After finishing my thesis in January, my girlfriend and I spent some time overseas (recovering from all the hard work). Our first destination was Germany – well known as one of the leading countries from an environmental awareness perspective. I have been to Germany several times in the past and I have always been impressed by the infrastructure they have in place to manage their environmental impact.

For example they have a fantastic public transport system – A few years ago I traveled around with some friends and experienced the extensive train network. The network allows you to travel to virtually any small village in the country. While it can be relatively expensive if you buy individual tickets, I bought a 3 month Eurail pass which allowed me to jump into any train, any time, for 1300NZ$. The flexibility and freedom of the train system negated the need for a  car. I was already impressed by their systems when I was a child – every town in Germany seems to have a collection centre where people bring their recyclables. It is the responsibility of the consumer to sort out which ‘bin’ the various items go in – e.g. white glass, green glass, aluminium etc.. In Auckland we have one recycling bin – and it all goes in there. Does our system actually work?

Children playing in the rubbish left by the fishermen

In my latest trip, I was amazed by the system they now have in supermarkets to manage the collection and re-use of bottles. Consumers bring empty bottles back to the supermarket and insert them into a machine and in return they receive back ‘Pfand’ – money for being responsible. You can read more about this here. Are there any reasons why New Zealand can’t invest in this type of infrastructure? Perhaps there is an opportunity to get a group of stakeholders together and apply for some waste minimisation funding (WMF)

Another part of my trip was to Thailand and Bali. Both these destinations are incredibly beautiful and we had a wonderful time. However, it was sad to see the very limited infrastructure and low level of environmental awareness of the people in these places. I was walking along the beach in the northern part of Bali and met a fishing family who invited us to dinner – they would share their upcoming catch. We observed the fishermen pull in their nets and watched with sadness that their catch turned out to be a few very small fish and a net full of assorted plastic waste. I asked the fisherman what they did with the rubbish and he responded that they left it on the beach for the waves to carry it back out to sea.. They simply don’t have the infrastructure to deal with the packaging of imported products.

Together we still have a whole lot of work to do – think global act local.

My friend and business partner Richard Cross set up this blog for me in 2009 so that I had a forum for expressing my ideas that I was developing during my thesis. As you can tell I last posted a blog on this site a long long time ago.

Much has changed since that time – For one, I have finally submitted my PhD thesis ‘Towards environmentally sustainable manufacturing: A strategic framework for SMEs’ for examination. Completing the thesis has taken a major weight off my shoulders and I can now refocus my attention on helping companies progress with their environmental programmes.

My PhD used a triangulated research methodology combining ‘action research’, case studies, literature reviews and surveys. The end result was the ‘ecoWheel’ framework which helps SMEs to develop and implement effective  Environmental Management Systems (EMS). I intend to go into more detail in future posts..

During my PhD, 4 of my colleagues and I established two sustainability companies – KBS and ecoPortal. KBS was founded as a consultancy to help New Zealand companies develop their sustainability and environmental management programmes. ecoPortal is an online sustainability management system.. I’m sure I will write more about these two companies in due course.

I recently presented at the INNOVATIONZ forum for the Designers Institute of New Zealand. The presentation was entitled ‘No More Bling:Greenshift’ and I touched on how I felt the current economic situation will affect sustainability thinking in design and business. I presented my view that we as a country should use this ‘recession period’ to make some progress towards putting some substance behind our ‘clean and green’ image and to move beyond the green wash.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that the tougher the financial climate, the further environmental issues slip down the agenda. When a recession hits, companies slash expenditure in R&D and cut back on investment in cleaner technologies and processes.

I believe this is exactly the wrong way to think about it! This recession period can actually be the opportunity for companies to make some serious strides in the sustainability direction. In times of rapid economic growth all the focus is on expansion and promoting growth. In a recession we have the opportunity to turn our attention to rebuilding the way we do things through innovation and sustainability.

This current economic period will sort out those companies that are serious about sustainability from the green washers. If a company genuinely believes that sustainability can make it more efficient and successful it will continue to put resources into making reductions to its environmental impact. If on the other hand it sees sustainability as an optional piece of window dressing it will cut back its investment.

In my mind companies would be stupid to do this. There’s now such a strong body of evidence to support the business case for sustainability – it simply makes good business sense not to waste resources, rather to be as efficient as possible. In my experience manufacturing companies can expect to make easy savings by identifying and reducing their sources of waste – this doesn’t cost money it saves money!!

With recession, consumers obviously have less disposable income. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that those people who buy sustainable products won’t continue to do so. From a market perspective – people’s concerns for environmental and social issues don’t disappear overnight. What will perhaps change is how much responsibility they’re prepared to take themselves. Now more than ever consumers will expect companies to take responsibility for developing environmentally effective products and services.

I believe we need to design products that provide consumers with real and quantifiable reductions to environmental footprints which hopefully also benefit them from a financial perspective. A product concept which fits into this genre is the ‘Smart Towel Rail’ developed by a group of students in the multi-disciplinary Innovation and New Product Development design class run by the INNOVATIONZ group. It heats and dries the towel only when it senses that it is wet – once dry, the energy is automatically cut from it. In my eyes this is a fantastic product – it is convenient, saves the consumer a few hundred dollars a year in energy costs, and of course reduces the user’s carbon footprint. There is plenty of scope to develop innovative products that encourage sustainability – consumers are crying out for conservation without compromise.