Sustainable Enterprise ConsultingA Climate Test for Canada: Aligning energy project assessment with climate policy
The federal government is overhauling the National Energy Board (NEB), Canada’s pipeline regulator. As part of the NEB Modernization process, Environmental Defence commissioned a special report on how to design a “climate test”. The climate test would ensure that major energy projects—like oil sands pipelines—fit within Canada’s climate commitments and make economic sense in a low-carbon world. On behalf of Environmental Defence my colleague and lead author Duncan Noble and I explored what the details of a carbon test would look…
Sustainable Development and Metals: Are We Asking the Right Questions?
Industrial and consumer product manufacturers, retailers and many other branches/sectors are increasingly interested in reducing the environmental and social impacts, as well as optimising the societal benefits, of their products. They are doing this for a variety of reasons such as reducing costs, meeting regulatory and customer expectations, to show progress on their own commitments to create more environmentally and socially responsible products, reducing their contribution to global warming and minimising their exposure to undue supply chain risks (e.g. due…
The Green Product Revolution
A couple of years ago I was invited to give a keynote speech at the annual banquet for a local university group called SIGNALS, which stands for Students, Interested Parties, and Graduates Networking and Liaising around Sustainability. The group is based out of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and the invitation gave me the opportunity to synthesize my thoughts on the increasing amount of market activity underway to promote more environmentally and socially responsible products – what I called in…
Retail: The sustainability pivot point
Today is it becoming clear that major retailers are now a pivot point for corporate sustainability. On the one hand, they influence thousands of suppliers; on the other, they interface with millions of consumers. In the attached article originally published on GreenBiz in 2010, when I was a Director at Five Winds International, I explore how environmental and social issues have grown in importance and how retailers have demonstrated a strong desire to capitalize on a small but growing group…
Toolkit
The more I work on sustainability the more I realise that many solutions and ideas are timeless – we just have to implement them. This article co-authored with Ralf Nielsen provides five steps to help small and large companies embark on a journey towards sustainable design and green profitability. It also provides a list of organisational success factors and challenges that are still relevant today. (Click on the image to download the pdf file.)