On the last day of the Sustainable Living Festival I sat near the Yarra River with a friend I had not seen in four years. We had a wonderful time and suddenly she spotted a bike in the water.
Rubbish! How could anyone do that? It was probably stolen, too. Just dumped into this pristine nature (well, pretty clean anyway).
So I got it out.
And what wonder it was. It could not have been in there for too long, the wheels were still turning. But it was full of life.
Lots of tiny water plants and shells were growing on the discarded bike. It actually looked really beautiful. And in the evening sunlight it was almost like a piece of art.
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I had an interesting conversation with one of our local councillors two days ago.
Noosa (the community I live in) has been really innovative and forward thinking and worked out how many people can be sustained by its resources. They looked at water, infrastructure and giving nature enough space.
Taking all this into account, the number of people that Noosa can accommodate was calculated. This figure was called the population cap. It is nothing enforcible by law, not directly anyway, just the number of people who can sustainably live in this shire.
To make sure the population does not grow beyond it, extensive areas were turned into National Park and other reserve areas. The Noosa plan further outlined what type of buildings can be built where, effectively limiting the number of people that can live here.
We have not reached the population cap yet, but it is not too far off and its effects can be seen in the problems with housing affordability.
Anything sustainable needs to be scalable
I posed the following question to our councillor: If what we are doing in Noosa is good, it should be good for our planet. So let us assume that we have worked out the population cap for planet Earth. What happens when that is reached?
His answer was that wars, famine and diseases would take care of that.
Taking this back to Noosa, does this mean we need to set up an army once we are getting close to the population cap? “No, the prices will make a natural selection of who can afford to live here.”
But do we really want that monoculture of people?
Cooperation rather than Competition
I do not think such a fatalist view is a good basis for finding solutions.
Instead we need to look at our assumptions and see whether they still hold true.
The population cap is based on the amount of people our resources can carry.
Technological advancements and smart thinking allow us to achieve more with less resources (just think of rainwater tanks or even using greywater in every household, or using more public transport to avoid gridlock on our roads).
Our population cap is a fantastic way to highlight the challenge of overpopulation. But it should not be used to excuse Noosa from the challenges the world faces.
Our way of life only makes sense when it is shared in a vibrant and varied community, so let us start finding and implementing solutions that are based on cooperation rather than competition.
We were leaders in the past, we need to continue moving to stay leaders in the future.
If you want to raise profits, becoming more sustainable is a great way to achieve that.
This was probably the biggest message I got from the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne last weekend. And I also got a better insight into the most important step for becoming sustainable.
Build Your Community
At the very core of all companies that presented was the realisation that it is all about people. Rather than seeing staff as numbers who contribute to the bottom line, an appreciation of the individual and their contribution is needed.
Tim Cotter, a psychologist showed that human values are pretty aligned. The problem is that many people do not live their values.
So to raise profits, a company can raise awareness and support a re-connection between values and action. A fear many traditional business people (especially accountants) seem to have is that this process will reduce the company’s profitability and focus on more intangible things.
Reality paints a different picture. In various studies the return of companies that follow sustainable (or ethical) principals have outperformed their “traditional” counterparts.
The first day of the Sustainable Living Festival is drawing to a close. I’ll be writing in more detail, here just a quick summary of what my impressions are so far.
Even though the Festival is in its 6th year right in CBD Melbourne, it is still mainly converted that visit it. That might change on the weekend, though.
Small companies are run by people that believe in the importance of sustainability. They cannot answer any questions with regards to the financial bottom line: What do consumers save?
Larger companies are really onto the savings that can be achieved with sustainability. One excellent example is MECU, a credit union. Their costs are 54 cents in the Dollar, compared to other credit unions where the costs are 78 centa in the Dollar. I could not find out yet, how these savings were achieved, but I have been promised to get that information.
One huge factor in the corporate talks was staff engagement. They all marvelled at how much productivity improved, because staff was involved in something worthwhile.
The biggest thing that stands out is the volunteers who make this festival possible. It is so wonderful to see so many committed, happy, joyous people (young and old) to bring sustainability to the masses.
I have just come back from a mentoring session. One business presents itself, outlining a major issue they have. 12 mentors ask questions of fact, then give their viewpoint.
It is so amazing to see how blind some entrepreneurs can become from being stuck in the day to day operations. Every suggestion from the mentors was answered by the entrepreneur with an explanation of why that was not possible or that they are doing that already.
And I guess we probably all have a bit of that. I certainly have blinders on where my own business is concerned. It is so easy to see new opportunities for someone else and point to the weaknesses. But learning to do that for yourself (or asking for that external viewpoint and being able to listen to it) seems to be key to move forward.
It is about how clean nuclear energy is. So I am wondering how much of those $2.75 billion went into nuclear power. Is it clean? Maybe when you look at greenhouse gases, even though I have read that the sourcing of the uranium produces quite a lot (but I do not really know).
My main objection to nuclear power comes from the fact that the decisions we make today, affect our children’s children for thousands of years. It is proof of the short-sightedness of humans. If we are not directly affected, there is no problem.
Maybe I am biased by the decision made in Germany to phase out nuclear power (after it was in operation over 40 years).
I spoke to an entrepreneur today. He is currently seeking funding to bring a new product to market.
The product sounds fantastic in what it does and how it does it. I do not want to share any details, but it is a cosmetic product.
We spoke about the gaps in his business plan. I had pointed them out while preparing an information memorandum for him. One gap was: proof.
What is proof?
Had they done any clinical studies? No. OK, the costs are several $100,000
Had they done any studies with friends and acquaintances? No. He did not want to get anyone’s attention before the product was ready for launch.
So the proof rests on the words of the inventor and his knowledge of how it works - in theory.
He is a great person and convincing in how he speaks about his product, but does he really expect investors to go for it on that basis?
Necessary Trait?
I think he does.
And it made me think about the traits of inventors and entrepreneurs.
It is probably one of the most important traits to have: absolute faith in yourself, your product and in what you are doing. There is no other way to keep up the stamina to move through the obstacles of getting something up and going.
But then you need to let go
However when the team grows, the inventor has to change.
Maybe that is not possible. After pushing for so many years, it seems to be ingrained:
not listening to criticism (even if constructive)
not opening up to different approaches
believing in the value of your product as an obsession
I wonder how inventors who got over the initial start-up were able to morph into team players.
Or should I title this : “Inventors frustration with the world”?
I am currently working on some information memorandums to raise money for 3 companies. Reading their business plans, looking at their inventions, I cannot stop to think what a waste is going on in business development.
They have all developed their ideas to an advanced stage, spend many hours and Dollars, are ready to produce.
Testing the Market
But no one has tested the market. Apart from one, they do not really have a marketing strategy.
It would be so fantastic if there was an easy way to test the market without spending lots of money in research.
Actually there is a way, Tim Ferris calls it microtesting in his book “The 4-hour Workweek“.
Microtesting
What he proposes is to set up a sales site on the Internet, bring some targeted traffic via Google AdWords and see how many are ready to buy.
This tests the demand for the product in general, but more importantly it tests whether the marketing works:
Are we using the right words?
Is the price right?
Is the warranty sufficient?
To really test all of these things, a split test is necessary of course. But all this can be done for under $1,000, probably under $500. Far more efficient than sending sales people around the country to introduce the products into retail shops.
Efficient and thus sustainable.
The Controversy
A lot of inventors will tell me that their clients are not on the Internet. That might be true, even though I think that there are always ways to test the interest of potential clients, even though they might not purchase online.
I just booked my tickets to visit the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne next month. It is very exciting to get back to the roots of where my passion came from.
Flying Green
While I booked the plane ticket, they gave me the option to offset my carbon emissions. Pretty exciting on one hand that it has come into such a mainstream process.
On the other hand, I wonder how much difference that really makes. If it becomes so easy to pay (It was only $2.87 or something), there is no need to venture further and find the real sustainable solutions.
But I guess, it is better than nothing. It certainly adds convenience to the process of being green. But it does not help anyone’s profit.
I have not posted in a week, because I was so focused on two others projects:
www.Freelance-Writing-Career.com is a site I am building in partnership with Marshall Krueger. He does the writing, I do the webmastering. In the last week, we have implemented a feed that shows the latest freelance writing jobs that are posted on 19 bidding and job sites.
On the last day of the Sustainable Living Festival I sat near the Yarra River with a friend I had not seen in four years. We had a wonderful time and suddenly she spotted a bike in the water.
If you want to raise profits, becoming more sustainable is a great way to achieve that.
