing out some of the favourite business and sustainability examples of faculty from around the world, including examples from the Dominican Republic, Tanzania and Slovenia (3 July), the USA and Australia (29 October), Poland, UK and the Netherlands (13 February), and Canada, UK and New Zealand (30 August).

Sustainable Campus

Quite a few schools are doing some excellent work around creating more sustainable campuses including looking at providing more sustainable food options (7 May – Sustainable Food on Campus Part 1 and Part 2) and encouraging bike use on campus (6 February – Creating more sustainable campuses: Bikes). Universities have come up with innovative ways to make their campus more sustainable including Aston with their Go Green Awards (21 August – Go Green Awards), Olin’s Sustainability Case Competition (17 September – Using a case competition to make campus more sustainable), the Student Green Energy Fund at University of South Florida (December -) and Viterbo’s Metrics of Sustainability course (3 September – Engaging your students in making your and other organisations more sustainable). We also looked at a variety of ways in which students are becoming more engaged in these discussions whether it be through conferences (9 January – Responsible Leadership in China), Board Fellows Programmes (2 January - Board Fellows Programmes) or through a range of contests (19 November – Contests for Business Students in Sustainability). As signatories are getting engaged in more and more activities across campus they are also exploring how to better communicate these activities and other sustainability programmes both across campus and with other stakeholders (30 July – Communicating your work with stakeholders).

Exploring specific themes

Quite a few schools are doing some excellent work around specific topics and, in particular around Rio+20, many of them were featured here. In May, we had a focus on Water, both on campus and in the curriculum (21 May – Creating a more sustainable campus: Water Part 1 and Part 2). We have also had blogs on the topic of Microfinance (20 February - Teaching Students about Microfinance) and social entrepreneurship (5 November – Innovations in Social Entrepreneurship Courses Part 1 and Part 2).

We finished off the year with a three part series focused on the UN International Year of Cooperatives, which took part throughout 2012, with an overview of the year (26 November – Introduction), a range of examples of cooperatives around the world (10 December – Business examples) and finally some examples of schools providing teaching and programmes around the topic (24 December – Business School Response). In 2013, this focus will continue with a look at how to incorporate cooperatives into business education programmes.

2013

In 2013 we will continue to provide a range of best practices around mainstreaming sustainability and responsible leadership into management education globally. Some new features for 2013 will include a dean’s corner and a continued focus on how to incorporate the 6 Principles of PRME into your work.
Primetime is all about featuring the work that you are doing at your schools in the area of management education and sustainability/responsible leadership. If you have an interesting example that you would like to share with the community or if there is a particular theme that you would like to see explored, please do email me at gweybrecht@thesustainablemba.com.

Source: Primetime

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2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 1)

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2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 1)

This is the first part of a two part series reviewing the best practices in responsible management. It was written by Giselle Weybrecht the author of  The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Prior to this she worked for many years with the United Nations internationally in sustainable development. Today she works with government, universities, NGOs, business and with social entrepreneurs in sustainability around the world. She is committed to ensuring that the next generation of business leaders fully understand sustainability by working with business schools and businesses to embed these issues into their programmes. She is a dynamic and sought after speaker in sustainability issues and also writes on sustainability and business issues for a variety of publications including the Economist and Forbes.

2012 has been an interesting year for sustainability and management education and through Primetime I have tried to share some of the incredible work that PRME signatories are doing to mainstream responsible leadership and management education around the world. Primetime has become quite a repository of examples and in the final few blogs of the year I wanted to summarize the range of resources and experiences that have been featured.

Rio+20 and the 3^rd Global Forum

In 2012 many of us made our way to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for Rio+20, where world leaders, governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups came together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection to get to the future that we want (29 March – Management Education and Rio+20 Part 1 and Part 2). The academic community came together for the PRME 3^rd Global Forum for Responsible Management Education, the official platform for management-related Higher Education Institutions (8 June – Getting ready for Rio+20, The Nine Major Groups Part 1 and Part 2). There were also a range of other events throughout the Rio+20 meeting where the PRME community was quite active (30 May – Getting Ready for Rio: Business Education Events). Jonas Haertle, the Head of the PRME Secretariat, followed up the event with a thought piece on the contribution of the private sector and academic institutions in support of sustainable development and the Rio+20 process (5 July – Why Rio+20 was still a success)

There were several outcomes of the Global Forum (19 June – Outcomes of the 3^rd Global Forum, 14-15 June, Brazil). One of the major outputs was the Inspirational Guide, a collection of case stories that provide the answers to the most frequently asked questions concerning the implementation of PRME and seeks to inspire further integration of PRME by highlighting real world examples from signatory schools and universities (31 May – Introducing the Inspirational Guide).

PRME Working Groups

The different working groups were also very active this year and we focused on some of the projects done by the Poverty Working Group (10 September – Poverty Working Group Part 1 and Part 2), the Working Group on Anti-Corruption in Curriculum Change’s Toolkit for embedding Anti-Corruption guidelines into MBA curriculum (12 November – A toolkit) and the Global Gender Equality Repository for Management Education put together by the Working Group on Gender Equality (26 June – Creating a Global Gender Equality Repository for Management Education).

Collaborations across schools

Several member schools got together during the year to share experiences around sustainability issues both at PRME regional forums (MENA, Asia, Australia/New Zealand) and outside of these meetings. Aarhus University in collaboration with PRME organized the first PRME Leaders +20 competition which aimed to encourage faculty and student teams to submit innovative ideas on how to address sustainable development as part of management education courses and curricula at business schools (31 January – PRME Leaders+20 competition). Two of the winners of the contest were featured; The University of Auckland’s new course “Managing change for a better world” (9 July – Creating new courses around sustainability), and MacEwan Business School’s work to include more of an emphasis on sustainable business in the core introduction to Canadian business course (15 October – Competition Challenges Business Students to Rethink Course in Sustainable Terms).

Faculty from Mzumbe University and KCA University visited ISAE in Brazil to learn about their approach to embedding sustainability into their curriculum (3 December – East Africa University Researchers learn from Brazilian Experience). Several schools from across the US, led by Maharishi University, collaborated on a Summer MBA Sustainability Consortium opening up summer sustainability courses to students from the different schools (16 July – The Summer MBA Sustainability Consortium). In Australia several signatory schools have collaborated on a Graduate Certificate in Social Impact (1 October – Graduate Certificate in Social Impact). There were also a range of research related collaborations featured from Canada, the US, France, UK, Denmark and Belgium (24 April – Research Collaborations and Sustainability Part 1 and Part 2).

Collaborations with business

Collaborations are not just happening across universities but also increasingly with the business sector. Several schools have been busy pairing up with both other business schools and local businesses to create more case studies focused on sustainability, in particular at a regional level (16 April – Creating Teaching Cases around Sustainability). In Canada, Concordia University has paired up with banks from across the city of Montreal to provide a new Sustainable Professional Investment Certificate for bankers (16 August – Sustainable Professional Investment Certification).

We have also seen an increase in collaborations within schools and transdisciplinary learning (23 July – Using a common theme to engage the student body in sustainability). Some examples this year have included Bentley, with their course around Energy Needs (24 September – Creating a cross-disciplinary course in sustainability) and Aston’s approach to teaching ethics (8 October – Taking a transdiciplinary approach to teaching ethics).

Source: Primetime

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2012 Summary of Best Practices in Responsible Management Education (Part 2)

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Happy New Year: Lets Make 2013 a More Sustainable Year

As 2013 commences we are called to to reflect on the year that has been. Most importantly we need to consider what we will do in the year to come. Last year we saw a number of studies and dire warnings about the state of our environment.There is reason to believe that both the business community and ordinary people are coming to terms with the facts.

The costs and risks associated with climate change make a powerful business case and extreme weather is making it increasingly difficult for the average person to ignore global warming.

In 2012 governments dithered but businesses around the world engaged climate change in record numbers. There was even evidence suggesting that average Americans are embracing climate science in ever increasing numbers.

This year we must come together to act. Businesses, consumers and even elected officials must get serious about engaging the environmental threats we face.

Let us dare to hope that despite the prodigious obstacles arrayed against us that 2013 will be the year that climate change gets the attention that it deserves. At the very least let us all commit to doing what we can to make human activities less egregious to the Earth.

© 2013, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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