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”.

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.

There are an increasing number of global climate funds available to invest in climate change mitigation projects and kick-start a green economy, but accessing these funds is not as simple as it might seem, according to speakers at a Cambridge Resilience Forum event in Cape Town this week.
 
The funds range from the $30 billion committed to climate friendly development at the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Copenhagen conference last year to private equity funds. But, according to Smita Nakhooda of the World Resources Institute based in Washington DC, many tensions exist as to how these funds should be sourced, committed and managed.
 
“At the heart of the debate is how to maintain high standards of financing, while ensuring that funding institutions are nimble enough to ensure that things get done,” she said. “And how do you ensure that the finance reaches the kind of projects that will have traction and bring about major change?”
 
Nakhooda said one of the major tensions was that developing nations wanted to have direct access to funding and many donors felt safest working through the tested international bodies such as the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Advances in meeting this challenge of ‘top-down versus bottom-up’ had been made with the introduction of the Adaptation Fund and the growth of national low carbon development funds, but it was too early to judge how these would fare.
 
Richard Sherman of One World Sustainable Investments and a member of the South African delegation to the UNFCCC said that the Copenhagen Accord included an agreement to set up a new fund that was currently being negotiated. Debated issues were over global technology intellectual property rights, insurance mechanisms, whether to make grants or loans, and what the sources of funding should be.
 
A possible source for this new fund could be using 1% of GDP from developed countries, but then the question would be how the UN Secretary General would decide to mobilize these funds, he said.
 
Funds could also possibly be sourced from the private sector via climate transactions taxation, leveraging emissions of the transport industry, and implementing George Soros’s proposal of an IMF rights issue.
 
However, the good news, he said, was that the $30 billion committed at Copenhagen would flow through existing channels, and would therefore not be hampered by this process of negotiation.
 
The important thing for South Africa to remember was that it needed to ensure that it had established the right channels to receive these funds so that it would be ready to receive them, he said. Work still had to be done in this area.
 
Carl Wesselink of the South African Export Development Fund called for a pragmatic approach to accessing climate-related funds and putting them to good social and economic use. The point was not to focus on becoming ‘carbon neutral’ (which usually had “zero social impact” and had a “negative impact on the country’s Balance of Payments”) but rather to focus on “how we get energy and how we use it”.
 
“Our decisions need to be practical and socially responsible,” he said.
 
Best known for the role he played in implementing South Africa’s acclaimed flagship Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) housing retrofit project at Kuyasa in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, he said it would cost R1500 per unit over five years to retrofit an RDP house with a ceiling and a solar water geyser.
 
“This might not sound like a lot to us, but we need to understand the social and economic benefits from these simple interventions for the people who live in RDP houses. It means the inhabitants regain about 10% of their income in energy saving, get access to hot water for the first time, and avoid having to endure about 3 litres of condensation a night dampening their beds and affecting their health,” he said.
 
While the CDM was a useful mechanism, it was laden with bureaucratic processes that used up about 75% of the funds available, he said. Accessing funds from local funding institutions, such as the National Sustainable Settlements Facility, should not be ruled out as an interim measure to get things going.
 
Graham Sinclair, principal at Sinclair & Company, a boutique investment advisory firm specializing in sustainable investment in emerging markets, said private investment offered a possible source of climate finance.
 
“Investors are geared up to make investment decisions along ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) principles if people insist on them. The more investors ask for this kind of investment, the more the market will work in this direction,” he said.
 
But the bottom line for private funding, all agreed, was that the market required a reasonable degree of certainty that investment will be profitable.
 
As Nakhooda pointed out in her opening remarks, it is cheaper to mitigate the effects of climate change through climate friendly investments than to deal with post-event adaptation. Mitigation offers an opportunity for profiting from the development of a green economy. Adaptation is more likely to be expensive damage control.
 
Dirk Visser of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, who chaired the session, noted that, according to the World Bank, $50 billion was needed annually for Africa to cope with climate change. According to some, this figure is severely underestimated.
 
Monica Graaff is a freelance journalist who works on projects with the University of Cambridge’s Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

The social and economic impact of sea level rise was the topic at our recent Cambridge Resilience Forum session (get the podcast here). A 2008 risk assessment done for the City of Cape Town concluded that within the next 25 years there is an 85% probability of 60,9km2 (2% of the Metro area) being covered by sea for a short period, with an accompanying expected loss of real estate value estimated at just under R20bn. As Prof Geoff Brundrit explained, these estimates are predicated on only a 15 centimeters rise in the sea level. Even such a relatively small rise changes the frequency and intensity of extreme storm events and this causes the damage. A more dramatic sea level rise, when the polar ice caps melt for example, causing coastal areas to be underwater permanently, is not even included in current estimates for the next 30-50 years.

Gregg Oelofse of the City of Cape Town elucidated some of the challenges for government. The possible mitigation strategy of building more storm walls and barriers can actually increase the impact of storm events. The Cape Town study done in 2008 was one of the first in the world and has placed the City on the forefront of planning and thinking about these issues.

Similar to the Australian report, the Forum session also highlighted the importance and complexity of legal liability and insurance cover related to climate change and sea level rise. At the Cape Town event Herman de Meyer, underwriting specialist of Santam, emphasised that insurers need to collaborate with scientists and policy makers to better understand these risks.

The 16 October edition of Engineering News carried an article on the sea level rise Forum session. Read the online article here…

The very secure online payment system caters for Visa and Mastercard credit cards, but there is also the option to pay via Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).

We trust that this new system will contribute to the Forum’s objective of offering convenient, flexible  and cost effective opportunities for continuing professional development.

The launch of the online booking system comes as we announce the double treat in November with two exciting sessions each in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

• Prof. Geoff Brundrit – Special Advisor on Oceans and Climate Change for the National Department of Environmental Affairs
• Gregg Oelofse – Environmental Resource Management, City of Cape Town
• Anton Cartwright – Economist, Econologic
• Herman de Meyer – Underwriting specialist, Santam

To download the podcast click here… or click ‘play ‘below to listen.

Forum – Sea Level Rise

CPSL’s Podcast

The Financial and Human Impact of Sea Level Rise
Wednesday 30 September 2009
17:30 – 19:30
Townhouse Hotel, 60 Corporation Street, Cape Town

Some climate scientists believe that we may have underestimated the tempo of sea level rise. Sea level rise could have a severe human and financial impact on low-lying coastal areas. What is the latest scientific evidence indicating? How will sea level rise impact property investment and insurance? How are we going to deal with disaster impact and the mass resettlement of people?

These are just some of the questions that will be discussed by our expert panel consisting of:

• Prof Geoff Brundrit – Special Advisor on Oceans and Climate Change, National Department of Environmental Affairs
• Anton Cartwright - Economist, Stockholm Environmental Institute
• Rian Mouton – Santam Facultative Reinsurance
• Gregg Oelofse – Environmental Resource Management, City of Cape Town

A 2008 sea-level rise risk assessment done on behalf of the City of Cape Town concluded that within the next 25 years there is a 85% probability of 60,9km2 (2% of Metro area) being covered by sea for a short period. The accompanying expected loss of real estate value is just under R20bn.

The report concludes:
“The sovereign risk of sea-level rise for the City of Cape Town is significant and will increase in the next 25 years regardless of reductions in greenhouse gas”.

This importance of gaining understanding on sea level rise therefore cannot be over emphasized. Come and join us to learn, with other professionals, about this topic.

Non Forum members pay R230 to attend, but why not join the Forum and get great discount on a year’s seminars?

For more information and to book your seat, please contact Magda de Kok on magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

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.

A smart way to re-invent our survival is to learn from other successful species that adopt a less hell-fire-and-brimstone approach and manage to create and re-create, for example, in water and at room temperature.

Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems. It points out that in Nature there are 3.8 million years of evolution and 30 million other species to learn from.

The discipline offers a new way of viewing and valuing nature and introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.

Benyus, who is based in Montana, USA, heads up a design consultancy that places a biologist on every team along with engineers, scientists, designers and business leaders. Their job is to hear the problem that needs solving and then provide an audit of how other species would approach the same problem, sustainably.

She is currently in South Africa to run a training programme for designers and consultants in Limpopo.  It is her first trip to Africa, and she is palpably “blown away” by coming into contact with the remarkable variety of biodiversity that we have here. “So much to learn from”, she points out, right on our doorstep.

The results of biomimicry so far have been extraordinary. Here are some of the Africa-based examples she provided in her lively presentation, which she backed with stunning photographic wildlife imagery. They involved new eco-smart technologies learnt from how the stripes on a zebra’s back regulate temperature. Or from how the mucus in a giraffe’s mouth protects it from being torn to shreds by Acacia thorns. Or from how termite mounds run extraordinarily efficient air-conditioning systems. Or from what we can learn from basking hippos about sun protection. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of opportunity

Benyus is currently putting together a free-for-all Google-like matchmaking portal database of Nature’s solutions, as they emerge: AskNature.org.  It will put designers and technologists who invent products and systems in touch with biologists so they can match human needs with Nature’s solutions.

One of the clues, according to biomimicry, is to not look at problems in isolation. We need to define our problems differently and look for “sets of solutions”. Another is to look at one of the key principles of successful evolution: “preserving life”. “Just look at a bird’s nest”, she suggests. “If we put life at the centre of all decision making, we will get it right.”

Benyus might label us as ‘toddlers’, but she is not hard on us humans. She points out that evolution only happens with mistakes and the opportunities that arise to correct these. Nature chooses what works, she says, and we have all the information we need at our fingertips to find the sustainable solutions. But we need to look to Nature for these because our own “heat, beat and treat” set of solutions is not doing the job.

We have had a lot of fun being “toddlers with matchboxes”, but it’s time to grow up.

Monica Graaff is the 2008 SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year and an associate of Incite Sustainability.

“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.