Making it happen - the transition to a sustainable society

Solar Energy Evolution: Death and Transfiguration

2011-11-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

The publication last week of the IPPC’s “Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Adaptation” brings home yet more evidence of the profound physical changes to our planet caused by man-made climate change: increase in the frequency of hot days, longer and more intense droughts, more heavy precipitation and increased wind speeds of tropical storms. The idea of the report is to get policymakers on the climate change adaptation page.

And in terms of actual GHG emissions, the news is no better. The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2010 since pre-industrial time and the rate of increase has accelerated, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released today. It focussed special attention on rising nitrous oxide concentrations.

The International Energy Agency also published last week in World Energy Report 2011 a stark warning that unless we invest in cleaner energy technology, temperature rise from climate change could be economically disastrous. “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

This raises the obvious question about mitigation: Where do we stand today in deploying non-GHG-making energy sources? How is solar energy faring?

A number of recent articles point to the fact that solar energy is going through a death and transfiguration phase, to borrow an image from Richard Strauss.

Richard Blackwell from the Globe and Mail wrote a rather dismal assessment of solar collector manufacturing companies in Ontario where policy uncertainties at the federal and provincial levels lead inevitably to customer nervousness. He shows that over the last year, a number of Ontario-based companies like Arise Technologies, or ATS Automation Tooling Systems are facing bankruptcy or closing plants. He blames the industry downturn on falling prices, over-capacity and intense competition. He also claims that there is a weak market, but others disagree.

Nobel economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman takes on a more global perspective and is firmly convinced that solar is much more promising than appears to be the case. For him, companies like Solyndra went under because they could not keep up with the competition and the dramatic drop in the global price of solar panels. The cost of electricity produced by photovoltaic cells has gone down by 7% percent a year in real terms. And “ if this downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.”

The source of this competition is China. According to Keith Bradsher of the New York Times, the country accounts for three fifths the world’s solar panel production. 95% of that is exported, much of it to the United States. Given China’s government-controlled economy, US solar panel manufacturers see their Chinese competitors as benefiting unfairly from government subsidies. And so it’s not surprising that the US Department of Commerce at the request of these manufacturers opened an investigation into “dumping” charges. The Chinese are accused of selling solar panels in the United States at prices lower than the cost of making and distributing them.

The Chinese cleantech industry responded to these charges vigorously which was to be expected. But surprisingly, a new American trade group representing buyers and installers of solar energy systems argued that “any new Commerce Department restriction on Chinese solar panels would slow the adoption of clean energy technology in the United States and could cost thousands of American jobs. Environmentalists also tend to oppose policies that might slow the adoption of solar energy.”

So here it is again, the age-old process of the introduction of a new technology and the death and transfiguration of a global industry.

Study finds high level interest in an Eastern Ontario Sustainability Cluster

2011-03-30T09:09:00.002-04:00

As part of our initial explorations of Phase II for our work, we have just completed with Ralph Torrie and Fiona Wright an initial study on the feasibility of creating or encouraging a sustainability cluster in Eastern Ontario.

Here are some of our conclusions:

A cluster is a reasonably understood geographic model for economic development, and Silicon Valley in California is a classic example. Other examples would be the Research Triangle in North Carolina, or Kanata in Ottawa West in IT and telecommunications.

Selecting Eastern Ontario as a geographic area of concentration for sustainability makes sense from a number of perspectives, including demographics, natural and ecological resources, presence of educational and research institutions, and, as the survey in this report shows, a large number of interested individuals and organizations working towards the goal of sustainable economic renewal.

An electronic survey was sent to 176 stakeholders, of which 27% responded. By most standards, this is considered to be a very high response rate, and is indicative of the high level of interest by these stakeholders in the proposed initiative. Respondents came from all over the region, including some outside Eastern Ontario, and included governments, financial institutions, businesses and corporations, and associations, networks, and NGOs. The survey was complemented with in-depth interviews with a selected sample of opinion leaders.

There is a high interest in sustainability in the region, judging by the significantly high level of response, the type of sustainability projects identified, and the response to various questions in the survey and the interviews.

There is a varying degree of awareness of market-based instruments (“MBI”s) to promote sustainability. This is based on the degree of recognition of a list of more than 50 MBIs presented in the survey, where fees and pricing strategies appear more prevalent than tax-related measured and outright incentives.

All respondents in the survey and the interviews were in favour of the idea of a cluster supported or facilitated by a central hub.

They also strongly suggest that the cluster address other sustainability challenges including water, water quality, waste generation and recycling, toxics and industrial hazardous waste.

Services or support that a hub could provide include:

Access to financing and government programs
Quantitative analysis of projects and provision of common information
Finding partners for DSM projects
Generation of economic and performance indicators, including job creation
Better access and communication with other players in the region.

In short, there is a wealth of interest and pent-up demand to start building a more systematic network or sustainability cluster in the region.

More to follow…

Creating an innvovation cluster in sustainability

2011-02-22T07:56:00.001-05:00

Can we create a regional innovation cluster to promote sustainability and job creation? To explore this question, we launched a small survey among Eastern Ontario stakeholders to determine their interest in sustainability and a possible Eastern Ontario initiative to promote regional sustainability. Here is the invitation letter to participate in the survey. If you have an interest in the region, feel free to fill it our by clicking the link below:

The Eastern Ontario Sustainability Strategy Project (EOSS)

Hello,

This is an invitation to participate in the initial steps of EOSS, the Eastern Ontario Sustainable Strategy, an initiative to drive job creation and sustainable economic development.

You and your organization have been identified as a stakeholder in the economic and sustainable development of the region

We are conducting a survey to assess the feasibility of promoting job creation and economic development in Eastern Ontario by creating a sustainable or green region. EOSS is supported by a number of organizations in the region, including the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, community colleges, industry and non-governmental associations.

This informal survey will help assess the current efforts in your community and region in projects promoting a cleaner environment and a sustainable community. We would also like to find out what services and support a hub or facilitative group should offer to increase this level of activity.

We would very much appreciate if you could spend a few minutes and fill out the survey in the link below.

Click here to Start Survey

Feel free to send out the survey to other people in your network.

The EOSS project team

André Potworowski andre@tma.cc

Ralph Torrie rtorrie@torriesmith.com

The next phase of our work - Can you help?

2011-01-15T13:23:00.004-05:00

The start of a new year is an appropriate time to make resolutions. It’s also a good time to define the next phase of our project. We talked to a lot of people and explored many options. We looked at the possibility of going into greater depths in analyzing more barriers and obstacles. We also thought of broadening our scope to examine other industrial and economic sectors.

But one idea did emerge as being particularly attractive and relevant for today’s society. Why don't we just take a specific geographical area, bring together all the local players, and look at all the levers to remove obstacles and accelerate change and the adoption of sustainable measures? Why not nurture and promote a sustainability cluster?

In other words, why not just "make it happen"?

Going back to the definition of Michael Porter from the Harvard Business School, an innovation cluster is a geographically proximate group of interconnected organizations such as universities, colleges, manufacturing and supplier companies, service organizations, financing and regulatory bodies linked by commonalities and complementarities.

Clusters have a common central purpose and generally excel in a particular sector of economic activity. Classical examples would be Silicon Valley in the area of semiconductors, Kanata (Ottawa West) in telecommunications and IT, or the lesser known town of Montebelluna in Northern Italy which for many years was the world capital for ski boots manufacturing, with companies like Nordica, Tyrol, Rossignol and Lange. Then there are the older clusters like the wine making regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy that have been around for centuries.

But here, we're not talking about a cluster that exports goods and services (although that may eventually happen) but a region which is specifically designated to promote the accelerated deployment of sustainability measures.

There is growing recognition that you can create more jobs for the buck when you invest in such measures as energy efficiency, energy conservation, or even locally-based renewable energy. The literature is small but solid and growing.

Being Green in short makes high economic sense. And it can be used to promote economic development and economic renewal, especially in a region where manufacturing and traditional industries have virtually disappeared.

At the Telfer school, we are exploring a specific initiative like that. We also know that any kind of cluster requires the building of a social community. That’s often called a cluster facilitator or catalyst. And we need the tools to do that, and we need your help to find them.

A special request

As part of our new project on regional sustainability at the Telfer School, we are looking for novel applications of social media to help facilitate and catalyze our cluster community. We need an integrative social media platform that can provide the critical linkages for an innovation clusters. We are looking for successful examples where these social networks have been used to build communities.

At the end of the day, we want to create a Clean Tech or sustainability cluster. We want to bring together communities, local government, as well as suppliers, manufacturers, technical experts and skilled trades, supported by a network of financial and technical advice and expertise. We want to share case studies, best practices, and provide some basic feedback, performance metrics, and scenarios and roadmaps.

We are looking for an integrative platform that would use the latest social network tools (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and link to Blogs and URL sites) to accelerate the trust building, communication and sharing among the stakeholders in the cluster.

Specifically, we're looking for successful examples where a social network integration platform has been used to help grow an innovation cluster, build a community, and link the various players and stakeholders. It doesn’t have to be related to sustainability or clean-tech, but we would like to see some truly effective (viral?) examples.

Can you help us by pointing us to such sites?

Choosing the right economic indicator – Gross National Happiness vs. Gross Domestic Product index

2010-07-28T21:33:00.008-04:00

Since the days of the Club of Rome and Canada's Conserver Society, the underlying debate about economic growth vs. resources depletion and environmental limits has continued relentlessly. Politicians and governments are focused on GDP growth. Environmentalists are looking for alternatives.

But Oliver Moore in a recent Globe and Mail article reminds us that there is at least one other way of measuring the success of a society: Gross National Happiness. He cites the example of Bhutan, a small idyllic mountainous country snuggled between Bangladesh and China. Faced with increasingly rapid change from the pressure of globalization, which threatened its traditional way of life unspoiled by colonialism, it was looking for an alternative. The country came up with a 9 x 72 matrix set of indicators that would assess the population’s mood.

The resulting Gross National Happiness or GNH index is based on residents’ assessment of nine domains including psychological well-being, time use, community vitality, culture, health, education, environmental diversity, living standard and governance. Each of these in turn is broken down into indicators or variables. For example, for living standard, there are eight indicators, i.e. household income, income sufficiency to meet everyday needs, food insecurity, house ownership, room ratio, purchase of second hand clothes, difficulty in contributing to community festivals, and postponement of urgent repairs and maintenance of house. In total, for the nine domains, there are 72 indicators or variables, each of which has an associated survey question and a resulting index. See the Centre for Bhutan Studies web site for details.

This GNH process has moved beyond a method of assessing the population.

The country's leaders now use it as a screening tool to assess whether decisions fit its criteria. For example, a recent proposal to join the WTO initially appeared attractive. But when it was screened against the GNH criteria, it was determined that the WTO policy would not further the GNH objectives. And so the proposal was rejected. A good analysis of the underlying thought process is given by Mark Mancall of Stanford University in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Bhutan Studies:

The pursuit of GNH depends upon the affirmation and reinforcement of Bhutan’s ability to exercise self determination in the positing of long-range objectives, short and intermediate-range policy decisions, and the development of the institutions and values in which those long-range objectives will be embedded and the procedures through which they will be realized. WTO membership weakens and diminishes national self -determination institutionally, procedurally, and culturally.

A key Canadian expert who helped Bhutan in adopting GNH is Ron Colman of Nova Scotia, founder of GPI Atlantic. He started by promoting the notion of a Genuine Progress Index (GPI) for Atlantic Canada. He sees progress as being more closely related to quality of life than depletion of resources such as fisheries or forestry.

More recently, the movement spread to the United States through GNH USA, which held a very successful conference last June in Middlebury, Vermont. Countries that expressed interest in GNH include Brazil, which had its own international conference on GNH last year and South Africa.

France is another country interested in alternative measures of progress. It recently published a report on alternatives to GDP as a measure of success through its Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. The French translate Gross National Happiness as…”Joie de vivre”!

Clearly, there is a long way to go before elections are won and lost on GNH progress, but the conceptual foundations are gradually being laid. And in Canada we are off to a good start now that Montreal has been ranked as the second happiest city in the world.

To drill or not to drill, that is the question

2010-07-27T16:44:00.012-04:00

We continue to examine barriers to moving toward a sustainable society

The gulf of Mexico BP catastrophe has brought into crystal-clear focus our long-standing dilemma over oil dependency. Should we continue our dependency on oil? Should we risk more Gulf-like disasters, including associated GHG missions from the combustion of fuel? Or NOT? To drill or not to drill, that is the question.

A recent New York Times article reports on conversations with some people in the small community of Dulac, Lousiana, and for them, the choices are very real. The issue has been brought to their front stage with dramatic clarity.

Most people in Dulac are reeling as they watch the local seafood industry collapsing under the body blow of the BP spill.

But there is another crisis caused by President Obama’s moratorium on oil drilling, which the Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jinda, calls "a second man-made disaster". The oil industry is responsible for huge majority of jobs in the area, and Louisiana lawmakers fear the drilling moratorium, could put more than “100,000 people out of work, shutter businesses and destroy livelihoods”.

Federal U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, known to invest in the oil and gas business, overturned the presidential moratorium. Last week, the US Justice Department issued a new moratorium that it hopes will pass muster with the courts.

And the fight continues. But the Dulac community members are beginning to ponder the merits of alternative energy. Those are difficult choices.

The ‘take home’ sustainability challenge can be phrased as follows:

How might we have a sustainable community (with no oil dependency) that can generate good jobs and economic prosperity?

The challenge of maintaining public commitment to sustainability

2010-05-29T11:22:00.002-04:00

One of the biggest barriers to the transition to a sustainable society is public attitude. In essence, sustainability involves transforming our economy from one that consumes excessive energy and resources. This requires a focused dedication to long-term objectives over a time period spanning 50 to 100 years. Although there are many other metrics to define sustainability, global warming has been the one single indicator on which we’ve focused to-date. Maintaining public support to address this challenge is critical.

What is distressing is a recent article in the New York Times about the drop in support for action against man-made climate change, especially in Britain - the forefront of climate change initiatives in OECD countries.

The NYT article quotes a BBC poll that finds that “only 26 percent of Britons believed that ‘climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,’ down from 41 percent in November 2009”. UK politicians, including new Prime Minister David Cameron, who have previously led the charge on climate change action are now soft-pedaling the issue. Similar trends though not as strong are appearing elsewhere in Europe.

Causes for this cooling of attitudes have been attributed to the growing visibility of climate change skeptics. Encouraged by the media, they have been making hay with last year’s email scandals at East Anglia University. Other contributing factors were some minor errors in IPCC reports, e.g. exaggerated rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers. And the coldest European January in recent years didn’t help either. The scientific community is beginning to fight back with letters and editorials in prestigious journals like Nature and Science.

But there is a deeper question. Unlike the January 2010 Haiti earthquake which galvanized world attention for almost half a year, climate change is a slowly progressing but far more pervasive and dangerous natural phenomenon. It has to be addressed through mitigation or adaptation strategies and the move to a sustainable society. But making the transition to a sustainable society requires consistent focus. This transition will require some short term sacrifices and tradeoffs. More impoertantly, it will also require a steadfast commitment spanning several elections at all levels of governments.

What’s the take home message? We have a simple challenge: how might we present sustainability as a long term critical societal goal, in a sufficiently attractive and compelling vision, to maintain the commitment over the next several decades.

Any suggestions?

New case study on the transformation of a major regulatory system – The Model National Building Code

2010-03-19T10:07:00.002-04:00

This is a special post to announce the publication of a case study examining the National Building Code of Canada. The story is about its transformation from a prescriptive to an objective-based code to become more flexible and allow for easier innovation.

The Model National Building Code is the single most important regulatory infrastructure to shape all buildings in Canada. In examining barriers and obstacles to sustainability – the underlying purpose of this blog -- it is important that we understand how the building code operates. More critically, we also want to appreciate what it takes to modify or change a large regulatory instrument like the building code. That’s an essential part of the process of removing obstacles and barriers to innovation and change.

Codes are very complicated instruments. Changing the basis on which they are built is therefore a complex and lengthy process. The detailed case study, prepared by André Potworowski and three MBA students from the University of Ottawa, provides a narrative account of that historical transformation which spanned a full decade.

This is a classic story of the significant effort needed to re-design a well-established regulatory system to make it more responsive to the needs of society.

One of the key lessons learned, is that once the new code was published in 2005, key stakeholders also had to undergo change. There is a lot of learning and training required to work effectively and take full advantage of this new regulatory framework. An international workshop of code writers and regulators from 17 countries was held in Calgary in September 2009 to share experiences from the transition to new performance- and objective-based building codes. The conclusion: we still have a way to go before the transition is complete and all the benefits of the new performance-based codes are reaped.

Special thanks to Director General Bob Bowen of the National Research Council’s Institute for Research in Construction who agreed to sponsor this project, and to Denis Bergeron and Guy Gosselin who helped throughout the research, data collection and editing process of the final draft.

To access the case study, click here: The Transformation of the National Building Code of Canada: from Prescriptions to Objectives

In search of better indicators, signposts and metrics to help us achieve sustainability – the case of green housing

2010-03-03T13:30:00.004-05:00

From our very first pre-workshop research and workshop proceedings two years ago, it became apparent that metrics and indicators were a critical element to the “Making it happen” project and the transition to a sustainable society.

Our first challenge was to define what we meant by a sustainable society, what were the vision and the metrics. So we reviewed over 50 studies, reports, and visions written over the last three decades. We also looked at a number of metrics or indicators used to define a sustainable society, such as energy consumption per capita, water consumed per capita and wastewater produced per capita, garbage generated per capita, and probably the hottest indicator, tons of carbon dioxide emitted per year.

Our main finding is that choosing indicators or metrics to describe a sustainable society, how you define them, what you actually measure and how, and achieving consensus on their relevance is a whole research area unto itself. For example, setting performance metrics or targets for greenhouse gas emissions is a highly charged political exercise – from the selection of the base year to the target year, all the way to deciding on the magnitude of the desired reductions. All these are subject to fierce debate.

More specifically, as we explored the barriers to shifting our residential housing stock to become sustainable or green, where we used the "net zero energy" houses as a benchmark, we discovered other challenges related to metrics.

For instance, a major challenge has to do with how to increase awareness of various stakeholder groups to the opportunity of green housing. This is a pre-requisite for the paradigm shift, and has to be achieved through such interventions as consumer education and information.

An essential component to achieve increased awareness is to demonstrate to all the members of the value chain (builders, vendors, real estate agents, consumers, and banks) the green value proposition, i.e. what is the real market value of an energy conserving feature. For example, most homeowners understand the positive impact on resale value of a house of a new $10,000 granite kitchen counter. Few people on the other hand appreciate the true dollar value of a $10,000 energy retrofit investment, e.g. achieved by installing extra insulation or triple glazed windows. We need clear agreed-upon indicators and metrics to capture and communicate this number down the value chain.

Another consideration is that an energy-efficient or "green" house looks no different from an ordinary house. We need some very clear, highly visible and simple indicators to show what is going on inside these energy-efficient houses, so normal people can readily see and appreciate what make them so unique and valuable.

At the end of the day, what the consumer really wants to know in real time is how much money these energy efficiency features are saving him or her, and what is the net operating cost of that property.

And when time-of-day meters become prevalent, consumers will want easy-to-read displays that make decision-making simple and easy: when to switch on major appliances, or delay it to another time of the day when the cost of electricity is cheaper. Already, gas and electric utilities are experimenting with various models.

On the financial side, the higher cost of green houses has led to a range of innovative financial instruments and business models. But an ongoing challenge is measuring and quantifying the dollar benefits of energy efficiency and environmental features, so that these can be better reflected in the market. Being able to measure the added value of "green" will facilitate the funding and sharing of the financial burden of the incremental cost of building an energy-efficient house.

In short, there is a need for a standardized simple energy efficiency and environmental performance rating system. The Energuide standard is well on the way to provide that. And NRC is developing a new energy building code. But these standards and metrics need to be visible throughout the marketplace, and should be reflected in such normal real estate transaction databases like the MLS. And building designer and inspectors, real estate agents, builders and bankers will all have to become thoroughly familiar with the new environmental and sustainability standards.

So trying to be green is good. But knowing precisely what is green, being able to measure and monitor it over the lifecycle of the product, so you can determine how well you’re doing is more critical.

Changing behavior -- the fun way

2010-02-16T11:01:00.002-05:00

One of the recurring challenges throughout our investigation of obstacles and barriers to achieving sustainability, is the ability to change human behavior.

My friend Bob Czerny sent me the link to an interesting Swedish website sponsored by Volkswagen. Called the fun theory.com, it is “dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.” The site recently organized a contest to identify creative and fun ways to change people's behavior for a better world.

The result is a highly creative collection of videos and ideas where, through a system of simple fun rewards or incentives like sound effects, consumers are drawn to the preferred behavior pattern.

Here are some of the more intriguing ideas:

Encourage people to use (piano) stairs instead of escalators

Throw garbage into garbage cans

Place glass bottles into green recycling bins or “bottle banks”.

Enjoy!

Meeting the new green house gas reduction targets – how do we make this happen?

2010-02-14T21:12:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month, the Canadian government filed its official greenhouse gas reduction targets with United Nations. Many environmentalists object that these targets are too low. Others, however, are asking the more basic question: what can the government do to make it happen?

The short answer is that it's not a technology issue, it's a management issue. We don't need new technology to reduce our fossil fuel combustion and greenhouse gas emissions. We already have all the technology. Our research shows that there are no less than 160 such technologies available. They exist, they are on the market and they work. It is not a question of creating new technology. It’s a matter of removing barriers and obstacles to make sure the existing technologies and solutions are fully deployed.

In the housing sector alone, we could reduce our carbon emissions by 60 to 80% before 2030 if we deployed 55 of these technologies in the 10 to 15 million residential units across this country. So what’s really stopping us?

Certainly financing plays a role. In deploying green technologies, homeowners face an immediate up front cost that energy savings would only amortize over decades. Yet this could be addressed through incentives, redistribution of taxes, rebates, different types of mortgages, and even novel business models.

Other barriers show up in the lack of widely approved standards or codes to move in this direction. And an even bigger one is the acute lack of skilled trades to implement and install these technologies. By one estimate, we would need a million skilled trades people to fully retrofit Canada's existing housing stock.

There are many such barriers and taken together, they are slowing down progress toward sustainability to a crawl.

One especially difficult set of barrier consists of the complex patchwork of contradictory regulations and incentives that confuses and misdirects progress.

We all say we would like to encourage the use of public transit, yet we provide highways with a 100% subsidy from taxpayers while partially subsidized transit systems have to charge for ridership.

We recognize the advantages of higher densities in cities yet we tax buildings at higher rates than empty land and we tax high-rise buildings at higher rates than we do low rises.

Becoming green is not rocket science. It involves thousands of small decisions taken systematically and strategically to move toward sustainability.

A compelling example of such choices is offered by the University of Ottawa. Over the past 25 years, the university tripled both its surface area and its population, but its overall energy consumption remained relatively constant. In effect, its ability to use energy efficiently increased by a factor of three!

There was no magic bullet involved, Instead, thousands of individual decisions and choices had to be made relative to water faucets, pipes, air-conditioners, compressors, boilers, heat recovery etc. Through careful monitoring of daily energy use, the plant manager was able to pinpoint opportunities that increased efficiency. The result was that the University saved $28 million and it reduced its CO2 emissions by 30-40%!

What made this possible was the dedication of one individual able to make financial decisions and investments to optimize the energy system because he had the consistent backing of the university administration.

In the same way, we need governments at all levels in Canada to provide Canadians with a consistent regulatory framework that gives them incentives to make choices tending toward sustainability.

Some governments are beginning to realize this. Ontario's new Green Energy Act, passed last year, provides incentives to those wishing to install renewable energy in their homes and sell the excess to the province's electricity grid. But what really makes this piece of legislation remarkable is that it was accompanied by a careful review of other laws to identify those that might conflict with the Act’s core objectives.

The legislators recognized that aggressive promotion of renewable energy demands the removal of many different barriers across many different jurisdictions. So the Green Energy Act includes amendments to no less than 15 other provincial statutes including the Electricity Act, the Building Code Act and the Planning Act governing municipal zoning. It even amended the Co-operative Corporations Act to allow for new renewable energy co-operatives.

In other words, it is not new technology that is needed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. Instead, we have to face up to our complex legislative and regulatory systems. We really need the will to get down to the nitty-gritty of identifying and removing the many small institutional and bureaucratic barriers that are stopping us from moving to sustainability.

The biggest manufacturer of green technology in the world

2010-02-08T11:36:00.013-05:00

By all accounts, China has become the largest manufacturer of green technology in the world. According to a recent article in the New York Times,

China is now the largest maker of wind turbines; Vestas of Denmark has just built the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex in Northeastern China;
It is the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels;
It is building the most efficient types of coal power plants;
Renewable energy industries employed 1.12 million people in 2008, and climbing by 100,000 year;
China is aiming for wind and solar and biomass energy to represent 8% of its electricity generation capacity by 2020;
It is the world's largest market for power equipment, and the government has committed $45 billion in 2009 to upgrade the electricity grid. Domestic demand for electricity is growing at 15% a year.

China's competitive advantages include interest rates as low as 2% for bank loans, and low labor costs.

The Wall Street Journal also points to the very aggressive efforts by China to develop an electric car.

BYD Auto Co. recently showcased in all electric car that the Chinese company intends to sell in the US by the second half of 2010. BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, is backed by a $230 million investment by Warren Buffett, for a 9.9% stake in the company (i.e. for a total capitalization of $2.3 billion).
In 2009 BYD sold 450,000 electric vehicles in China, an increase of 160% over 2008 figures.

That's big!

Why Canada is not (really) interested in fighting climate change

2009-11-04T20:03:00.003-05:00

The release last week of the Pembina Institute/Suzuki Foundation study “Climate Leadership, Economic Propserity” on the economic impact of addressing Canadian carbon emission targets has sparked criticisms from both politicians and media. Reactions from western politicians as well as Federal Ministers were understandably negative. But so was the Globe and Mail in its editorial position. Why?

A couple of weeks ago, I was finally given a candid explanation by a senior federal government official (who shall remain nameless) as to why fighting climate change and reducing its impact is not a high priority for Canada. He listed a number of perceptions currently shared by many federal politicians:

The first perception is that global warming will not hurt us. Unlike for developing countries, the impact of climate change on Canada will not be very severe. The US will suffer slightly more that us. But on the whole, the impact of global warming on our landmass will not be devastating compared to some developing countries, and in fact may have some benefits for us. At least that is the shared view.

Rising water levels and coastline erosion will not have a major impact, because most of Canada's coastline is largely uninhabited. Some small fishing villages may suffer, but these have very small populations.

Forced migrations from more vulnerable developing countries will not hit us as hard as say Florida, Australia or Europe, because Canada is more difficult to reach.

There is even the sense that global warming might in fact benefit us. Rising temperature would increase the productive agricultural areas, and would allow the production of new crops which until now could not grow in the cold climate.

However, the economic cost to Canada of addressing climate change head-on will be very high. The recent economic growth of Western and Atlantic Canada is largely based on oil, gas and coal. Canada has become the largest provider of petroleum to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia. So shutting that industry down will cause serious harm to the Canadian economy and Canadian jobs. And that is a very price to pay, economically and politically, for any federal government looking for a majority.

Bottom line: the general perception is that living in a warmer climate and adapting to it will be far less costly to the economy or the job market than making major efforts to reduce carbon emissions and getting the country "off-oil". That is what my federal official said.

This is the most succinct explanation I’ve heard to date as to why the current federal government is seen to be dragging its feet in supporting climate change mitigation or any serious move to a sustainable society, domestically and internationally. The hurt of doing nothing is much less than the pain of going off-oil – at least in the way my friend and his colleagues see it.

Furthermore, a province like Ontario, which is not a petroleum or fossil fuel producing exporting province, is driven by a need to revitalize its manufacturing industry. It has chosen to do so by promoting a renewable energy industry. And that explains its strong support of renewable energy and conservation through such measures like the Green Energy Act.

Needless to say, I found that perspective to be somewhat discouraging. But I was grateful to my interlocutor for expressing his view so clearly so that even I could understand it.

What can be done?

Going back to the analysis underpinning our study “Making it happen”, when faced with such a clear anti-global warming set of premises, it becomes easier to develop a strategy to shift these. We can analyze these perceptions and use them as a basis for defining our challenges. And we can formulate these challenge statements as following, for example, using the phrase “How might we…?”:

How might we show in a convincing way the scale of the long-term harm to Canada of rising temperature, e.g. invasive species such as the pine beetle, droughts in the prairies, or growing number of extreme climate events?

How might we demonstrate the increased vulnerability of Canadian agriculture to these warmer temperatures and increasing climate changes and their ecological effects?

How can we make it irresistible for Western and Atlantic provinces to go “off oil”, and develop an attractive business proposition that a non-petroleum economy would be far better for them in the long run?

It’s high time that these issues be brought into the open and debated fully and clearly.

A good example of holistic change: the Ontario Green Energy Act

2009-10-13T15:31:00.005-04:00

Barriers to innovation and change have to be addressed holistically. That is one of the conclusions in our "Making it happen" study. A clear example of this has been confirmed to me last week when talking to a couple of people involved in the preparation of Ontario's Green Energy Act.

What makes this particular piece of legislation unique is the integrated and holistic approach it takes to address the intended challenge project. Specifically, the act contains a dozen or more amendments to other provincial statutes, to eliminate specific barriers to the deployment of renewable energy. In other words, the officials and consultants involved in drafting this legislation went to great lengths to identify the barriers and obstacles existing in other provincial laws and statutes that would impede the deployment of renewable energy.

What has intrigued me ever since the Act was first tabled is how these obstacles and different statutes were identified. In other words what was the holistic process used in developing this legislation to eliminate all these obstacles.

Last week, I finally had opportunity to talk to a couple of people who were involved in consulting stakeholders and develop a vision for the act, and who were responsible for drafting the final legislation.

What emerges is a very conscious and deliberate attempt to take an integrated approach. First of all, this initiative was led from the very top in the provincial government, all the way from the Premier's office. Based on our previous work on sustainable communities, such leadership is essential if you want to break silos and build collaboration across jurisdictions.

The process followed a number of steps. Extensive consultations were undertaken through the Green Energy Act Alliance, involving various stakeholder groups: First Nations, farmers, advocates and practitioners, current and retired employees of local distribution, companies and municipalities, civil servants, lawyers, business leaders and a broad representation of nongovernmental organizations. This allowed for each stakeholder group to identify what they saw as the opportunities, obstacles and barriers. A key output of these consultations was the production of a Vision for a Greener Energy System for Ontario.

Another process was taken by senior legal officials in the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure responsible for drafting the actual legislative text. Together with a team of legal experts from other ministries, they examined the specific regulatory/legal obstacles in the various statutes and looked at the legal implications of changing them. When needed, they verified with those responsible for the central policy (which presumably meant going back to Ministers when necessary) to ensure that these could be amended.

My inquiries were by no means comprehensive, or even sufficient to write a full case study. But they do point to a number of elements essential to such a holistic approach:

There was leadership at the very top

There was broad consultation with external stakeholders

There was intensive internal consultation within the provincial bureaucracy led by Cabinet to eliminate legal and other institutional barriers in other Ministries

The process took about three to four months, from November 2008 to February 2009 when the legislation was tabled, i.e. not an exorbitant Amount of time.

In other words, there was a conscious will and focused effort to identify all the barriers and obstacles that would impede the implementation of renewable energy. Moreover, these obstacles and barriers had to be addressed in the new legislation.

This is the kind of approach that has to be far more prevalent at all levels of government if we are to move to a sustainable society.

Incidentally, one of the government lawyers tells me that that he remembers this approach being used only once previously. This was in the 1980s (!), when a consumer protection legislation was being considered.

So we have a long way to go before this becomes prevalent.

Final Report

2009-09-05T09:36:00.007-04:00

Our final report and all the background research papers are now available at http://makingithappen.ca/ .

Click here to download the final PDF summary and recommendations.

Highlights from Phase I report:

2009-08-25T09:57:00.004-04:00

Here are some highlights to expect in our Phase I report, “What the federal government should do to remove barriers to innovation and change, and lead Canada to a sustainable society":

Canada already has all the technology needed to reduce greenhouse gases by 60% within two decades.

What's stopping us from deploying these technologies are deep rooted institutional, legal, regulatory and economic barriers, such as lack of standards and proper metrics, inadequate financial instruments to pay for energy conserving measures, restricted leasing contracts and an insufficient supply of skilled labour.

Some 100 such barriers to innovation and change for sustainability have been identified, e.g:

The federal government should start by setting a compelling example. For instance, a federal government department can be disinclined to implement energy conserving measures because it is a tenant and not the owner of the building it inhabits. The divergent interests of landlord and tenant are a barrier to action that can be overcome by a new leasing arrangement between the department and the agency that acts as its landlord.

While Canadian homes should all be energy efficient, it would require a million trained contractors to retrofit all existing housing units in Canada for energy efficiency. There are no provisions currently to train or certify this number of building contractors.
Many of these can be addressed by stronger collaboration among governments and better ways of measuring our progress

The report calls on the federal government to take on a role of leadership by example, by facilitation and by direction.

Stay tuned for the complete report on-line by September 3, 2009

Overcoming barriers: finding innovative ways to monitor GHG emissions

2009-05-13T12:12:00.002-04:00

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development published today a report on the government's compliance to the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act that was passed in 2007 in the House of Commons, by all parties save the governing party. Obviously, this can only happen in the minority government situation.

From our perspective of barriers to change and innovation, it is worthwhile to look at just one aspect of the auditor’s critique, namely the lack of proper monitoring system. I don't want to belabor the point as to whether environment Canada did or did not fulfill its duty with regards to monitoring GHG emissions, or the requirements of the Act. But I do want to focus on the critical importance of having such a monitoring system in any change management process, which is what a transition to a sustainable society is all about.

As our research has shown today, especially using the example of the residential sector, deploying green technologies that dramatically reduce GHG emissions, water use and wastewater generation, and garbage, requires a very large number of small decisions. More importantly, the barriers to these innovations and changes cover all jurisdictions and within each jurisdiction, go across several departments and silos. There is no single golden bullet. But there are some overall metrics with relations to GHG emissions, water, energy usage and so on. And we discussed these in an earlier post (see Setting sustainability and environmental targets (1): Recent announcements on GHG emissions ; Setting sustainability and environmental targets (2): the dimensions of sustainability, and Setting sustainability and environmental targets (3): Ottawa’s “Choosing our future”)

Keeping track of how each of these small decisions, in all the sectors of the economy, contributes to achieving these objectives is critical in any change management strategy. However, a full monitoring system is not a trivial matter. It requires a fairly significant bureaucratic infrastructure and reporting structure. A good analogy is what statistics Canada uses to poll on a monthly basis the necessary manufacturing shipments and inventory data from Canadian corporations to provide the key monthly indices off economic growth and performance. However, in this instance we would be looking at all sectors of the economy, including transportation, residential, commercial, as well as industrial. We would need to not only baseline data, but the rate of implementation of new technologies to achieve these environmental objectives. This is not a trivial task. But it is essential to invest in building up such a system if we ever hope to achieve Kyoto targets.

More importantly, it is a classic example of the real barriers to achieving a sustainable society, where power, information, and resources are broadly dispersed among a wide range of stakeholders, and where effective coordination is needed. (See, for example, Gilles Paquet’s studies on governance)

With some creativity, this exercise could be turned into a hugely motivating process, that could help engage the whole country. Let’s look at one sector, not mentioned in the Commissioner’s report, which we have studied in the course of our study: the residential sector.

Depending on whose definition you take, households in Canada contribute anywhere from 10 to 40 -50% of GHGs. The low end estimate looks only at the actual physical house and residential unit, the high end extends the GHG emissions to each family’s lifestyle, including what they do, how they travel and where they go to work. In fact, it can include all of the community, excluding industry.

So the challenge is to how to help each individual household monitor as accurately as possible their own progress towards achieving each reduction objectives with regards to GHG, electricity, energy and water usage reduction. And each company or enterprise could do the same, as well as each commercial building or complex. Putting all the blame on the Environment Canada, which is pretty strapped in terms of budgetary resources, is not likely to find a quick solution. Instead, why don't we throw open the challenge and find innovative ways to engage the various key sectors to determine better ways for tracking their improvement along the pathway to sustainability and GHG reductions.

Staying with the residential and community sector, we would first need some standards and common definitions, to make sure that the accounting is consistent. And the federal government and Natural Resources Canada have a well-established track record in doing so with the Energuide program. We will need new and much more user-friendly meters in each household that can track, for example, the improvement in energy consumption or water usage, or gas heating and electricity consumption. This would allow each of us to track and become aware in real time how a new appliance, a new device or a change in practice helps achieve the reduction objective. The idea is to make this cause-and-effect as clearly visible and understandable as possible. There is ample opportunity for incentives, standards and new metering products to address this task. It could be a unique opportunity for new businesses and jobs.

And by putting the responsibility on individuals, while helping them with easy to use tools to measure progress, we not only empower them, but provide a context to unleash a unprecedented flow of innovative ways to reduce GHG emissions.

“Ecoflation”: a barrier or an opportunity?

2009-05-08T10:18:00.001-04:00

In today's Financial Post, Diane Francis brings up the term "ecoflation" first reported in a December 2008 article by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent for Reuters.

In essence, the argument states that a barrage of environmental legislation, regulations and taxes to address environmental degradation and global warming will significantly raise the price of consumer goods and hurt the profitability of the companies that manufacture them. This view is strongly held by many business leaders. And it is a crucial perceptual barrier to any major progress on moving to a sustainable society.

To this argument, I respond by reiterating UK’s Lord Stern’s position that the long-term cost to the planet as a whole will be dramatically higher if we don't put these measures in place to address global warming.

As our project "Making it happen" demonstrates, we do need to change the way we run our economy, use resources, and build our infrastructures, if we want to become a sustainable society. And what we have been doing is looking at what are the barriers to achieve this.

But the more pertinent question here is whether those changes in infrastructure, in our manufacturing processes, and in the creation of new "green" industries and businesses, would lead to a more resilient economy.

Never mind the fact that the Arctic ice cap is melting 30% faster than any previous projection. The urgency for re-examining some of our traditional concepts of economic growth comes from another corner. The largest corporations in the United States, including GM (not to mention the Phoenix Coyotes) are on the brink of bankruptcy, something that was unheard of a year or two ago. Whatever happened to that old adage "What is good for GM is good for America"?

And here is the challenge to all of those researching what a green economy in Canada might look like: can we demonstrate persuasively that “ecoflation”, what Diane Francis and Deborah Summer consider to be a curse, might in fact be the pathway to the economic salvation and long term sustainability?

Can we be creative and find ways to devise new business models, new concepts of community, and longer-term security as a result of this transition?

Why we need more Clean Energy Acts

2009-03-19T13:55:00.001-04:00

Technology alone won’t achieve sustainability -- we also need to address the human and social factors

Despite the head-line-grabbing economic downturn, climate change is still making news: melting Arctic ice shelf, severe drought in Argentina, and unprecedented heat waves and wildfires in Australia.

A lot has been written about sustainable development and how to stop climate change. But much less has been written about how to make it happen.

Ontario has just tabled a far-reaching Clean Energy Act last monthwhich goes a long way in that direction. But there is still room for more.

We know we could reduce our green house gas emissions by 60% by the year 2050, and surpass Kyoto targets in the process. Most of the technologies to do that already exist.

Now it's not a technological fix by itself that will solve that. Green technology alone will not stop climate change. What is critical is to make sure that these technologies actually get deployed and used in our society. That requires a multi-dimensional effort crossing all levels of governments to make these technology choices available, affordable and acceptable to consumers. What our society needs is in-depth change management.

For the last few months, our team at the University of Ottawa has been examining the various barriers to sustainability: what’s stopping innovation and change that would result in a systematic transition to a sustainable society.

And what we are discovering is a whole range of barriers to innovation and change: social, economical, legal, institutional, human, attitudinal, etc. that prevent large-scale deployment of green technology.

Here’s an example. We know how to build a very efficient or zero energy house. The technologies to do that have been known for years. So how come we're not using them? That was the subject of a workshop at the University of Ottawa last week, where practitioners, builders, real estate agents, developers and researchers explored the barriers to making the residential sector totally green.

Cost has a lot to do with barriers to change. Many energy efficiency and environmentally clean options for residential houses require an upfront investment few are willing to make. The roller coaster price of oil and natural gas over the last two or three decades have not helped to establish a stable rate of return or payback. And building owners should not be expected to absorb all these costs. This raises a number of questions: how might we use municipal and property taxes to encourage energy efficient houses and buildings? Can we change mortgage requirements to look at the entire lifecycle cost of a house, including energy savings? Can we convince utilities, who save money from avoided capacity increases, to help out?

There's also the training of builders and contractors, so they can learn how to integrate these new technologies in the existing building systems. The challenge is to retrofit and renovate all the existing houses and buildings in Canada to be energy efficient. We estimate that the total number of contractors and trades people needed to be approximately 1 million FTEs. That’s a lot of new jobs. And no one is addressing how to meet that need.

The mandatory energy audit before selling a house proposed in the new Clean Energy Act will go a long way to signal to potential buyers that there is a real measurable dollar value associated with energy efficiency. But it is only one of many measures to encourage energy efficient retrofits. Those who object to it should realize it’s no different from having to pay $80 to get a car safety-checked before selling it.

Another barrier is NIMBY, as we recently saw in the cases of windmill farms or large solar photovoltaic installations. Despite the promise of environmental benefits, neighborhoods have objected to such installations. The new Clean Energy Act is addressing this barrier very clearly for new renewable technologies.

But there are still many other areas of social and economic activity that need to be addressed. In the commercial sector, landlords generally want to minimize upfront investments, even if it will reduce energy operating costs for the tenants. That might require a change in legislation governing leases.

Transportation is another area. Here’s a simple example: inflating your car tires to the correct pressure can save between 4 and 8% of gasoline consumption. Yet studies show it’s much easier to wash your car than to check your tire pressure accurately. In fact, many gas stations don’t even have properly calibrated air pumps. Changing that is complex, and involves change management, industry cooperation, shift in consumer attitudes and motivation.

Convenience and availability are other factors. Many energy efficiency products are often inconvenient to use, e.g. meters that can be read only with great difficulty or provide incomplete data. And some products are very difficult to find in your local store. Changes in product design, standards and codes should help address these deficiencies.

And I haven’t mentioned industry, or regional development.

Unlike any previous social change in our history, the transition to a sustainable society will require an unprecedented level of cooperation between cities, provinces and the federal government. But at the end of the day, consumers need to be aware. And they need to be able to chose acceptable green products and services that are affordable, accessible, and available. That is no mean feat, and will require more legislative and regulatory changes.

Making the residential sector totally green: Initial Feedback

2009-02-28T07:27:00.003-05:00

Our workshop on February 23 was a total success, judging by participant’s reaction and media coverage. Over 40 people attended and spent the day probing the underlying causes of “What’s stopping us from making the residential sector totally green?”.

As we wait for the final workshop proceedings, Patrick Langston of The Ottawa Citizen wrote this:

"Lack of public awareness and financial aid is stymieing the greening of Canadian homes, according to participants in a workshop promoting eco-building techniques earlier this week.
More than 40 participants tried to understand why the green movement is not going faster, since homes generate one-tenth of Canada's greenhouse gases, and technologies, innovations and practices are available to reduce emissions by 60 per cent by 2030.
"The workshop, which is part of a two-year research project by the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management on transitioning to a sustainable society, took place the same day the provincial government announced Ontario's Green Energy Act to promote residential energy efficiency.
"Yet participants made it clear that basic information about the availability, cost, and economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency technologies is lacking among everyone, from developers and buyers, to real estate agents and lenders."

Peter Kovessy of the Ottawa Business Journal writes that at our workshop, “several green residential experts said previous government incentive programs, aimed at encouraging home energy efficiency upgrades, have a mixed record at best.

Rather than public subsidies, participants at a workshop examining barriers to reducing the impact of climate change in the residential sector suggested the government do a better job promoting measurable standards for home energy efficiency.”

In addition to some of the leading participants such as Mathew Sachs of Urbandale, and David Foster of the Canadian Home Builders Association, Kovessy makes reference to three MBA student presentations, which extracted lessons learned from the evaluation of past programs in energy efficiency in the eighties and nineties.

In referring to low number of houses that had been built under the R-2000 program, “by that standard the program has not been very successful, concluded Anne Murray Choudhary, a University of Ottawa MBA candidate who analyzed evaluations of the program conducted up to 1995.

In that time period, only 6,500 homes were built to the standards, she said, noting there was low public awareness and a high amount of paperwork required of builders.
Likewise, the Canadian Oil Substitution Program, in place between 1980 and 1985 to reduce the country's reliance on foreign oil, was "not particularly" effective, said another MBA student, Jason Spears.

The government handed out $715 million in subsidies to homeowners to switch their heating systems from oil to alternatives. While the program led to nearly $2 billion in conversions, two-thirds of surveyed participants said they would have made the switch regardless, said Mr. Spears, adding regional differences, such as the lack of natural gas access in Atlantic Canada, hampered the effectiveness of the one-size-fits-all program.

The Canadian Home Insulation Program was similarly established in 1977 and ran for a decade to shield the country from possible future oil shocks by saving energy used for space heating, explained MBA candidate Benedicte Losfeld.

The program only achieved 17-per-cent energy savings among participants, off from the expected 30 per cent, said Ms. Losfeld.

Interim project chair Tom Brzustowski said there hasn't been enough emphasis on management in sustainability discussions given the main impediments tend to be institutional, jurisdictional and cultural, rather than technological.

"There seems to be no shortage of knowledge or innovation," he said. "Maybe we've been too preoccupied with ideas and haven't spent enough time putting things into practice."

Overcoming barriers to innovation and change: the creation of a new international agency to promote renewable energy.

2009-02-09T12:57:00.001-05:00

Last month marked the creation of a new international agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), exclusively focused on the promotion of renewable energy technologies.

More than 120 government delegations from across the world attended a conference in Bonn. The Agency’s statute was signed on January 26, 2009 by a total of 75 nations, a broad cross-section of developing and industrialized countries. Canada did not attend.

The initiative was led by Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Poland.

“The founding of IRENA is a milestone on the road towards a future-oriented energy supply. It is a clear sign that the global energy paradigm is changing and that more and more governments are committed to accelerating that shift.”

“The aim of the new Agency is to work throughout the world to close the gap that exists between the enormous potential of renewables and their current relatively low market share in energy consumption. IRENA is the first international organisation to focus exclusively on the issue of renewable energies, addressing both the industrialized and the developing world. The main work of IRENA will be to advise its members on creating the right frameworks, building capacity, and improving financing and the transfer of technology and know-how for renewable energies. IRENA seeks to cooperate closely with other international organisations and institutions active in the field of renewable energy.”

For more information, see www.irena.org

Program update: What's stopping us from making the residential sector totally green

2009-02-05T22:35:00.002-05:00

Here's a program update to our February 23 workshop at U of Ottawa Telfer School, as of Friday, February 6 2009.

We have reached 75% of our registration objective. So hurry, space is limited.

Some of our presenters and resource persons as of today:

Hugh MacLeod, Associate Deputy Minister to the Premier of Ontario: Climate Change
Peter Love, Chief Energy Conservation Officer,Conservation Bureau, Ontario Power Authority
Ralph Torrie, Navigant Consulting
David Foster, Director of Environmental Affairs,Canadian Home Builders’ Association
Gordon Shields, Executive Director,Net-Zero Energy Home Coalition
Dana Silk, General Manager, Envirocentre, Ottawa
Chris Higgins, Coordinator, LEEDR Canada for Homes, Canada Green Building Council
Bob Linney, Canadian Real Estate Association
Tom Green, project manager, EQuilibrium™ Housing, CMHC
Representatives from City of Ottawa, Ville de Gatineau

Preliminary results from the Telfer School research project
on barriers to innovation and change

For program background, click here

For registration, click here

Inconvenience with public transit: A barrier to innovation and change

2009-02-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

With the end of the disastrous two-month public transit strike in Canada’s National Capital, people are wondering what can OC Transpo do to regain its former popularity among commuters. Mike Kesterton of the Globe and Mail has pointed us to an interesting story by Fox News about novel technologies that would make public transit more convenient, eliminating some of the current barriers:

TransitTracker
"For commuters who have to choose between breakfast and catching the bus, companies such as TransitTracker keep tags on buses and trains so you can track them online or on your cell phone.

The system follows your ride's actual location — not an estimated schedule — so you know exactly when it will arrive at your station or stop." It’s currently being used in Portland, Oregon.

iNap
"Once you're on that train or bus, you can finally get back to what matters most: going back to sleep.

Thanks to an ingenious iPhone application called iNap (get it here) , the phone's built-in GPS device will track your location (as long as you're above ground) and set off an alarm when you're near your destination — not too soon, not too late, leaving you little excuse to be grumpy when you actually arrive."

What's stopping us from making the residential sector totally green?

2009-02-02T10:52:00.010-05:00

A special workshop on identifying barriers to change and innovation
to reduce impacts of climate change in the residential sector

When: Monday, February 23, 2009, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Where: Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Room 4101
55 Laurier East, Ottawa, K1N

The residential sector in Canada generates at least one tenth of greenhouse gases. These emissions can be reduced by as much as 60% by the year 2030. All this requires is the deployment of known technologies, innovations, and practices, already in the market.
What's stopping us from reaching that objective?

Key questions to be addressed:

What have we learned?
Over the last thirty years we have tried to reduce usage of fossil fuels. Many of the necessary technologies already exist and are available in the market. Refinements and improvements are always possible, but there is enough available already to make a big difference. So what have we learned from these years of federal, provincial, and municipal efforts to reduce energy consumption of Canada’s residential sector?

What are the barriers to change?
Identify major themes and obstacles, including jurisdictional, legal/economical, and behavioural challenges

What are some common themes?
Discuss common themes and possible integrated areas of intervention.

Program
- Overview of objectives and sustainable visions
- Some of the presenters and resource persons:
Hugh MacLeod, Associate Deputy Minister
to the Premier of Ontario: Climate Change
Peter Love, Chief Energy Conservation Officer,
Conservation Bureau, Ontario Power Authority
David Foster, Director of Environmental Affairs
Canadian Home Builders’ Association
Gordon Shields, Executive Director
Net-Zero Energy Home Coalition
Dana Silk, General Manager
Envirocentre, Ottawa
Also
- Preliminary results from the Telfer School research project
on barriers to innovation and change
- Recent case studies
- Breakout into groups and sharing of past experiences
- Synthesis and priorization of major barriers to innovation and change
- Next steps

To register, click here

For further information: makingithappen@telfer.uottawa.ca

Overcoming barriers: grading potential government measures

2009-01-26T10:14:00.013-05:00

Our friends at the Sustainable Prosperity Project have just published a timely report to coincide with the various economic stimulus measures proposed by governments around the world, including our own in Ottawa. Their idea is to tie-in economic stimulus measures with environmental benefits.

The report, titled “Building a Green Economic Stimulus Package for Canada” ranks all kinds of proposed government measures and interventions according to three general tests (and nine different criteria), and then grade up to 23 different interventions and government measures.

The three general tests are:
1. Economic Test: How much economic stimulus will the measure provide to the economy?
2. Environment Test: How much improvement will the measure provide to the environment?
3. Policy Implementation Test: How easily can the measure be implemented throughout the country and how equitable are its impacts?

And the final grades for the 23 measures, following good academic procedures, are shown in the table below.

One can only hope that tomorrow's federal budget will get a passing grade.

Existing emission standards – another barrier to change

2009-01-25T22:29:00.002-05:00

A key barrier to innovation and change are existing regulations. Changing regulations to lead to a sustainable society can be an uphill battle. The automotive industry in the US has been lobbying hard to avoid new regulations and standards for higher fuel efficiency and cleaner emissions, and had the support of former President George Bush. But this is about to change.

According to the New York Times today, President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama is expected to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to begin work immediately on granting California a waiver, under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state, a longtime leader in air quality matters, to set standards for automobile emissions stricter than the national rules.

This is likely to be the first of a many initiatives by the Obama admisitration on climate change. Stay tuned.

Barriers to innovation and change: lack of awareness

2009-01-25T17:05:00.005-05:00

Anne Murray Choudhary has brought to our attention the following observation on the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). OPA has decided a few years ago that a kilowatt saved is much cheaper than paying for a new kilowatt of installed capacity, and has therefore embarked on an ambitious program to reduce electricity demand. A key challenge they face is to address the lack of consumer awareness, a major barrier to change:

The Conservation Bureau of Ontario, which spearheads OPA’s efforts to reduce electricity, conducted a market research study in 2007 in an effort to evaluate consumers' attitude towards energy conservation. The research objective was to "identify barriers to electricity conservation knowledge and action". The findings by the firm Environics show that --
• Energy (generally) and electricity (specifically) are not salient issues for most Ontario consumers
• There is public awareness of a supply/demand issue in the province, when prompted
• Cost of electricity is not a “hot-button” issue – except in the North
• Concerns emerge about environmental impacts of production and consumption, when prompted - but not the focus of public’s environmental concerns

The Conservation Bureau had also conducted a workshop in 2006 to gather intelligence on barriers from low-income housing residents. The workshop participants identified "Education and Communication", "Small Appliances and Lighting (efficiency)" and "Building Envelop and Systems" as key barriers. The Conservation Bureau's analysis also consists of specific mitigation plans for each barrier included in its workshop report.

So as part of its renewed efforts to educate consumers and communicate at the community level, the Conservation Bureau of Ontario, published in January 2nd, 2009 edition of the Kanata Kourier-Standard, a piece entitled "Conservation Zone" written by Peter Love, Chief Energy Conservation Officer of Ontario. Peter Love gives readers 10 easy steps to save money, and energy, in 2009 as a New Year's Resolution:

"1. Schedule a home energy audit. The auditor can tell you which home energy efficient changes are eligible for provincial and federal grants. Call 1-888-668-4636 and make an appointment today.

2. Install a programmable thermostat in your home. Every degree you drop reduces the heat costs by up to five per cent.

3. Change your furnace filter regularly - dirty filters make the fan work harder. Similarly, a clogged clothes dryer lint trap uses more energy and clothes take longer to dry.

4. Inspect exposed heating ducts and where you feel warm air leaks seal the ducts with special metallic tape. This keeps heat going where you want it.

5. Turn off the lights when you're not using them. Replace old, incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. CFLs use 75 per cent less electricity and lasts longer.

6. Participate in Energy Conservation Week (May 17-23, 2009) and World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour on March 28, 2009.

7. Pull the plug on your old fridge and call the Great Refrigerator Roundup (1-877-797-9473). Older refrigerators can cost four times as much to run as a newer ENERGYSTAR model.

8. Buy cold-water soap for doing laundry. 85 to 90 per cent of energy used by washing machines goes towards heating the water.

9. Dryers alone account for six per cent of total household energy use in Ontario - use a drying rack indoors or an outdoor clothesline if possible.

10. Install weather stripping and caulking around windows and "sweeps" that seal the bottom of your outside doors. This can cut your heating bill by ten per cent."

Articles like the one in the Kanata Kourier-Standard can be found in many Ontario community papers and illustrate OPA’s continued efforts to increase consumer awareness of the benefits of energy conservation.

(Written by Anne Murray Choudhary, Telfer School of Management)

More on the importance of convenience

2009-01-20T07:15:00.001-05:00

Here is another quick comment on inconvenience and barriers to innovation. Murray Hill of Saskatoon writes in today's Ottawa Citizen about a new device, Kill A Watt EZ from P3, that tells you precisely how much electricity your appliance uses and how much it will cost to run.

Having a simple display of how much energy you use at any given time is a very powerful tool to encourage energy conservation and behavior change. But the two barriers he notes are that “the display is it difficult to see unless you use an extension cord, and that it's difficult to find in stores.”

Barriers to innovation and change: the convenience of the right choice

2009-01-19T13:02:00.003-05:00

Alain Martin of the Professional Development Institute shared with us how people make choices and change behaviour, and the importance of making sure that the desired change is as “convenient” as possible. He illustrated his point with the vivid example of increasing gasoline efficiency by having car tires properly inflated, and how the lack of convenience made this difficult for many people.

By all measures, one of the easiest ways to save 3-4% and even up to 8% of gasoline for cars and road transportation, is to have tires inflated at the right air pressure (See, for example, John Mahler’s article) But how easy is this to do? How convenient?

First of all let's look at the messaging and public awareness. If society were really serious about saving gasoline through the correct air tire pressure, then it would drive that message to you at every opportunity, just like wearing seat belts, or not drinking and driving. Each time you drive up to a gas station to fill up, you would be reminded to inflate your tires to the appropriate pressure. When you insert your credit card, you would be reminded again. And before you leave, you would be asked whether you did. As it is now, all you are asked whether you want to use air miles, have a car wash, or use any other kind of reward points or promotion. But there is nothing to remind us about air pressure. And it would cost nothing to add that reminder to the many other useless messages that bombard you each time you buy gas.

Moreover, getting the correct air pressure in your tires is not a trivial matter. It’s not easy or convenient. To start with, you need to find a gas station with a working air pump. By my estimate, only one in four or five gas stations in the Ottawa area would qualify. Last month I had to drive ten blocks before I could find a station on Carling and Maitland with a decent air pump. And I remember the manager telling me “Oh yes, they all love me for my pump. They come from all over just to inflate their tires.”

Then you need to measure the right pressure at a given temperature. Trying to decipher those tiny graduations on a pencil extendable gauge in the darkness of a winter evening is challenging at best. Getting an air tight contact between the gauge and the tire valve with your cold bare hands while scraping off the snow, ice and salt is definitely not fun. And the few air pumps that actually have a numerical readout are generally calibrated incorrectly. So if it reads 30 psi, it could mean anywhere from 27 to 32. All very inconvenient.

You can buy a digital air pressure gauge at Canadian Tire, but generally it's tricky to get an airtight seal with the tire valve so that the gauge can measure the pressure correctly. And who knows what the minimum wage gas station attendant will actually pump at your full service gas station. You’re lucky if they wash your windshield without leaving a streak.

To add insult to injury, some automated pumps will actually charge you $.25 or more to pump air into your tires with no indication whatsoever that the resulting air pressure will be correct.

Now if we are really serious about lowering gasoline consumption, it should be easy to keep our tires inflated at the right level all the time.

But it isn’t. So it’s not surprising that while 3 out of 4 Canadians wash their car every month, only one in seven will check their tire pressure in that same period. According to a recent survey of the Rubber Association of Canada, 70% of cars on the road were found to have incorrect pressure in their tires.

Imagine what ease and convenience might look like. Each time you buy gas, a green flashing reminds you to check your air pressure (in addition to reminding you about the inevitable car wash, air miles, etc.). Gas pumps are easily accessible, well-lit, with valves that fit properly, and easy readouts. Tire pressures are easy to check. And pumps are well-maintained and calibrated at all times. And it would probably cost only a few thousand dollars investment per station to have such pumps.

Let’s go further. Imagine that manufacturers now have dependable factory installed sensors inside your cars, with a warning light for over or under inflation. The built-in pressure gauge on your dashboard is as reliable as the speedometer or tachometer. As you pump the air, it pings when you reach the right pressure for the given road condition, outside temperature or type of driving you intend to do.

Now that would be convenient! And it would be so easy in such an environment to change behaviour.

But there signs of hope. US regulations require all cars below 10,000lbs to have systems that notify the driver if tire pressure drops more than 25% below the rated pressure. Europe is considering stronger measures as part of GHG emission reductions. And some luxury cars such as the Cadillac SRX have tire pressure monitors to the nearest psi (or so they claim).

We are finally moving in the right direction of convenience.

Barriers to Innovation and Change: The NRTEE report on Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency

2009-01-13T23:13:00.009-05:00

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy published today its long-awaited report on energy efficiency in the commercial sector.

Titled "Geared for Change" the report, which is the result of a partnership with Sustainable Technology Development Canada, presents a comprehensive analysis of the energy use of the commercial building sector Canada and its CO2 emissions, its fragmentation and complexity, as well as a particularly thorough analysis of barriers to the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in that sector.

In our ongoing quest to explore barriers to achieving sustainability, we reproduce in its entirety the summary of these barriers, which can be found in Table 4 on page 29 and 30 of the report:

Barriers to Energy Efficiency Technology Adoption in the Commercial Building Sector

Risk Management
• Market, technical, and financial risk
• Level of positive external/personal recognition for “doing the right thing” by installing the efficiency measure(s)
• Level of perceived risk that the efficient product may not perform as promised

Information Gaps
• Lack of complete data and information
• Lack of public understanding of infrastructure needs and resource constraints, i.e. the functionality, cost, drivers and challenges are unknown to the public
• Skills and labour shortage in the construction industry
• Lack of training resources (time, available education, funding) for building operators, inspectors, and trades
• Lack of interdisciplinary programs to promote integrated design processes between
universities and colleges
• Low awareness of available products and services
• Availability of installation and inspection services
• Low awareness of benefits: cost and co-benefit
• Required technical ability to assess the options
• Consumer preferences that do not value energy efficiency
• Existence of a viable infrastructure of trade allies

Value Chain and Principal-agent Relationship
• Level to which the incentives of the agent charged with purchasing the efficiency measures align with those of the person(s) that would benefit

First-mover Disadvantage
• Lack of enabling tools and techniques to facilitate market adoption of sustainable energy solutions
• Need to foster acceleration of advanced technologies
• Lack of performance monitoring of technology systems
• Access to appropriate financing
• Size of required energy efficiency investment vs. asset base
• Payback ratio – actual vs. required
• Level of effort/hassle required to become informed, select products, choose contractor(s), and install

Market Price Signals
• Energy pricing at levels that do not integrate externalities associated with the whole lifecycle (full-cost accounting)
• Energy pricing signals that do not reflect real-time costs

Institutional and Regulatory
• Codes, standards, and permitting processes that prohibit implementation of innovative energy efficiency technologies
• Constitutional jurisdiction for buildings includes all levels of government and results in different standards across the country
• Lack of long-term policy development due to short-term political agendas
• Limited horizontal cooperation/coordination to integrate policies and implementation
• Disconnect between longevity of infrastructure and short-term horizons on crucial decisions, such as budget allocations for maintenance and rehabilitation and rate structures
• Insurance industry acceptable practice, standards or levels of infrastructure service may lead to liability perceptions for professional designers, municipalities, developers

Barriers to innovation and change: Ontario Power Authority and "interval metering"

2009-01-11T14:40:00.004-05:00

As part of our ongoing exploration of barriers to sustainability, here is an interesting snippet from the ongoing efforts of Ontario Power Authority. OPA has embarked on an ambitious effort of conservation and demand management to reduce the horrendous costs and environmental impacts of bringing on new generating capacity. In the process, they commissioned a number of studies on consumer behavior in the various client sectors. Here is one study that identified very clear barriers to energy conservation, targeted at clients that use "interval metering", or pay for their electricity consumption on an hourly basis at a variable price which fluctuates throughout the day according to supply and demand. Price ‘spikes’ can happen at any time during the day for a wide range of reasons. These clients tend to be larger commercial or industrial clients.

The theory goes that clients will schedule their operations to the time of day when there is a lower price, and avoid times with peak price. But in practice, as revealed in the course of the meeting in 2007 with interval meter customers, there are a number of real barriers to make this work properly. As the meeting notes show,

“...the barriers evolved into both ‘macro barriers’ and ‘micro barriers’:

Macro barriers: those broader issues that fall within the scope of policy makers, regulators and program administrators. Most interval meter customers find these barriers to be complex, confusing and beyond their ability to affect. They preferred to have the confidence that a ‘system’ is working efficiently on their behalf without requiring an understanding of the specific issues. This confidence would be achieved by ensuring that a transparent system is in place which would weigh the true costs and benefits of energy efficiency against supply options.
Micro barriers: those issues faced by customers at the facility level. These barriers exist as a result of “too few resources chasing too many projects” (resources were considered to include people and funding). Overcoming these barriers requires a range of solutions, including assistance from conservation and demand management (CDM) programs that are developed in response to their challenges i.e., incentives, tools, etc. and presented in the ‘customer language’ "

These barriers were specifically identified by "interval metering" customers, but in fact have elements that are much broader than that as we will see in our continued exploration.

Barriers to innovation and change: the “greening” of city of Toronto

2009-01-08T14:14:00.002-05:00

Thank you to Stewart Elgie for pointing our attention to Moira Welsh’s December story in the Toronto Star on “Toronto’s green report card”

This story neatly illustrates not only some quantitative sustainable goals set by Toronto Mayor David Miller, but also evaluates the city’s performance on these goals, and in the process – which is highly pertinent to our study “Making it happen” - identifies a number of barriers to change.

Clean air: 30% lower GHGs by 2020 and 0 smog days
Barriers: budget cuts and delays, delays in approvals, planning and building,e.g. bike lanes.

Less waste: 70% waste diversion by 2010
Barriers: Collecting and processing organic waste and recycling it generates 20,000 tonnes of plastic bag containers. The capacity of the Toronto organic processing plants was exceeded requiring shipping to other facilities in Quebec which uses 1000 diesel fuelled trucks. New plants being considered will not have the capacity to process all organics, especially from apartment buildings.

Clean Water: “Blue flag” designation for Toronto’s 14 beaches (i.e. open 80% of time)
Barriers: need to further reduce burden on city sewers in “wet” years, and have targetted homes disconnect downspouts from sewer system to reduce sewage overflowing.

Setting sustainability and environmental targets (4): Masdar city in Abu Dhabi

2009-01-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

Also in the December 6 2008 Economist is an up-date on the most ambitious sustainable project in the world today: Masdar city in Abu Dhabi.

In 2006 Abu Dhabi's development agency unveiled the Masdar Initiative, to pursue "solutions to some of mankind's most pressing issues: energy security, climate change and truly sustainable human development". The initiative consists of a research institute to develop environmental technologies, an investment arm to commercialise and deploy them, and an eco-city to house these two outfits and to serve as a test-bed for their ideas. All this, it is hoped, will turn Abu Dhabi into the Silicon Valley of clean technology, where green-minded academics, entrepreneurs and financiers will rub shoulders.

Some specs:

• Seed funding from Abu Dhabi: $15 billion
• Partners for the research institute: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Partners for commercialization: Credit suisse ($100 million), British Petroleum, Rio Tinto
• Anticipated population: 40,000 residents
• Strategic focus of technologies: no green house gases and no waste through next generation solar power, desalination, “personal rapid transit”. In fact, the city is expected to export 2% of its energy.

This is a refreshing change from other United Arab Emirate energy-guzzling mega-projects, such as the Dubai Ski resort built in 2005, the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 racetrack, or the proposed project to create an air contitioned beach in Dubai, as reported yesterday in the New York Times.

Barriers to innovation and change: wind power and the pace of technology development (2).

2009-01-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

In its December 6 2008 “Technology Quarterly”, the Economist has a case study on the history of wind power and how far it’s come.

Technology deployment is never instantaneous. It takes time to improve the technology and it takes more time to deploy the technology.

As the authors say “The basic idea is ancient, but its modern incarnation adds many new high-tech twists”. Here are some highlights from the Economist article:

Improved technology and design
- Danish model with three-bladed horizontal-axis, upwind machine becomes broadly accepted in early 1980s, over vertical axis “egg beater” and two-blade horizontal axis models.
- Improved knowledge of impact of fluctuating winds (wind gusts) on turbine structure and gear boxes lead to variable pitch of blades, variable speeds and better control systems.
- Optimization of machines and weight reduction achieved through mathematical models – components become lighter, machines are scaled up.
- Move to larger “off-shore” ocean-based machines, e.g. 7.5MW. Total installed off-shore capacity expected to reach 8 GW by 2012.
- Efforts are ongoing to improve gear boxes, or eliminate them entirely with a “direct drive” system.
- At 50% efficiency – i.e. % of kinetic energy extracted from wind, today’s machines are coming close to maximum theoretical efficiency limit of 59%.

Increased capacity of wind machines
- In the 1980’s, after the first OPEC crisis, windfarms began sprouting in California, thanks to generous incentives.
- Rotor diameters were about 15 metres with production capacity in the tens of kilowatts.
- Today rotor diameters reach 100 meters, with capacity 30 to 50 times larger.

Lower Costs
Generating costs have dropped from 30 cents a kilowatt hour in the 1980s down to approximately 10 cents in 2007.

Exponential rate of technology deployment
In 2007, wind power produced 1% electricity globally, and is expected to reach 2.7% in 2012, and 6% by 2017.
In Europe, in 2007 wind contributed:
- 20% of Denmark’s electricity (the country has had an ambition R&D program since mid 1970s and is the world leader in the field),
- 10% for Spain, and
- 7% for Germany.
- In 2007, Germany accounted for almost one quarter (23.7%) of the world’s installed windpower; and
- the US was at 18%. By comparison, in the 1980s, California was the world leader and held 90% of the world’s installed wind capacity.
- China has been doubling its wind capacity every year since 2004.

Barriers to innovation and change
- Need for better transmission lines to integrate windpower into grid and capacity to absorb fluctuations
- Dependency on subsidies makes industry vulnerable to sudden cut-off (at least until some form of carbon tax is in place), e.g. abrupt halt of California’s industry when subsidies were cut in mid-1980s.
- NIMBY – resistance from consumers who don’t like the noise or cluttered horizon, and are worried about danger to birds.

These barriers are very siumilar to Margaret Wente's article last year (see our earlier Post)

Barriers to innovation and change: the London experience

2008-12-23T10:52:00.000-05:00

The city of London is experiencing a remarkable transformation in its commitment to addressing climate change. In a recent presentation as part of the most recent Japan-UK low Carbon project, Charles Secrett, special advisor to the Mayor, outlined some of the programs in place to move the city to a sustainable, low GHG emissions future. In the process, they had to address the major barriers to change:

“[…]There are many opportunities to reduce household carbon dioxide emissions. For example, switching off lights/appliances at home and office by all Londoners could reduce annual CO2 emissions by 2.3 million tones. If all light bulbs were energy efficient, London would save 575,000 tonnes of CO2 and £139 million from energy bills (2006 prices) per year; if Londoners bought the most fuel-efficient/lowest CO2 car in their preferred class of vehicle CO2 emissions would fall by 30% in this sector.

“So why aren’t people doing them?”

Some highlights from Charles Secrett PowerPoint presentation:

The challenge –turning aspirations to be greener into actions that matter
• In UK, people now believe a sustainable home is: modern (90%); attractive (72%); hi-tech (79%); fashionable (78%); good value for money (72%)
• BUT while 90% of people broadly accept the science, and 70% say they are willing to change –ONLY 20% are changing carbon behaviour slightly (buying local food, recycling, driving car less) and only 5% changing significantly

Changing carbon-heavy behaviour ultimately means changing …
• Attitudes
• Values
• Beliefs
• AND MARKETS

As long as it is cheap, convenient and legal to waste carbon and natural resources, then that is what the great majority of individuals, households and companies will do… at work, home and play.

Blocks to uptake of renewable energy in UK/London
• Lack of statutory targets –Planning Policy Statement 22 (PPS22) ‘Planning Guidance on Renewable Energy’in 2004 -The Merton Rule (10% of renewable energy in new developments); Mayor guidance 20%; Olympics 20%.
• Confused and frequently changing Government grant systems for local and micro-renewable energy schemes (Government funding scheme -‘The Renewables Obligation’-consistent support for large wind schemes)
• Local authority opposition and public opposition to wind in many rural areas
• Ignorance of planners and developers of policy, costs and technical options/quality

So, what works …
• Laws and Regulations to ban/restrict unsustainable behaviour
• Polluter Pays Levies and Charges–if revenues are recycled into building up low carbon solutions (infrastructure, technologies, products)
• Financial Incentives–grants, discounts, rewards for low carbon choices and behaviours
• Focused Advice and Assistance programmes that are convenient to access for user, and help navigate a muddled market-place
• Widely available information on problems, causes and solutions (especially when help individuals, families companies in short-term)
• Exemplar Best Practice–‘seeing is believing’
• Partnerships across public, private, domestic and voluntary sectors
• Respected Champions
• Coordinated and demonstrable international action

Thanks to Ralph Torrie for pointing the Japan-UK low carbon research to us, where this paper was presented.

Barriers to innovation and change: a first cut at a framework

2008-12-22T22:32:00.000-05:00

For some time now, we’ve been discussing within our team our unique focus: identifying and understanding the barriers to innovation and change that would address climate change., i.e what's stopping us from implementing or deploying given technological innovation and changes to reduce GHG emissions.

Our colleague and interim chair of the project’s advisory board Tom Brzustowski has sketched out a preliminary framework for classifying these barriers. As we progress, we will identify more of these frameworks, and we will have the opportunity in the new year to meet with subject matter experts and practitioners to put these barriers to test.

Here are Tom’s preliminary categories of barriers and notes:

Institutional
No appropriate institution exists
. Turf issues among existing institutions break up the needed perspective
. Current institutions don't fit but claim jurisdiction

Practical
. Established practices delay new approaches
. Shortages of people (e.g. trades) with the necessary skills and knowledge

Behavioural
. Resistance to change at the individual level: "old dog, new tricks", etc.
. Change in life/work patterns - too big, too sudden, too many people involved

Cultural
. "taboos"
. "can't imagine…"
. Surprising objections to change in doing things apparently unrelated to the substance

Financial
. too expensive in the short term
. not enough credit
. not enough investors, lenders, etc
. new risks, not understood

Political
. other priorities
. long-term measures, sometimes of preventive nature, don't bring much . political return

Making it happen: what to do to reduce Green House Gases by 50%

2008-12-21T20:18:00.000-05:00

Many people have designed approaches and scenarios for dramatically reducing our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This includes the early work by Amory Lovins on energy soft paths, especially the low energy scenario that he did for Canada as part of his work on the Conserver Society for the Science Council of Canada in the mid-70s (“Canada as a conserver society: resource uncertainties and the need for new technologies”, Science Council of Canada, Ottawa, 1977). These scenarios demonstrated that with existing technology, it is possible to run our economy effectively with a fraction of the current energy and fossil fuels.

More recently, Ralph Torrie’s work for the David Suzuki foundation (see “Kyoto and Beyond: The low-emission path to innovation and efficiency”, Suzuki Foundation, 2002) listed approximately 150 distinct technologies and changes, which if implemented completely, would result in a 50% reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels, by the year 2030.

All of these 150+ technologies which he lists in his low-carbon scenario are proven and available on the market. If we deploy and implement all of them, we will actually exceed the Kyoto targets. The graph and table below show the results of his scenario calculation, and how the deployment of these technologies will result carbon emissions, sector by sector.

This graph (no. 51 from Torrie's original paper on p. 115) shows how GHG emissions are reduced over the years, sector by sector.

This table shows the percentage reduction by the year 2030 in CO2 emmissions, sector by sector. It is taken from Torrie's table 26, p.117.

To achieve the 60% reduction in GHG emissions for the residential building sector, Torrie calculates that we need to deploy and implement no less that 58 different technologies and changes.

Similarly, we need to deploy and implement 28 different technologies and other initatives to achieve the 71% reduction for the commercial building sector.

For the passenger transportation, deploying and implementing 34 technologies and changes will yield a 75% reduction in eCO2 emmissions. And as Torrie points out, all these technologies are proven and exist on the market.

What next?

Our project "Making it happen" will continue to explore these 150 technologies, see if we can update that list - after all, technologies have evoleved since 2002.

But most importantly, we will look at barriers - institutional, cultural, behavioural, political, etc. that impede or slow down the deployment of these technologies.

Setting sustainability and environmental targets (3): Ottawa’s “Choosing our future”

2008-12-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

Here’s one important and highly relevant major exercise of setting long-term goals, objectives and visions for a sustainable city 50 to 100 years from now. The city of Ottawa jointly with the city of Gatineau and the National Capital Commission has embarked on a two to three years exercise to develop a vision for a sustainable region. Following the pioneering work of CitiesPlus in Greater Vancouver, the project will bring a wide range of specialists and stakeholder into the process. Some of the same peole are also involved, including urban planner/ process facilitator Sebastian Moffat from the Sheltair group.

The most recent phase of that project was a four-day charrette held December 9-11 2008 in the Ottawa Art Gallery in downtown Ottawa. The event brought together urban planners, architects, designers, academics, and other specialists to colectively articulate the vision for a sustainable region 50-100 years into the future. To bring the exercise down to earth, four representative neighborhoods were selected, in which the vision was to be worked out in much greater detail, addressing the specific physical, and urban demographic conditions.

The exercise was guided by a set of fifteen end-state objectives describing the features of the sustainable society, which are reproduced here with permission:

1. Ecological limits: Of interest to our own project are the 15 and state goals which the charrette used as a driving force.

2. Ecological capacity: Rates of consumption and waste generation within the region are compatible with the long-term productive and assimilative capacity of the ecosphere.

3. Ecological services: The region’s production and consumption cycles have a net zero or net positive impact on the planet’s long-term ecological productivity and diversity.

4. Municipal ecologies: Natural resources within the National Capital Region provide a framework for land use decisions, ensuring that critical resources are easily accessed, are exploited in a sustainable fashion, and are used to achieve a high degree of regional self-reliance.

5. Cultural assets: The region’s heritage structures, and sites with special historical or spiritual significance, contribute to a strong regional identity and provide a framework for land use decisions, ensuring access to cultural assets for all residents and visitors, and helping to augment the value of local landscapes with a rich overlay of myth, story and artifact.

6. Connectivity: The region is connected at all scales, providing efficient and safe transport of goods and people, offering real choice in transportation modes, and providing frequent opportunities for high quality social interaction, and healthy, affordable lifestyles.

7. Resilience: Natural hazards throughout the region have been mitigated through land use planning, and through disaster-ready design guidelines for buildings and infrastructure.

8. Green infrastructure: Trees, gardens, ponds, wetlands, hedgerows, streams, greenways, green roofs and engineered ecologies have become the elements of a cost-effective ‘green infrastructure’ that cleans and constrains storm water flows, contributes to a quieter and more pleasant micro-climate, shades buildings in summer, improves air quality, and generally contributes to the livability and biodiversity of neighbourhoods.

9. Urban metabolism: The natural resource demand by each neighbourhood is consistent with the long-term capacity of the city’s infrastructure and the region’s resource base.

10. Urban and rural containment: The containment of both urban and rural areas, and an integrated approach to management of the boundary areas, has revitalised urban centres, enhanced the viability of local farming, and increased the quality of life, lifestyle choices, employment and recreation opportunities across the region.

11. Compact, complete communities: The region is a community of communities, where residents can work, shop and play close to home.

12. Adaptive capacity: Neighbourhoods are adaptable and resilient by design, capable of accommodating with ease, both expected and unexpected changes in climate, technology, the economy, resource availability, family size and lifestyle.

13. Housing affordability and choice: Housing meets the needs of the whole community.

14. Security: Neighbourhoods are designed and operated to minimise crime, to quickly respond to and recover from disasters, and to provide residents and visitors with a safe, secure environment in which they have freedom from fear.

15. Everyone has a voice and is heard, and key stakeholders within the region regularly collaborate to set shared directions and align policy.

What makes these end state goals noteworthy is that they cover all the dimensions of society and economy in a given region. They demonstrate clearly that everything in a sustainable society is interconnected. For the purpose of climate change, innovation and barriers to change, our focus will be much narrower and focus on those technologies that relate to energy and greenhouse gas emissions.

Setting sustainability and environmental targets (2): the dimensions of sustainability

2008-12-05T11:12:00.000-05:00

Our ongoing exploration of setting sustainability targets for a region like Ottawa Carleton has led us to explore similar exercises in Canada and elsewhere.

The Siemens-McKinsey picture of sustainability for Greater London
McKinsey company, in a study on the transition to sustainability for the greater London area (GLA) sponsored by Siemens, developed this spider web sustainability comparison of London and other major metropolitan areas in the world.

As can be seen in the above diagram, the six metrics for sustainability include CO2 emissions targets from buildings, industry and transportation, as well as municipal waste production, water use and air pollution.

Cities plus and the Greater Vancouver Region
Cities plus, a wide ranging exercise started in 2002 with a grant from the International Gas Union, explored the many dimensions of sustainability for the greater Vancouver region. Its scope for defining a sustainable future to 2100 encompassed many variables, including the end goals illustrated in the blue cinnamon role diagram below:

The end goals for a Greater Vancouver Region in 2100 cover four large categories:

Place:
Natural Habitat and Green Space Systems
Climate
People:
Cultural Systems
First Nations Systems
Health and Well-Being Systems
Social Equity Systems
Infrastructure:
Agri-Food Systems
Communication Systems
Energy Systems
Housing and Buildings Systems
Materials Systems
Mobility Systems
Water Systems
Governance:
Decision Support Systems
Economic Development Systems
Governance Systems
Human Security Systems
Land Use Systems

Some of the quantifiable metrics used include the following:

Developed by the Sheltair Group, http://www.sheltair.com/

QUEST: Quality Urban Energy System of Tomorrow

Another Canadian wide initiative is QUEST (Quality Urban Energy System of Tomorrow) initially led by Lloyd Axworthy, then former BC Premier Mike Harcourt, the in itiative includes a birad range of interested stakeholders, including the following: Canada Green Building Council, Canadian Electricity Association, Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance, Canadian Gas Association, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Ontario Power Authority, Pollution Probe,

They published their joint report, “Integrated Energy Systems in Canadian Communities: A Consensus for Urgent Action” in March 2008, and just completed their latest meeting in Victoria in November 2008.

Some of the key features of their vision of sustainability include:

The QUEST initiative also recognizes, that based on the 2006 NRTEE’s “Advice on a Long-term Strategy on Energy and Climate Change” scenario of 60% reduction by 2050 shows that close to half of the reduction could come from buildings, transportation and urban form, what they call "the other 50%", i.e. sustainable communities.

Ralph Torrie's "Beyond Kyoto" analysis for the Suzuki Foundation

Lastly, we present the final results of Torrie's model calculations showing that it is not only possible to rech and exceed the Kyoto Targets for GHG emmissions, but also to do it with increasing population and GDP:

We will return in future posts in much greater depth to this analysis and the technologies and changes that need to be deployed to reach these targets in our future posts.

Setting sustainability and environmental targets (1): Recent announcements on GHG emissions

2008-11-27T14:01:00.000-05:00

The science, or rather the art, of setting targets for sustainable societies and reducing greenhouse gases depends a great deal on who is doing that and their context. In setting these kinds of targets, governments -- for the sake of their survival -- need to tread carefully and balance the need for addressing the threat and reducing the risks and costs of climate change, with potential disruptions of their domestic economy.

Last week saw two major pronouncements on targets to address climate change: President-elect Obama’s address to the Bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, and the Speech From the Throne by the Canadian Governor General to open the new session of parliament with the re-elected conservative government of Stephen Harper.

Obama pulled no punches in describing the urgency of combating climate change: “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

But for Obama, the challenge of climate change is also closely linked to the US’s dependency on foreign oil, and “if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

As the largest US provider of oil, the Canadian position is somewhat different. It’s difficult for any Canadian government at this time to set climate change targets and ignore the strong regional and wealth generating dimensions of the oil industry. So this explains the more nuanced approach in Governor General Michelle Jean’s Speech From the Throne of November 19. It states that "economic prosperity cannot be sustained without a healthy environment, just as environmental progress cannot be achieved without a healthy economy."

The speech recognizes that Canadians need “affordable and reliable energy” and that energy “is a source of wealth and Canadian jobs” but that there's also a need for "cleaner energy sources". It talks about Northern natural gas pipelines and nuclear energy. No mention of oilsands or carbon capture and sequestration.

It also reiterates the government's target of "reducing Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020". This position was first announced by then Minister of Environment John Baird in 2007.

Obama on the other hand, promises to “start a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions totheir 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.”

The Pembina Institute compared several targets for reducing GHGs. With regards to Canada’s targets of reducing GHG emissions “to 20% below the 2006 level by 2020, and to 60-70% below the 2006 level by 2050”, they note that “this would leave Canada’s emissions about 2% above the 1990 level in 2020 and would reduce them to 49-62% below the 1990 level by 2050”, i.e. well above the Obama targets.

They continue: “Other nations have already committed to targets more closely aligned with the science. The European Union's governments have made a unilateral commitment to reduce their emissions to 20% below the 1990 level by 2020. If other developed nations make comparable commitments, the EU says that it will strengthen its 2020 target to 30% below the 1990 level.
“In the longer term, California has committed to reduce its emissions to 80% below the 1990 level by 2050, and France to 75-80% below the 2004 level (which was slightly below the 1990 level). Even more ambitiously, Norway is proposing to be “carbon neutral” – or to make a 100% reduction in its emissions – by 2050.

“Based on a detailed analysis presented in our report The Case for Deep Reductions, Pembina believes that the Government of Canada should adopt targets to reduce Canada's net GHG emissions to 25% below the 1990 level by 2020 and 80% below the 1990 level by 2050. Given the scale of the challenge, Canada must start working towards these targets immediately. Any delay will almost certainly result in greater costs over the long term.”

Now, our study “Making it happen – the transition to a sustainable society” of course is not limited by political constraints. Our approach is to define plausible, hypothetical but stretch targets for reaching sustainability in 50 to 100 years. The idea is to use these to identify and explore the institutional barriers that impede the deployment of innovation and change to reach these targets and reduce the effects of climate change. And that is our major focus.

So in the next few posts, we will further explore various sets of targets and arrive at a reasonable selection of hypothetical but stretch objectives and metrics for a region like Ottawa Gatineau to make it a sustainable society. Stay tuned.

Barriers to innovation and change: wind power (1)

2008-11-25T22:53:00.000-05:00

Margaret Wente’s column in today's Globe and Mail “Who could object to wind power?” is a dead-on analysis of some of the institutional barriers facing the deployment of alternative energy technologies, in this case a proposal for a large scale wind farm along the shores of Lake Ontario. Just because a technology is labelled renewable and environmentally benign does not mean that it will be adopted wholeheartedly by society. Wente identifies some of the critical economic and social barriers to the broader acceptance of wind power: costs relative to the yo-yo price of oil (down to $50 from a high of $140 per barrel this summer), hidden subsidies, the variability and unpredictability of electricity produced from wind, questions with regards to possible negative impact on bird flight paths, and NIMBY - not in my backyard. In fact, it was the last factor leading to a citizen’s protest in Toronto that prompted Wente to write the column.

In my view this is not a big oil or pro-nuclear conspiracy, but a normal and expected reaction to the introduction of new technology that causes change. If we are to move to a sustainable society, based on a significant reduction of per-capita energy consumption and the deployment of noncarbon-generating energy sources, these are the kinds of barriers that are inevitable. They should be recognized early on and addressed fully if we are ever to arrive to our end goal of a sustainable future. That is a key question facing our study.

The start of a new project

2008-11-25T22:26:00.000-05:00

November 2008

Making it Happen: The Transition to a Sustainable Society

We are pleased to announce the start of a new project, “Making it happen – the transition to a sustainable society”. This project is about exploring a holistic and integrated approach needed to remove barriers and accelerate the transition of our economy and society to a more sustainable model. A transition to a sustainable society is critical to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Over the last several decades, there have been numerous reports and studies advocating change towards a more sustainable society that would be less dependent on fossil fuel, and more conserving of other critical resources such as water and biodiversity. Call it a Conserver Society, Small is Beautiful, Sustainable Development, or a Green Society, these visions have advocated an alternative way of structuring our economy and using less resources in order to reduce our environmental impact, and more recently, our carbon footprint.

There are also many technologies available today that would help move us in this direction. Every year there are thousands of new patents for environmental technologies, and investment in green companies has soared.

So why some 35 years after the first OPEC crisis and the Club of Rome’s report “Limits to Growth”, are we still playing at the fringe? Why have we not made more fundamental progress? Why is it that Canada is so far behind other countries such as Sweden or Germany in becoming sustainable?Some have suggested that we need leadership and political will, or major economic incentives to make this change, like a carbon tax or a cap and trade system before anything significant is likely to happen.

That may well be the case. But our hypothesis is that even with such leadership and macro-economic signals, there are still countless barriers and obstacles that need to be overcome before such a transition happens.

In preparing this study, we have reviewed many studies and reports relating to a sustainable society. What we found to be missing, what is currently not being addressed in a systematic way is how to make the transition to a sustainable society happen. Below the level of the large macro economic interventions, there are countless small institutional obstacles that prevent environmental technologies from being widely deployed. For each plan or innovation, there are inevitable difficulties, obstacles, or institutional barriers that prevent that plan or innovation to be fully deployed. Many of these are unexpected and unforeseen, and have not been considered in the original plans or designs. And most of these are not technical in nature.

These can include legal and regulatory barriers, inappropriate standards, ill-suited labour and skill pools, inadequate training, insufficient consumer education, limited available choices, inhibiting municipal bylaws, and so on. We’re talking here of a whole range of social, economic and institutional barriers, many of which have been designed originally for valid social and economic purposes, but which, in their current state, inhibit the rapid technological deployment and transition to a sustainable society. Perhaps one of the most insidious barriers is the lack of integrated planning in our society, the absence of a holistic perspective in making decisions that affect how we use resources and run our economy.

So our objective is as follows:How might we identify and better understand the social and economical barriers to innovation and change as it relates to addressing the challenges of climate change and the conservation of natural resources including water, as a basis of proposing government interventions to unleash the innovative potential of Canada.

Our approach

While the issues may be daunting and their linkages complex, we will be following a straightforward methodology to map out in a coherent way the different barriers to innovation and sustainability. Our steps are as follows:

1. Identify an ambitious, stretch hypothetical objective for a sustainable society, and derive all the "technological fixes" and changes that need to be implemented to achieve this hypothetical objective in 50 to 100 years.

2. Based on a practical agglomeration of the "technological fixes" and changes, bring together carefully selected panels and focus groups to identify the institutionalbarriers to achieve those rates of deployments. We hope to invite practitioners as well as subject matter experts, to identify the richest possible spectrum of barriers and obstacles.

The end result should be a systematic map of the different obstacles and barriers to the deployment of sustainable technologies and "way of doing things", which will make policy and decision makers at all levels - municipal, provincial, and federal - more aware of what needs to be done to address what is perhaps the single most serious challenge to the survival of our planet.

The project is managed out of the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, under the direction of Dr. André Potworowski, with the help of an advisory board whose interim chair is Dr. Tom Brzustowski, and is expected to take two years to complete. The initial phase is funded by the Gordon Foundation and the federal government (Natural Resources Canada).For more in formation, Contact:
Dr. J. André Potworowski, potworowski@telfer.uottawa.ca (613) 746-9600 , or
Dr. Tom Brzustowski, brzustowski@telfer.uottawa.ca, (613) 562-5800 , #4759.