Community | Sustainable Path

Category Archives: Community

2011 — A Pivotal Year for Investors

Written on December 16, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Economics, investing, stewardship

Impact Investing, Sustainable Investing. Double Bottom Line. Triple Bottom Line. Investing for Change. Three years ago, these were big ideas and messages that 99% of the world didn’t understand or even care about. They amounted to doing good and trying to make some money. It was the world of foundations and charities trying to express that they are not all giving money away, but rather are trying to use some of the principles of capitalism.

This year we have seen a major shift in the choice of words used to describe what is going on and what investors are willing to invest in. We are in the middle of the shift to investing in key resources that are under pressure or becoming scarce. We are seeing mainstream capital pay attention to the value of these resources and how they are being used. Sometimes, unfortunately, not for the betterment of that resource but for the exploitation of the opportunity, but we will get back to that later.

We are now seeing the first of the mainstream investors stepping up and realizing that not only can they invest in agriculture, water, energy and real estate, but they can do it the right way and take into account the environmental and social costs: By first investing in asset managers that understand and make more money (enhanced Alpha,) and then the asset class as a whole. This is a huge and significant step for capital management and the environment.

In public and liquid securities, 2011 has been a turning point as well. This week, Generation Investment Management published the Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism, citing what companies are doing, should be doing and how investors can view their portfolios differently to encourage long term gain through better management of resources, assets, environment and people. Clearly this message is going mainstream and it is not just a negative screen or positive screen: It is a new understanding of how companies think about their impact and use of resources. It is becoming definable, measurable and investable.

One of the largest data providers, Bloomberg Data Services, makes it possible to analyze many factors of ESG that public entities publish now. For instance, we can evaluate how efficiently energy, water, carbon is being used compared and crossed with revenue, employees, sq. ft. of space, etc. It looks at the social metrics as well, such as how a company invests into its communities of interest. Bloomberg also tracks the governance metrics that look at policies, objectiveness and transparency. These are important metrics and can only get better over time. There are 5 to 10 other interesting metric providers and we can expect that many of these will get absorbed into the mainstream investing as well.

This is also a key year for B-Corporations, a new type of corporate classification that says we are in business to make money but also count into the equation of looking at the environment and social issues that the business effects. They promise to publish even more data and have more transparency in their business operations. This year 5 more states (New Jersey, Virginia, Hawaii, California, and New York) have adopted the corporate form from the original two (VT and Maryland) and it looks like 10 more will for 2012.

Major investors such as Pension Funds, Endowments, Wealth Management Firms and Private Banks are all looking for products in agriculture, water, energy, land, real estate as well as other valuable resource investment plays. While this is good, and can be better, they do not completely understand which ones are creating a better environment and social construct versus those that just exploit the short term value: For instance, an agriculture investment that improves the land, the soil and the natural systems versus one that uses the industrial system of agriculture and also can deplete soils and ruin the environment will perform better over the medium and long term.

More time is needed to inform investors of what is possible using best practices and methodologies. More investors need to take the time to learn which are the driving forces that can make all the difference. As we look back on 2011, we will remember many key milestones — in politics, innovation and environment — and hopefully move forward in our goals to be better stewards of our planet.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Rethinking Existing Infrastructure Systems

Written on October 12, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Economics, agriculture, sustainability

On October 13th, I will be giving a talk to The Wharton Program for Social Impact and the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL).

The essence of what I will be speaking about is how the world needs to rethink or redo how we live. This is more than a question of sustainability, instead it addresses what will be needed to allow us to thrive again on this planet. While it might sound lofty, it is all about how to invest into and profit from the redesign of our core services. I will speak in depth on how Bio-Logical Capital, a land development and conservation company, is looking at large landscapes to restore, redevelop, and conserve the land so the human settlement can thrive within the natural environment. We are creating a living model that will not only function well, but be a great place to live and profit so that many can follow.

Our basic services and systems of water, energy, agriculture, transportation and housing are all in major need of not only an upgrade, but a fundamental philosophy and design change. It is not that these services and systems were ever bad, they are now just outdated in function, design and technology. Just because something worked 100 years ago does not mean that it is right for today. These systems were never designed to carry the loads they are experiencing today. More importantly they never really looked at natural systems as an alley, but rather viewed them as an impediment and obstruction that needed to be altered to suit man’s needs. We keep patching a framework that is now a flawed design.

Let’s look at water and wastewater for starters. Water naturally flows down hill. It rains up top and runs in rivers to the ocean, then is evaporated into the atmosphere and back again. Our water systems do the same: We take water from a source use it, filter it and dump it back to the ocean. We take rainwater and wisk it away to big pipes and dump it in the ocean. Good right? Not really. Nature stores water everywhere. Good rich soils, forests, and aquifers store water and hold onto it for dry times.

Natural systems have cycles that the animals and plants learn to work with.

Our water system interrupts all that evolutionary work and short-circuits it. So how do we redesign this? First, we must think decentralized solutions. We need to recycle water on a local basis, using gray water (which is practically potable) where ever possible. We need to use natural water stores for rain in the land, soil, and aquifers. We need to use more decentralized natural filtration techniques (biomimicry). We should use that big brown pipe full of wastewater and harness the energy from the waste, which will either be additional revenue or an offset of cost. We can also resell the nutrients from the wastewater as well as sell the gray water itself as a product. This shift is so fundamental that the costs of such a system are dramatically less and the profits much more.

To touch on agriculture as I have written before, if we use the natural systems we can grow food more sustainably, growing healthy soils and healthy food in a post industry agriculture system that is robust, resilient and abundant. Food and agriculture are central to the health of a community. Knowing where your food comes from is not only necessary for good health but wonderful in that it brings people together. A large part of the failures of our healthcare system can be attributed to our food system. Natural agriculture solutions work in cooperation with nature and leverage its resourcefulness.

I use these two examples to show what is possible in all the basic services. Bio-Logical Capital is in process of rebuilding communities based on the principles of natural systems, as pioneers of stewardship development. How can mankind fit into this landscape and build a living environment that we all would like to see and be part of?

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Urban Farming Is Catching On Fast

Written on September 18, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Economics, agriculture, marketing, sustainability

San Francisco is getting smart and ahead of the urban farming game. The city recently passed a law allowing people to sell the produce they grow in their own yard. Urban farming has been accelerating and under the radar for a while now. Approving this practice makes sense, especially in these difficult economic times. The San Francisco Urban Agricultural Alliance can help people get started with advice on how to farm and even how to find land.

This is in sharp contrast to the issues that I discussed in a prior entry about Novella Carpenter, and the challenges she faced in the city of Oakland that was trying to shut her down.

A great piece to read, “Farming the Concrete Jungle,” goes deep into the movement that is sweeping the economy not only for financial reasons, but health and even environmental. The article points out how it’s better to have a pretty garden then a overgrown, littered and abandoned lot next door, and a little extra cash and good food makes life a whole lot better.

Creating a product to sell (and in this case growing a product) is the first step of any business, but then you have to know how to sell it. Most urban farming is not your average lemonade stand, unless you have the property in a major walkway. You need to think about the whole business. Growing the product is one skill set you need, but knowing what to grow and finding buyers for your product is actually more important. Farming is a business like any other and it is a tremendously entrepreneurial.

For most people, you start out by growing only for your family and friends. Then as you succeed, you can expand your ambitions and hopefully your wallet.

I do think there is an opportunity to band together a set of growers for products then identify the customers and the produce they would like and sign a deal. But then you have to deliver the goods. Customers need consistency, so they know they can count on your product. If you think urban farming is for you, think carefully and do your homework, talk to a lot of people and customers to get the lay of the land before you venture too far.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Keeping What We Have Maybe Harder Then We Thought

Written on August 18, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Economics, Uncategorized, sustainability

Any real estate agent will tell you, “If you can’t invest and maintain your own property then it degrades, and so does the neighborhood.”

For the past few years, I have been flying small planes over parts of the country. It is amazing to see the how we have built out our country. It is piece meal and an unplanned hodge podge of suburbs, malls, industry and farms and roads that go all around them. No real thought or care for the land or nature and how we can best use them.

Compare this to flying over Europe and you see mid density towns separated by open space and farms with rail and road network connecting the towns. It is beautifully laid out and planned. European towns have worked for a couple of millennium and will continue to work thousands of years more.

What’s distressing is that the USA’s suburban sprawl is so costly to build out and support, as compared to most of Europe which is cost effective and has lots of resilience in its design.

Now add the problem of the U.S. government’s continual under investment into infrastructure (even with the Stimulus package) compared to other parts of the world. Europe is currently investing a robust 5% of its GDP in infrastructure — more than double the paltry 2% spent by the U.S. And this is not a new trend. Infrastructure investment in the U.S. hasn’t risen above 2% of GDP for more than 30 years.

How can we maintain our standard of living and keep a viable economic engine, if we let our basic infrastructure crumble? Given the financial crisis we have, how are we going to find more to invest into the basic needs of our physical plant? We are going to have to dig deep to figure out what we really want as citizens of this nation in need. I hope we have it in us.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

The Right to Grow Food and Then Some

Written on June 9, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Organic, agriculture, sustainability

Last summer my family started our own garden in our yard. We thought we’d picked a reasonable size of five, 6’x4’ beds. We planted the usual things, lettuces and tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and zucchini, with a few herbs like basil, dill, thyme and rosemary. We planted and waited. And boy did it produce! It produced so much, and so often, that we had to give it away to family, friends and neighbors. Everyone who crossed our threshold was sent home with a large brown bag of vegetables. We even had one friend who stopped by daily to hand pick her dinner salad. Realizing we couldn’t give it away fast enough, my youngest daughter wanted to sell the excess lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers in a makeshift farm stand converted from her old lemon-aide stand – how fun, how harmless and how entrepreneurial.

So a couple months ago, I read in the San Francisco Chronicle about Novella Carpenter and her Ghost Town Farm being shut down by the city of Oakland, ““. You can check out updates to her plight on her blog Ghost Town Farm

Thinking that she was doing the right thing, improving her town while at the same time providing fresh, wholesome, locally grown produce, Novella did the same thing as my daughter, although on a much larger scale. From all appearances, it seems like a win-win. But the city doesn’t see it that way. They step in and say she isn’t allowed to grow and sell without a zoning change and permits to sell. Ostensibly, Christine is breaking the law.

I think the laws need to change. We should be encouraging, not discouraging, this type of neighborly endeavor. This was not a commercial operation designed for making a living and commercial profit. It was undertaken to make the neighborhood better. It engaged the community, and more importantly, the kids within that community, and showed them what could be done with a plighted piece of land all the while showing them how food is grown. Pretty powerful.

So back to the law prohibiting her from selling her produce. You have to realize what it was trying to achieve. It was designed to protect neighborhoods so no one person creates a business that then changes the character of that particular neighborhood. No one wants lots of people and cars and parking and all the issues that come from a commercial downtown setting to come to their neighborhood. But a little local corner farm stand wouldn’t have that same affect. It encourages people to walk, to socialize with their neighbor’s, to eat and shop local, and to have pride in their neighborhood. We have to rethink our laws and policies in these difficult economic times. We have to have to be flexible and adapt and design rules of governance the match the needs of society.

Community gardens create neighborhoods and put people in touch with nature and the food they eat. Allow people to dig in and help and learn and grow to be food smart. Isn’t this what it is all about?

3 Comments - Leave a comment!

The Necessity of Buying Local

Written on May 4, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Economics, sustainability

A sustainable local economy is all about keeping local business going and local people employed. This in turn drives the tax base and helps the community at large be a lot happier. Yet, most people will go to the big box retailers to save a little money, not realizing how it harmfully impacts their own community. So let’s make this clear: “Buying local does not mean spending more for less.”

When people are presented with the option paying less of a product versus paying more, most would choose to save money. However, when presented with the option of paying a slight premium for a good or service from a local merchant and realizing they are helping there town survive and even thrive versus a discounted product at a big box, most people would opt for the former. Now add to that the experience of buying from someone you know and trust and the added feeling of community, it becomes a slam-dunk to buy local. There is a lot of data to support this notion but a recent study does a nice job of depicting the flow of dollars.

A study in Michigan got to the bottom line of buying local. They found thatbuying from your friendly and neighborly vendor or store does drive your local economy 58% better than buying from the big brand outlets.

For every $100 Spent to a Locally Owned Business, $68 stayed in the local economy vs the same $100 spent non-locally $43 stayed local.

Click on image to enlarge.

This is good news, it shows how much more benefit the entire community receives when people buy local. This is neither a definitive study nor the only way to cut the math. But it does show what is possible and useful about staying in your neighborhood. When you really start to look at the various sectors in the local economy, what is most impressive is that food follows an even greater path to putting more back into the community than most goods do.

Many small and mid-size towns have been heavily, and usually negatively, impacted by the brand and big box retail plays. Many shops and store fronts have been forced to shut down. Many jobs have left and the towns feel abandoned or destitute. The other negative effect that mass merchants have had is in the more mid to upscale suburban towns. One can literally walk any upscale neighborhood and find it to be identical to any other one. They all house the same brand name stores and faceless people. Is this really what we want from our local towns?

We are going to have to unlearn some lessons in scale and economics as we enter a new era of optimizing around communities not just the bottom line of one business.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Building A Community

Written on April 28, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, stewardship

Community…. Many people use the word, but what is a community? A town? A neighborhood? A bunch of people living together in a defined area?

Maybe it’s much more, such as a group that is together and sharing or a common bond, heritage or way of being. I like to think of it as a place where I can walk down the street, know some of the shop keepers, bump into or meet people I know, and enjoy the good feeling that comes with that.

This concept is centered around a small town where shops, restaurants, business, apartments, and homes are all concentrated in an area, so people can walk around to do their business; go to school; and enjoy the town shops and feel the good vibe.

In the New York Times article, “The Last Townie”, Greg O’Connell shows how one man can make a difference. He clearly thought out what is essential: good eats, a little entertainment, unique shops; coffee shops, bakeries, restaurants, pubs, movies, arcades, what ever appeals to people to engage and partake in the town.

He bought buildings at good prices then dropped the rents of the store fronts to allow the most creative and eclectic entrepreneurs to open their shops. This in turn drove people to want to be there and live there. The rents for living were more standard in price, but well worth it as the main attraction was on the shop front.

He figured out what the neighborhood needed and he helped create it. He became a good steward of the town. In developing a picture of what would work, he thought about the long-term. The huge value he created for everyone in turn benefited him. His own assets appreciated with the value of the town!

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Sustainable home improvement update

Written on January 26, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Energy Efficiency, stewardship, sustainability

A long year of work and not much progress to show at my house. We set out to become as waste free as possible. We quickly realized this is hard work. Here is an update on our home improvement progress towards living more sustainably:

We installed the solar system that powers our whole house. Now we enjoy about seven months of the year “off grid” while the other five months we get only 50% of our power needs from the system. We knew this when we started but the idea of “free” electricity is addictive.
We have installed CFL bulbs where possible and are stuck with a Halogen lighting for much of our home. While very efficient, it is not up to par with LED systems, which still have to drive down the cost curve.
We have tracked our power consumption issues to AV and computer equipment around the house. These are notorious uses and we are installing power down smart sockets where we can. The other big culprit was the pumps for the pool. We now only run the filters at night and have upgraded to more efficient pumps as well.
On the food front, our garden did very well and continues to produce lettuce for us into winter. But we are retooling for a better spread of a growing season and selection. We also are experimenting with our own composting and we will wait to see if we are successful.
Our water consumption is doing fine as we are all on a much reduced shower plan and take group showers (just kidding). Really, we are all now super conscience of how much time we shower and trying limited toilet flushing when possible.

Which now leaves me to the big issue of garbage. This past Christmas we were shocked at the waste of packing and materials that were used. We are going to think about how we change wrapping and even the packaging of things we give as gifts. I am not sure Santa would approve, but even he must care about the trees. In general we are down to one garbage can and a huge recycling bin.

I read about a family that has taken this to a whole new level, The Johnsons. They have a zero-waste approach to using resources that is admirable. They have fantastic approach that made the process manageable and have achieved amazing results. Maybe something we should try next?

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

What is a Sustainable Community?

Written on January 21, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, Energy, stewardship, sustainability

Many times I find myself in discussions around what a “sustainable” community is, and how it is different from a “normal” community.

There really should be no difference when you think it through. What we mean when we say “sustainable” is that we are setting the goal of something being self-sustaining, which is virtually unattainable. This means that everything (and I do mean everything) that is consumed is produced within the community. In today’s world we know it is not practical to have everything produced and consumed locally, so in reality when we say “sustainable community” we mean that what is produced has a very low impact footprint on the resources used.

The idea is not to take away more from the earth than what we put back, in the form of renewable or recyclable materials. Ultimately, what also matters is how we live and exist in our communities – from the basics like water, energy, gas, food and garbage to the more subtle ideas of livability indexes that measure quality of life and “net user” — and consider our role as “net-giver-back” to the environment or Earth. We need to pay attention to the materials used in homes, buildings, and infrastructure of the community and strive to have them be renewable or recycled whenever possible.

Creating sustainable thriving communities is essential to having a robust economic engine. A sustainable town or village at its best can only support 15-25% of the jobs needed. This is good in the sense that today’s suburbs probably only support less than 5% of the jobs in the community.

In creating sustainable communities, we are going to have to ask not only what can be more economically produced or serviced locally (because that answer is very limited,) but also what is the total cost to the environment or population of any given product or service. No where is this more obvious than in the local food equation, but it also applies to a host of other products and services, such as medical services (every town needs doctors to care for its people.)

The article in The San Francisco Chronicle “Small-town emergency” is a classic tale of economic optimization which does not take into consideration the overall cost to the community. There are many such examples. We have to think differently about the entire cost of living and how we as people want to live. The more services or products that can be produced in a community, the more integrated it becomes and usually the happier and more interconnected the commmunity is.

To solve the bigger equation of employment, every community needs an economic engine that drives it. We can use the example of a company town; one where many people find employment at the local company plant. That has many benefits to the community, but we have also seen the downside when that company ceases to operate. The more dependent a town is on one industry the more vulnerable it becomes. We have seen many towns in the east, mid-west, and west go bust as the industry that helped launch the town died.

The key to community survivability and sustainability is diversification of economic engines or the adaptability of the community and this we can discuss in future posts.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Exploring the Concept of Shared Value

Written on January 3, 2011 by Roland Van der Meer in Community, investing, stewardship

This month, Harvard Business Review’s cover article is titled, “The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value”. This is a great article. The concept of Shared Value is on the right track and trying to define a needed new paradigm, but it has to reach further to accomplish the bigger objective of stewardship of the land, environment and community.

The real issue is scarcity of resources, environmental and social consideration. We live on a fixed ball in space and need to think about the implications of everything we do holistically and systemically. This of course is very hard to do on a global scale, so then we must push to approach it from as large scale as possible, yet with a local view as possible.

BioLogical Capital, a Denver-based company, for instance looks at the issue from land sizes from 20 thousand acre to greater than 100 thousand acres it will manage. They become the steward of the land; to own and optimize with the community for all services and businesses that can co-exist with the natural habitat. Without this vision for man, nature and the total environment; people will suffer in long term.

So how do you shift this framework to a more global perspective? If you think in as big of scale as possible (space and land); can you optimize the solution for the biggest benefit for the environment and the people while building sustainable businesses. Here is the catch; if each business is self optimized, then by definition whole is not. Enter Regulation to control manage and set rules and standards, which is brought up in the article, yet as mentioned, this never solves this problem, although it tries. So how is this problem solvable? What Porter is trying to do is give a path to a better outcome. To take the best Capitalism has and marry this with the notions of real costs and consequences for people and environment; and in addition, you must take a very long term view. To use a simple example; if you produce food, but your minor toxic run-off that is creeping into the water table is killing your customers over decades; you will eventually put yourself out of business. This piece is the beginning of a bigger framework that needs to be built for the planet and people to succeed.

0 Comments - Leave a comment!