Event: Creating a low carbon economy

CAMBRIDGE RESILIENCE FORUM
sponsored by Webber Wentzel

PRESENTS

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez:
Creating a Low Carbon Economy

 

DATE: Wednesday 22 June 2011
TIME: 17:00 for 17:30 – 19:00
VENUE: Webber Wentzel Cape Town Office, 15th Floor Convention Tower, Heerengracht, Foreshore

As South Africa has committed itself on the international stage to move towards a low carbon economy, it will be well served to look at successful examples of other countries that have already embarked on this journey. One of these examples is Costa Rica that is moving towards a low carbon economy by addressing market and institutional failures in the context of sustainable development.

Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership in partnership with Webber Wentzel invites you to a presentation by Carlos Manuel Rodriguez who will discuss the policy and institutional process, the innovative financial mechanisms and concrete efforts around sustainable development in Costa Rica. The role that conservation and protected areas play in supplying valuable environmental services underpinning social and economic growth will be discussed. The talk will centre on the successful national instrument of payments for ecosystem services (PES) which has made Costa Rica very well known.

Entrance is free but numbers are limited, booking is essential.

To confirm your attendance please e-mail Magda de Kok on magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

More details on the speaker:

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez is Vice President for Conservation Policy at Conservation International (CI). Before joining CI, Rodriquez was the Minister of Environment and Energy for the Republic of Costa Rica, where he was a pioneer in the development of payment for ecosystem services (PES).

A lawyer, politician and, above all, a conservationist, Rodriguez held various political posts in Costa Rica, including Director of the National Parks Service. He is also founder and Board member of many environmental NGOs in Costa Rica, in addition to several tropical research institutes.

At CI, Rodriguez is responsible for providing strategic direction and identifying key international and U.S. policy issues, organizations, and forums in which to engage. He leads the CI policy team that informs and influences bilateral, multilateral and international policies impacting the nexus of human well-being, economic development, climate change, ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. Rodriguez also leads CI’s engagement with the governments and leaders of select developing countries, developed countries, and leaders of many of the multilaterals, the UN system and other NGOs with the goal of influencing human well-being through biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. Lastly, he helps to ensure the availability of funds to implement and sustain the changes brought about by such polices.

Cambridge Resilience Forum: Beyond Petroleum?

Recent events in the Middle East have raised concerns about oil supplies in the world and led to the oil price increasing to above US$100 per barrel again. As 95% of mobility – the movement of goods and people – are dependent on liquid fuels, this rise impacts the price of most other goods and especially agricultural products.

This must be seen within the broader context of geo-political and geological constraints in extracting oil resources and the associated heightened environmental risks.

Given the negative impact of price volatility, the inflationary impact of higher oil prices and the significant environmental impact (including contributing to climate change) of liquid fuels, there is a strong case to move away from oil, but this transition will be one of the most difficult challenges lying ahead for society.

The University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership invites to join us for a session as two sustainability experts with in-depth experience of the oil industry discuss the future ‘Beyond Petroleum?’

DATE: Friday 8 April 2011

TIME: 12:30 – 14:00

VENUE: IDASA Bookshop, 6 Spin Street, Cape Town

COST: Entrance is free – R35 brown bag lunch available, please pre-order

To confirm your attendance please e-mail Magda de Kok on magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

SPEAKERS

David Rice is an independent adviser on the social and environmental impacts of business. He joined BP as a research geophysicist in 1979, from the UK National Physical Laboratory where he had been part of an atmospheric research team measuring and modelling stratospheric ozone. Before that he was a research astrophysicist at London University, working in a joint team with the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. In his career at BP David was Head of Geoscience Training, Exploration Manager for BP in China, a senior commercial analyst and strategic planner in the upstream business, Director of the Policy Unit, Chief of Staff for BP’s global Government and Public Affairs function and the BP Group Adviser on Development Issues. He instigated for BP a number of relationships with NGOs. He was one of the initiators of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights for the oil, gas and mining industry, launched by the governments of the USA and the UK in 2000.

Since leaving BP David has been working with companies and NGOs and academics on social and environmental issues at policy and individual project level, and on the engagement of businesses and NGOs with those issues. He has worked with natural resource industries in Australia, Angola and Azerbaijan, and on issues in the pharmaceutical and chocolate industries.

Dr Gary Kendall has been working with the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership since January 2011, having previously led SustainAbility’s think tank function. He regularly contributes articles – in particular relating to energy security and climate change – and speaks at international conferences and through the media. Gary has advised several leading companies on how to approach and tackle sustainability challenges, including Coca-Cola, Ford, Nestlé, Novo Nordisk, Rio Tinto, A.P. Møller-Maersk and Shell.

Previously, Gary spent two years working in WWF’s Global Climate & Energy program, where his main interests were the causes of – and solutions to – the series of environmental perils associated with society’s addiction to hydrocarbon fuels. This followed nine years in the oil industry with Mobil (and later ExxonMobil), spanning diverse roles from Research and Product Development to Sales, Marketing, and Business Development. Working across Europe, the US and Asia offered Gary first-hand insight to the strategic and day-to-day sustainability challenges posed by one of the world’s most problematic sectors.

Gary is the author of the WWF publication “Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age”.

Economic Growth in the Real World – Prof Jorgen Randers

The Cambridge Resilience Forum presents an exciting keynote address by Prof Jorgen Randers entitled ‘Economic Growth in the Real World.

DATE:  Monday 31 January 2011

TIME:  17:00 for 17:30 – 19:00

VENUE: BMW Pavilion, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town

When in 1972 Prof Randers co-authored the seminal book “Limits to Growth” the core debate it sparked was between those who believed that the problems increasingly associated with economic growth could all be solved and those who believed that the problem lay with economic growth itself. Today – and particularly here in Africa – the question that needs answering is “What kind of economic growth is actually possible in a world where biophysical limits are increasingly acknowledged as real and not theoretical?”

Having worked as an academic, policy advisor and company director at the vanguard of sustainable development for almost 40 years, Prof Randers will share his insights into how the world and its limits have changed since their 1972 analysis and the implications of this for economic development in a country like South Africa.

Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership in association with Webber Wentzel would like to invite you to listen to this world-renowned expert share his latest thinking.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jorgen Randers (born 1945) is professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian School of Management, where he works on climate issues and scenario analysis. He lectures internationally on sustainable development, and especially climate, within and outside corporations.

Jorgen Randers is non-executive member of a number of corporate boards in Norway, including the multinational Tomra ASA. He also sits on the “sustainability councils” of British Telecom in the UK and The Dow Chemical Company in the US. Recently he chaired the Commission on Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions which reported in 2006 to the Norwegian cabinet on how Norway can cut is climate gas emissions by two thirds by 2050.

He was formerly President of the Norwegian School of Management 1981 – 89, and Deputy Director General of WWF International (World Wide Fund for Nature) in Switzerland 1994 – 99.

He has authored a number of books and scientific papers, including “The Limits to Growth” (1972) and “Limits to Growth – The 30 Year Update” (2004).

Cancun Unpacked

In January 2010 Investec, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, hosted a very lively post Copenhagen breakfast to discuss the outcomes of the climate negotiations with an expert panel.

We are delighted to invite you to a similar breakfast where the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun (COP16) will be unpacked by a similarly expert panel.

We will be posing two main questions:

• What progress did Cancun’s COP16 make towards a legally binding international agreement and other subsidiary goals, and what are the implications for the South African economy?
• What have we learned that will shape our planning for South Africa’s hosting of COP17 at the end of 2011?

Date:     Wednesday 2 February 2011
Time:    07:30 for 08:00 – 10:30
Venue:  Auditorium, Investec Sandton (click here for map)

RSVP: Please confirm your attendance and special dietary requirments with Carryn Penhall by Wednesday 19 January 2011

Guest speakers:
Joanne Yawitch: Leader of the SA delegation to Cancun and Deputy Director General, Environmental Quality and Protection at the Department of Environmental Affairs

Richard Worthington: Climate Change Programme Manager, WWF South Africa

Dr Fred Goede: Group Safety, Health and Environment Centre Manager, Sasol

Prof Jorgen Randers: Director of the Centre for Climate Strategy, Norwegian School of Management and faculty member of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability leadership

This is likely to be one of the benchmark discussions of Cancun’s outcomes within the South African business community. We hope you will join us.

Toddlers with matchboxes

By Monica Graaff

Ever since we discovered how to use fire, we humans have been like “toddlers with matchboxes” – and dangerously so.

So said science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: innovation inspired by nature (first published in 1997). She was talking at the inaugural lecture of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership’s Resilience Forum in Cape Town on 27 August 2009.

Her fondly delivered description of our “relatively new species” conjures up a vivid image of how we humans have become too smart and successful for our own good. So smart and populous in fact, that our beloved “heat, beat and treat” approach to almost everything could threaten our very own survival.

The problem with our approach to solving problems is that it usually causes a host of other problems in its wake – problems that in turn need solving. Human induced climate change is an obvious example.

Read more

Biomimicry in engineering and building

Green buildings has a positive impact on a number of impacts besides water and electricity savings, says PD Naidoo & Associates Consulting Engineers in a recent Engineering News article.

“Green building is a broad name for efficiency across everything, not only buildings, and includes transport, structures, rail networks and waste disposal.”

This follows on statements in the same publication and in other reports that green buildings also improve the investment case for owners.

PD Naidoo & Associates continue that an increased understanding of the link between a building and its natural environment and the influences these have on each other has also led to new design approaches in construction.

The concept of biomimicry has increased in prevalence, they explain. Biomimicry involves the use of nature as inspiration for design concepts. Conventional examples of this are termite mounds, which run as efficient large-scale city-type habitations, and the invention of Velcro arising from observations of burrs on animal fur.

In the recent Brunel Lecture, Peter Head, director of ARUP, also referred to the 10 principles of Biomimicry as providing the solutions for sustainable design.

To learn a lot more about biomimicry, we invite you to attend one of the public lectures by Janine Benyus and some of the directors of the Biomimicry Institute. Get all the info here…

Janine Benyus recently spoke alongside former US president Bill Clinton and renowned business author Peter Senge at the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Chicago.

Design inspired by nature – Biomimicry talks

Janine Benyus, the world renowned author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and the Chair of the Biomimicry Institute, will be giving public lectures in Cape Town and Johannesburg on 27 August and 9 September respectively. Cindy Gilbert the Director of Education at Biomimicry Institute will also give a lecture in Stellenbosch on 27 August.

	CAPE TOWN LECTURE	STELLENBOSCH LECTURE	JOHANNESBURG LECTURE
DATE:	27 August 2009, 17:30	27 August 2009, 17:30	9 September 2009, 17:30
VENUE:	Townhouse Hotel, 60 Corporation Street	Con de Villiers Hall (room A201), JC Smuts Building, Merriman Avenue	Hyatt Regency Hotel, 191 Oxford Road, Rosebank
COST:*	R228	Free	R228

* Student fee = R50

To book for any of these events please contact Magda de Kok on 021 469 4765 or magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

Biomimicry is the process of learning from and then emulating Nature’s genius to create more sustainable designs. It’s studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell or an electric eel to make a better battery.

“Biomimicry introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.” – Janine Benyus

Why emulate nature?
Because organisms and ecosystems face the same challenges that we humans do, but they meet those challenges sustainably. More than 30 million species, represent a deep reservoir of wisdom – blueprints, recipes and strategies for how to live gracefuly in place, in ways that create conditions conducive to life.

Here is a video of a talk Janine gave at the 2005 TED conference

BoP Learning Lab – Waste Management

The Fourth 2009 Lunch-hour workshop will take place on Thursday, 25 June 2009.

TIME: 12:30 – 14:00 (coffee/tea & sandwiches supplied)
VENUE: Open Innovation Studio, 27 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town

Waste management: a business opportunity at the BoP?

The City of Cape Town, with its huge wealth gap, geographical constraints and human diversity, is faced with some of the world’s most interesting challenges with regards to urban planning, spatial organisation, public transport and the environment, to name but a few. Mr Barry Coetzee, Head of Integrated Waste Management Policy, will talk to us about the City of Cape Town’s approach to serving the needs of lower income communities in terms of waste management, tackling the dual challenge of providing urban waste management solutions in poor, high-density urban environments while at the same time creating employment opportunities and encouraging entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid.

A vast majority of Southern Africa’s more than 240m people live below the poverty line. Even in South Africa, by far the region’s strongest and most modern economy, 75% of the population earn less than R1800* per month.

It is the mission of this generation, our generation of Southern Africans, to reduce this gap, and allow us to build a better society. Brick by brick, the work of each contributes to the progress of all. In this battle for a common ideal, businesses are vehicles of social transformation. Their ability to engage at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is crucial to our development and prosperity.

Businesses are emerging as an engine of positive social change as well as economic upliftment. But the challenges are huge. Identifying the right business models, learning from each other’s experience, exchanging intelligence and keeping pace with new developments is crucial in order to have a meaningful impact on the lives of people at the BoP.

The BoP Learning Lab is meant to provide sources of inspiration, to be the toolbox with which the Southern African corporate fabric can maximise its social impact at the bottom of the pyramid.

* World Resource Institute, 2008

More info on www.bop.org.za.

To confirm your attendance, please phone Norma Saayman on 021-918-4238 or e-mail to ns5@usb.sun.ac.za.

BoP Learning Lab – May

** Please note that this event has been postponed till further notice **

The Fourth 2009 Lunch-hour workshop will take place on Thursday, 21 May 2009.

TIME: 12:30 – 14:00 (coffee/tea & sandwiches supplied)
VENUE: Open Innovation Studio, 27 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town

The names of the guest speakers will be confirmed shortly.

A vast majority of Southern Africa’s more than 240m people live below the poverty line. Even in South Africa, by far the region’s strongest and most modern economy, 75% of the population earn less than R1800* per month.

It is the mission of this generation, our generation of Southern Africans, to reduce this gap, and allow us to build a better society. Brick by brick, the work of each contributes to the progress of all. In this battle for a common ideal, businesses are vehicles of social transformation. Their ability to engage at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is crucial to our development and prosperity.

Businesses are emerging as an engine of positive social change as well as economic upliftment. But the challenges are huge. Identifying the right business models, learning from each other’s experience, exchanging intelligence and keeping pace with new developments is crucial in order to have a meaningful impact on the lives of people at the BoP.

The BoP Learning Lab is meant to provide sources of inspiration, to be the toolbox with which the Southern African corporate fabric can maximise its social impact at the bottom of the pyramid.

* World Resource Institute, 2008

More info on www.bop.org.za.

To confirm your attendance, please phone Norma Saayman on 021-918-4238 or e-mail to ns5@usb.sun.ac.za.

International Faculty for BEP seminar

The annual South African Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Senior Executive Seminar takes place from 11 – 14 May 2009 in Cape Town.

Once again the seminar boasts with an impressive line-up of international faculty that will contribute to make it an enriching and valuable experience:

Jorgen Randers

Jorgen holds a PhD in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1974 he established and directed a futures research institute in Oslo, doing early work on sustainable development. He served as President of the Norwegian School of Management from 1981 to 1989; worked in Norwegian business from 1989 to 1993 and served as Deputy Director General of WWF International in Switzerland 1994 to 1999.

Currently, Jorgen is a Professor in Climate Strategy at the Norwegian School of Management, where he teaches Climate Policy, scenario analysis and sustainability. He serves on a number of corporate boards, in Norway and abroad, including the environmental advisory boards of The Dow Chemical Company and British Telecom. In 2005–6 he chaired the Norwegian Commission on Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions who reported to the cabinet on how Norway can reduce its GHG emissions by two-thirds by 2050.

He is co-author of the infamous book: THE LIMITS TO GROWTH (1972).

Jo da Silva

Jo da Silva is a Director and leads Arup International Development which specialises in sustainable development in low income countries particularly in urban environments.

Jo originally joined Arup having studied engineering at Cambridge University. She has combined a career at Arup, focussed on building design, urban re-generation and sustainable development with active involvement in humanitarian relief and international development. She has particular expertise in shelter-housing, urban environments and disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation.

As a structural/civil engineer has worked on a wide variety of technical projects both in the UK and overseas which have won major awards: Chek Lap Kok Airport, Osaka Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Royal Geographical Society, Ideas Stores, Surestart nursery Mitcham.

She has been a RedR-IHE Member since 1991, and has provided expertise in post-disaster situations including the Rwandan genocide (1994), and as Senior Shelter Co-ordinator for UNHCR in Sri Lanka post-tsunami (2005).

She has considerable project management experience, and proven leadership skills. This includes: project/programme monitoring review, stakeholder consultation, assessment, evaluation and reporting; people and cost management; liaison with local and national government, funding bodies and key stakeholders.

Jo has extensive overseas experience, and has lived and worked in India, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Germany, Tanzania. She has travelled extensively in the India sub-continent, South-East Asia, Middle East, Central Asia and Europe.

Paul Gilding

Paul is an independent writer, advisor and advocate for action on climate change and sustainability.

An activist and social entrepreneur for 35 years, his personal mission and purpose is to lead, inspire and motivate action globally on the transition of society and the economy to sustainability. He pursues this purpose across all sectors, working around the world with individuals, businesses, NGOs, entrepreneurs, academia and government.

He has served as CEO of a range of innovative NGO’s and companies including Greenpeace International, Ecos Corporation and Easy Being Green. He has also helped to establish and served on the board of a number of new NGOs including Inspire Foundation, the Australian Business Community Network and Climate Coolers. His speaking and work has taken him to over 30 countries including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, South America, Europe, South Africa, the USA and Mexico.

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