Envisioning Sustainable Futures – Stephen Hinton Consulting

Applying Real Capital to the Circular Firm

Several thinkers (including, for example, Boyd 2020 and Hazel Henderson) have suggested that the concept of real capital – or multi-capital – be introduced into the political economy to aid decision-making at policy level as well at corporate level. This may overcome one of the failings of standard economics: Policy makers often rely on economists to provide their decision bases. However, one of the failings of standard economics when preparing decision bases for policy makers, is that anything that cannot be valued in money is seen to have no value or little value. The Earth does not send a bill for the use of its atoms so the stewardship of the material world is left out. Without a comprehensive valuation framework, policy makers and strategists are likely to miss the full picture by just relying on monetary values and make decisions that could be detrimental to society, counter to the intentions of the policy.

This article gives a general explanation of the category of real capital that is built capital, and how to use its valuation in preparing decision bases. The Real Capital approach gives a more robust decision basis, helping identify long term investment needs and policy that steers investment and activities to avoid capital degeneration and promote capital regeneration.

The “C” of the ABC of supply chains is the keystone of circularity

The last article explained that, if you are looking to develop policy to drive the circular economy, then it is useful to divide supply chains up in their industrial classification. You need to look at one in particular, the keystone holding it all up – C, manufacturing. And in manufacturing, you need to focus on built capital – the capability and performance of the actual infrastructure used in manufacturing.

It’s not the technology, it’s the social organisation that will save us.

Back in 2008 I published a novel, “Inventing for the Sustainable Planet”. It follows technical writer Max Wahlter as he uses creativity techniques to invent sustainable technology. He was hoping to sell some to augment his measly salary.

Trying out a water walk

One possible round route of 4 km following the river Lugneån that feeds into the river Hoån and the hydroelectric installation that provides Hofors with electricity.

Rivers are held as sacred in India. It is not uncommon for people to undertake long pilgrimages to walk from their source to the sea. The People’s Water Commission on Drought and Floods, https://pwcdf.org/ an NGO co-founded by the International Association of Advanced Materials, based in Ulrika, Sweden, has had the idea, inspired by the Indian example, that people in their local areas set up a water walk to better engage with the water systems in their local areas. One of the main purposes would be to engage people in preparing for possible droughts and floods as the climate changes.

The IPCC AR6: consequences for municipalities

Given the warming already locked in, as well as the lack of measures in place, municipalities should prepare for weather pattern instability as well as to be ready for fast changes in political will. The work of Igor Ansoff gives guidance.

ABSTRACT

This report looks at the consequences of the recent IPCC synthesis for municipal authorities in their longer-term planning. Although the main focus is Sweden, the report should be relevant to municipalities in other countries. It suggests that given the warming already locked in, as well as the lack of measures in place, municipalities should prepare for weather pattern instability as well as to be ready for fast changes in political will. The report suggests following the advice of strategist Igor Ansoff to set up capabilities to deal with a turbulent operating environment. This includes capability to monitor the situation, work with a range of scenarios and to ensure the organisation is agile enough to deal with unexpected changes, be they physical, social or political. The report suggests municipalities address three basic strategic questions covering global inaction, energy transition and food provision. It proposes a holistic approach analysing each measure to address climate instability on several dimensions to avoid, among other things, adaptation putting unfair pressure on the poorest.

Another way to model complexity in economics: game it!

I heard that Marx struggled at the end of his life to learn enough mathematics to demonstrate his insights as calculations. He didn’t make it. But it is understandable. Society runs on expert calculation. We see them every day about the effects of interest rates and output and unemployment, estimates of share prices etc. The problem is, we are dealing with complexity and treating it like a simple case of “doing the maths” when mathematics is poorly equipped to do that.

Carbon accounting in the circular municipality

Material flows in different scales

You would expect that material flows would present their own logic for whether they are best handled in your own home or at a global level. Or scales in between. Factors like material density, value and frequency of use and transport would be obvious candidates.

This article focusses on the municipality and looks specifically at the material flows that contain carbon. And we’ll take a practical example: the area called Västra Gästrikland (VG) in the north of Sweden. This is an area comprising three municipalities in cooperation.

Can you measure how appropriate your culture is?

Will it support your survival?

Business leaders understand that it is essential that the culture of the corporation fits the market and wider context the corporation operates in. They also understand how the culture of the corporation needs to adapt and evolve with the changes in the business environment. Its corporate culture ensures the organisation can thrive. Can one draw a parallel to the development of national culture?

Peace and circular economy to be featured in investors in peace newsletter

Investors in Peace has been going as a website, blog and newsletter since 2016.

Today they are announcing that to improve our newsletter service they are going over to Substack. The newsletter is free, although they are planning, later down the line, to introduce a paying service for our more in-depth articles and other services.

Stephenhinton.org will be contributing articles primarily on the connection between the circular economy and Peace with the Earth.

Go to investorsinpeace.substack.com

Why talk about the business of peace now?

The topic is more apposite than ever: with the whole basis of business being undermined by energy costs, wars going on and politics that seems to have lost its way we believe the one thing to aim for is the one thing that is a real thing: peace.

Peace is not about the way we run things, it’s about who we are. More than the sum of all our business successes and failures put together. More than ever we need to be reminded that in the middle of trying to keep the wheels of production going we need to feel peace.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be publishing highlights from the past eight years and going deeper into the four aspects of the business of business as peace.

Peace with ourselves

Peace with the Earth

Peace with each other

Peace with the future generations

So, look out for new editions of the newsletter, and do check out the website: investorsinpeace.com

As usual you can opt-out at any time by following the unsubscribe links at the bottom of the page.

Copenhagen’s plan for net-zero

Copenhagen aims to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025. This article explains how they plan to do it and hints at several obstacle along the way.

Plans to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025

The statue of HC Andersen at the City Hall Square Copenhagen

Copenhagen aims to be the first carbon neutral capital by 2025. Their report CPH 2020 Roadmap 2021-2025 lays out the challenges: fossil-based emissions come from two main sources: energy production and transport. The city aims to introduce some forty-seven different initiatives to completely remove fossil emissions from energy production and reduce transport emissions by just over 11% on 2018 levels.

FAST FACTS

AREA: Copenhagen city
POPULATION: 620 000
EMISSIONS 2018: 1 500 000 tonnes CO2 per year
BASELINE PROJECTION: 630,000 tonnes CO2 per year
EMISSIONS 2050 with roadmap: 430,000 tonnes CO2 per year
ROADMAP REDUCTION: 200,000 tonnes CO2 per year
NUMBER OF ROADMAP MEASURES: 47

Energy generation

The bulk of reductions, 855,000 tons of CO2, will come from investments in renewable energy production. By 2025, Copenhagen’s production of electricity and heating will be mainly based on wind, biomass, geothermal energy, and waste. The district heating will be carbon neutral and the city will produce green electricity exceeding its consumption, in order to offset remaining CO2 emissions. The excess of green electricity will be exported to other parts of Denmark.

Energy consumption

Another way to reducing fossil fules in energy consumption is to reduce need for consumption. The Copenhagen plan contains measure to stimulate building insulation and smart energy regulation.

Transport

More than half of Copenhageners use bicycles as their main means of transport. The Climate Plan calls for 75% of all trips in Copenhagen to be on foot, by bike, or via public transport. The city also aims to make public transport carbon neutral and increase its use by 20%.

We will be discussing these plans from several perspectives in future blogs. For now, the plan has stirred controversy, see for example this article from The Conversation which says that reliance on unproven technology and external funding can both upset the best laid plans.