Perpetual Innovation

Category: TED

  • Chris McKnett: The investment logic for sustainability | Talk Video | TED

    Chris McKnett: The investment logic for sustainability | Talk Video | TED:

    Chris McKnett gives a wonderful talk on investing and the idea that all investors should start looking at ESG (economic, social and governance). The economic is obvious, profits. Social is the impact to people in general, and governance is corporate social responsibility (CSR).

    Generally the research shows that there is no downside to being socially (and environmentally) sustainable. But in the long term, some of these companies that are irresponsible can be expected to lag behind.

    Chris implies that as an investor it could be (?is?) irresponsible to invest in companies that are and continue to be non-sustainable. The point is that the downside risk is dramatically increased for non-sustainable companies and those that don’t aggressively plan related to their non-sustainable ways.

    Maybe an example would be having a lumber-based business where you are chopping down the trees. A sustainable plan would be to replant at the rate of usage. At a minimum, you should find another country with too many trees, so you can get past the inevitable lumber crunch on the horizon…

    One of the beauties of this talk is that it focuses on just the financials of the sustainability issue. If big institutional investors started seriously considering the sustainability of their investors, then it would become front and center to all investments everywhere.

    The problem with non-sustainable business practices is that they always, always, have negative externalities associated with them. And we all bear the costs of their negligence.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Halloween 2011: Global Population Growth and impact on the planet.

    Halloween 2011. Wanna talk about something really, really scary!:-)
    No, it’s not Freddie. Or Fannie for that matter.
    Today, it seems, we have hit 7 billion population on
    the plant. Of the 150+ people born per minute, some 98% are borne in developing countries. This creates challenges for the already poor countries. At least 50 of them are born in
    India per minute.

    Bill Gates talks about energy and moving to zero
    carbon footprint. Not a wishful target, a necessary target. He’s aiming for
    2050 to have the world at a net zero carbon footprint. He describes the “    describing
    the need for ‘miracles’ to avoid planetary catastrophe    ”.
    CO2
    = P x S x E x C
    1. P eople (increasing rapidly!)
    2. S ervices per person (increasing rapidly!)
    3. E nergy emitted per
      service       (stable?)
    4. C arbon intensity per
      unit of energy       (wildcard)

    Aiming for zero
    requires huge innovation for the next 20 years and then 20 years to deploy.
    Waiting for another couple decades to decide to take the issue seriously is catastrophic.
    Gate’s one primary
    wish, if he had only one, would be this miracle breakthrough for energy.
    He wants to make the
    solution(s) have basic economic viability so that the longer-term and less
    certain impacts of CO2 build up are not relevant or at least much less so.

    DON’T go out tonight on fright night. Stay home and watch the world population clock: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html