Gen Y: Think back to the basics, choose your own brand of sustainability

There’s a ‘fog of war’ surrounding all things green. We don’t know what green really means, are confused about how it affects us on a personal level, and it leads to literal competition: who’s greener than who. That’s enough to make any ‘green’ and climate-change skeptic drool; but doesn’t mean that we should give up hope. Some initial problems with green environmentalism are:

One: green has become expensive and elite, and those pushing it know how to collect its cash flow.

When green is about technology and living sustainably, it comes down to trends and spending. There’s nothing wrong with that in theory, but it certainly takes a certain brand of sustainability away from our generation. I like the thought of sustainable-living developments, but don’t have $350,000 for a self-sustaining bachelor condo.

Two: green definitely has its heart in publicity, which has its perks but is not eco-focused.

Besides the slight chance of pollination, things like green roofs will never connect themselves to other ecosystems, a key element driving ecosystem health. But, they do provide a cooling effect vs. the city’s concrete, and at least some benefit to air quality. I’m never against such initiative, but the benefits are only slightly more than peace of mind.

So, for now, forget green and get back to the basics:

1. Ecosystems

The first thing I’d like to reflect is that our cities don’t actually separate us from nature. It may appear that way because of the infrastructure or the way we live day-to-day, but we are very much in there. In fact when you look at our input, output, and the energy it takes to maintain urban economies – we are very much an ecosystem in ourselves. A big dirty one.

Simple advice? Think of your (that’s right, your) environment as a system of climate, land and water. Along with ‘green’, the ‘environment’ picked up some bland meaning so that recycling and going easy on gas mileage was becoming enough. It takes the input-output mindset, and ecological awareness to realize how we affect our surroundings.

Also, Zen-up your office work space by buying some plants. Not only is green a relaxing colour, but having plants can demonstrate the care needed to sustain life.

2. Keep doing what you’re doing

Don’t stop now, because your habits are improving and you’re doing great, I know you are. Your new-found travel habits are soft on your bank account, and that’s critical in your saving years. The fact that you are recycling shows you just how much you’re consuming (because taking it out back is a bitch), forcing you to consume less packaging.

Take the opportunity to compost too, so that ever-important organic matter doesn’t go to waste. Even if you live in an apartment. (<< I love how they mention that the worms eat through your compost “and junk mail“, that’s productive recycling!)

3. Basic, and Early Education is Key

Start educating yourself and kids now. Many Gen-Yers complain that right now, in this stage of their life, ’saving the planet’ comes after family and career. Fair enough. But what if every child grows up to pass on that same mindset? What a disaster our world would be, seriously. We could all use some time outside, where nature counts, to show us what our grandchildren need to survive.

Young parents, have a look at this site promoting early education in fun and eco-friendly ways.

Take some time: At the bottom of this recent post are some links to get your curiosities flowing.

And finally, don’t get caught up in ‘buying green’. Your actions are still more important than which green movement you’re supporting. Customize a sustainable life to fit your priorities, because every bit counts.

Three Business Tips To Take From Ecology

There are relevant sources for business tactics and growth everywhere you look, most of which is classic and important blog material. But nothing can act as an analogy to anything, better than nature itself. As my courses have begun, and I am en route to restoration certification (I like to call it ‘Impact Solutions’ ), my blog-fodder nursery has grown substantially.

The latest business/ecology analogies that I am finding (and running back to my computer throughout my study hours to take note of) are as follows:

Products vs. Services – While products rake in the revenue through resource harvest, services offer long-term solutions.

Businesses that deal in products and commodities will probably rake in more revenue than businesses that provide services, but that’s not to say that the services aren’t important. The services are what protect the business and allow them long-term profitability, and much like nature’s services (hydrology and systems), though they cannot offer direct profit – they provide the land with what it needs to be productive.

*Note to industry: keep natures services active.

Stress Factors - Removing the stress factors is merely passive, while adding stabilizing factors is active.

When stress is encountered, one might want to initially only remove those stress factors, so that eventually your life and work can return to normal. But that is the passive approach – and if you don’t take an active approach to mitigating problems, that stress factor will never really go away.

In restoration management the first thing one would do is identify the stress factors which are meddling with a system, and assess the possibility of removing them. Secondly, you need to assess what active management you can take, that is – what other factors you can introduce to fix a damaged system.

Overall, the idea is to see what element you can introduce to an environment to allow for growth, instead of cutting out what may be damaging. Or, both cut and introduce.

Acceptance of Dynamic Systems - That there are always several answers and routes to a solution, and solutions shouldn’t be set in stone.

And finally – whether you react by adding an element to a system or deal in products or services – you should know and be willing to accept that solutions and processes are dynamic. Both restoration and business solutions are dynamic processes – so it’s always good to allow for input and change as projects mature.

I could quote ol’ Don Rumsfeld’s ‘unknown unknowns’ spiels, because the point is similar – but it’s all quite simple: get out there and ecologize, the answers are everywhere!

Leave Your Shoes at the Door: Three Ways To Be a Friendly Visitor to Your Environment

When you visit a friend’s place, do you leave your shoes at the door, tread lightly, and attempt to have a minimal impact on the things he or she owns? Or, do you thrash around like a baby, and take and leave what you like?

We are just visitors here, and individually, we come and go. As humans we are increasingly messy and have historically been bad houseguests to our surroundings. Some would say that it is our right – as free-world inhabitants – to consume, affect, and do as we please (see 2^nd to last / 8:14pm comment ) because our time on this earth is to be enjoyed. But, my friends, it is possible to minimize one’s impact by being aware, and simply using your surroundings with compassion. We are visitors here, yet we:

…smear concrete and asphalt like pâtés wherever we see fit. So, use it to walk where it’s pleasant.

Roads and asphalt for the purpose of transport take up to 20 percent of urban space in certain cities in England, while in North America, roads and parking lots account between 30 and 60 percent of the total urban surface. So, who likes to walk? From the same source as above: Walking accounts for 88% of all movement inside Tokyo, while this figure is only 3% for Los Angeles. It’s not your fault that too much focus has been put on the experience of getting somewhere with the culture of personal vehicles, but what you do (we are a market, remember) will have an impact on what is built for your future needs.

Luckily, urban planning and design have put new focus on pedestrian, and car-reducing design. I have always been perplexed by how unpleasant a city can be for the person, and how – clearly – someone would want to spend as much time as possible inside a vehicle.

Overall, the pleasantness of your urban experience will have an effect on how much you walk and bike, but those two options will have a priceless impact on our land and air. Over the course of a month try crossing out up to ten of those normal drives, replace them with that alien, outside experience. Then, choose your next locale based on its non-vehicle options.

… have historically disregarded the need for habitat and nature’s services. So be aware of what has replaced it and the effect on its surroundings.

Along the lines of the above point, city living can be rather unpleasant. Habitat and natural space in a city is not just for increased pleasantries though, it is important to keep hydrology and cycles in its natural state for the sake of the city’s surroundings.

The biggest issue with hydrology is the passage of surface water – as roads and general infrastructure have almost completely bypassed the cycle of water through soils. Being aware of the connection between drains and runoff is important too. In some cities (I see it here in Victoria) storm-drains and gutters will have a little seashell or starfish symbol reminding you that what goes in there sees the ocean or other water next. Just knowing that this replaces soil hydrology is an important first step. The importance of soil is underrated, and we generally don’t know enough about it and our impacts on it. When our city’s roads and parking lots cover up to 60 percent of it, how could we? It is best if we take advantage of any natural space we have, and let the important people know if you need more!

…consume resources like there’s no tomorrow. So reduce waste and be a conscious consumer.

Things are changing fast: people are increasingly environmentally aware, and we have long passed any sort of industrial revolution; but the best time to have an impact by curbing consumption is now, recession-wise, and Dip wise. There is no better time to show resource, material, and crap-you-don’t-need producers that the future of their product is changing. Curbing consumption is the quickest way to a producers heart, especially of the things that will long outlive us – like cars, chemicals and plastics. As a visitor, know that when you leave it is only polite to try to leave as little an impact as possible, especially waste wise.

Companies that produce resource products, logging co’s for example, need to focus on either 1) re-stocking, or 2) restoring sites in light of the fact that there is a tomorrow. Being a conscious consumer is part of the equation too. One should at least attempt to buy the product that took the least amount of fuel to get to you. If that brings down Canada’s timber another notch, so be it: I’ve always been a supporter of corporate sacrifice for landscape positives. There are ways to do it, and consultants like myself need to find the ways to make them viable.

The message is simple and plausible, act the cautious guest. At the risk of seeming morbid, imagine that next to your gravesite (or what have you) when you die lies a pile of things that you have consumed and discarded over your lifetime – especially the non-recyclables. Finally, pass a good ethic to the generation below you, ensuring that they are cautious visitors, that their ‘death-pile’ will be considerably smaller than yours.

An Environment of Growth

Like a seedling growing in a new environment, there are factors above and below your space that can limit or excel one’s future growth.

1. The Canopy Above
2. The Administration Below

1. If the canopy above you (think upper management) overshadows your every move, your light resource will be limited. Without this energy (in the workers case freedom), growth opportunities will be limited. Like being stuck in an overcrowded room, one may fail to be noticed.

Adjust: Some plants thrive in a dark environment, shadowed by canopy. These plants have broader leaves, and take in what they can. As a worker, broaden out – allowing your freedom to come in as work through several sources. Refuse to have your receptor cells under-stimulated by reaching out to those around you.

Fight it: Grow taller by developing your credentials. Taking in more work by specializing should be a positive experience. Finding a niche uncrowded will open up that darkened canopy allowing you to assert yourself.

2. When the administration below you is unstable or unwelcoming, growth will be limited. Like nutrients or water, if they flow beneath you too quickly (or not at all), how will you stand your ground? Your growth relies on the foundation already in place, something you can’t always meddle with.

For a broken administration there are coping mechanisms. Digging your roots in further can help. USE that administration. Often, a broken admin is an unused admin. Your work, like organic matter, will have a positive effect on the administration around you. Using it lets it know where you stand, and a balance can develop with your input and output.

The lifespan of a seedling can be unfortunately short if the conditions are not right; but it’s not luck, finding the right growing conditions is up to you. Plants and trees are seeded in masses, most are meant to die. You know you’re not. Some say that it should be common to try 8-10 environments before you attempt to ’settle’. I disagree. I would say that if you’ve switched jobs 8-10 times before you’re 30, the problem is yours – you need to re-assess what kind of plant you really are as the environments existed before you did.

Or start up your own environment, control it all.

Look Outside

Like an alien invasive species, you too can adjust to working and living abroad. Treating your work-life like running a business will have its advantages when you open your market to people who may see your input as valuable and creative . I think foreign consultants, in showing that they’re travelling to get their expertise out there, are seen as clever, valuable, and driven individuals.

Here’s an example: There’s a small business that’s opened up down the road from my workplace called Walk-In-Web. It is new, I hadn’t seen it before, and it looked like a good idea. Peeking in to get a closer look at their glassy, open-space setup, I think I would have chosen the Asian guy with glasses to work my webspace. Why? I don’t know, there was a certain image expertise that I thought I could roll with. Even if he wasn’t Asian, and in fact more Canadian than I, that was my initial thought.

I’m not the first to write about the advantages to working abroad, and I also recognize that you can’t just GO and work abroad, one needs to see it as a business move.

First Off, you must appeal to both culture and industry. By culture, I mean the identity of those working in your given industry. You’re not there to show them that outsiders know better, or even work differently. You need to have done your research on how work is done on their end, and show that you can adapt, accept, and improve with your personal touch. They say that the language of business is international, but you can’t count on that. Adaptation is still the name of the game.

My example considers Me vs. Japan: I know very little of the forest industry in Japan, or the way in which they handle their land, its inhabitants, and the ecosystem. But if I were to want to do business there, say, as a consultant selling my niche, I would want to know all those elements, as well as what they thought of Canadian forestry. Knowing that it would be my identity vs. theirs, what would be the best way to not only fit in, but to market a system they could identify with?

I use Japan as an example because of the similarities in our western ecosystems; a.k.a. the Pacific Rim. Several tree species grow healthily both here and in Japan (the Larch and Vine Maple to name a couple), so I figure if trees can do it (and thrive!), then so can we. Furthermore, if our ecosystems are so similar, there would be a good chance that we could (and do) use similar land management systems, or at least work them to adapt.

Another thing plants do to survive abroad is spread their seed, and quickly. I’m not talking Johnny Appleseed here. I simply mean being adventurous in spreading the word about yourself and services. You can stand out (skin/hair colour) – so why not take advantage of that? Good quality alien trees often do better than native tree species. Good looking business people do better. The best quality seeding systems enable their species grow the quickest, often overtaking and drowning out a native species.

Thirdly: recession talk. I’m no economist, and I don’t plan to panic…but it’s all the more reason to look abroad. A difference I should point out, in demonstrating my knowledge, is that invasive species are just that, invasive. The human analogy should be friendlier, as I’m hoping we won’t have ‘humanicides’ applied to us when we move to work abroad. And we won’t. Apparently Singapore’s business environment is designed to be easy on foreigners, including certain tax laws and property laws.

They’re not looking to keep us back with chemicals and chainsaws – but if business climate and culture sensitivities aren’t looked after, we may actually be seen as negatively invasive.