Archive for September, 2015

Climate Week NYC 2015

Monday, September 21st, 2015
Climate Week in New York City

Climate Week in New York City

Today is the beginning of the seventh annual Climate Week in New York City, a series of events that brings together actors from business, government and the non-profit sector who are working towards a transition to a low-carbon economy. The week’s activities will include public and private events and typically private companies and the city government will announce commitments to invest in climate resilience measures or targets to reduce climate impacts. The Mayor of New York, for example, has floated a proposal to transition all city lighting to LED. Fortune 500 companies plan to announce specific commitments for the adoption of renewable energy sources to run their businesses. Climate Week also coincides with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, at which time the UN will adopt a new series of sustainable development goals, and the meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. This week I am very glad for the Acela high-speed train. I am also very glad that many of the Climate Week NYC events will be live-streamed on the Internet, so those from far away who wish to participate do not have to take flights to New York!

Design Thinking for Business Innovation

Sunday, September 20th, 2015
Design Thinking

Design Thinking

Design Week Rhode Island 2015 is underway and from September 16th to the 27th, Design Week partners offer events and programs to showcase their innovative and economic impact. Tonight’s event was a screening of “Design & Thinking” at Providence’s Cable Car Cinema. The documentary explores ways to fully engage organizations to  reflect on the changing landscape of business, culture and society. It considers how creative people collaborate to make change and how their work is applied to business models. I attended because I have read so much about design thinking and I want to consider how this methodology can be used to design for resilience. Can we develop business models, processes and products that embody resilience to most disruptions? According to IDEO, one of the world’s leading innovation and design firms, design thinking is a method of meeting people’s needs and desires in a feasible and viable way – in other words, designing something that people will use and that you can afford to supply.

I left the event with a few more design words to add to my vocabulary, but I am not entirely convinced that design thinking is the magic elixir to develop resilience. Design thinking approaches are predicated on a recognized need for a product or service. Since most small businesses don’t believe a disaster can ever happen to them, there is not yet, at least not in my experience, a demand for an elegantly designed solution. But I enjoyed myself and am happy to participate in a number of the other events planned for Design Week. Moo, a graphic design company that produces stationery and promotional materials for small businesses, is hosting a tour of its print facility. The Rhode Island School of Design is hosting several events, including one on design for social change. Food incubators and health care providers are sharing their experiences with design, so I hope to be inspired by what others are doing.

 

Climate Risks Through a Gender Lens

Saturday, September 19th, 2015
Women At Risk

Women At Risk

Yesterday, I officially joined the Class of 2016 of the Women’s Policy Institute of Rhode Island. The Women’s Policy Institute is a professional development program designed to inform and empower women who are interested in shaping public policy in Rhode Island.  Today, I finished our first two-day weekend retreat with a dozen amazing women learning about the legislative process in our state. One of the topics we considered in our first session was the examination of policy issues through a gender lens, which led me to reflect on the impact of gender in my own work. (And to motivate further reflection, the leadership of the Women’s Fund asked us to write about our individual motivations for joining this program. You can read my blog entry by clicking here.)

A number of the reports that Prisere LLC has developed for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction explicitly consider gender mainstreaming our programming; specifically, ensuring that women’s needs are addressed in developing disaster evacuation plans and opening opportunities to qualified women in the area of civil emergency management. We also address the greater risks to which women are exposed, largely as a result of having lower incomes (on average) then men. These include living in more hazardous (and therefore less expensive) locales. One particularly alarming report I read documented how most of the casualties in what we call the first major Asian tsunami were women and in some communities, all of those killed were female. This is the result of the fact that women engaged in subsistence agriculture activities in coastal areas, while men reported to other types of employment at higher elevations; hence, men were more likely to survive the tsunami waters.

But one of my former colleagues at the United Nations Development Program, Ana Maria Currea, said it best, so I will quote her directly:

“It is well established that the poor are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and that women—who account for the majority of the world’s poor—are disproportionately impacted. Why is this fact so important? And what are we doing to address it? Women farmers account for 45 to 80 percent of all food production in developing countries. This means that any changes in climate—such as droughts and floods—affect their livelihoods, incomes and food security more than they do men.”

Ana serves as the gender focal point at UNDP’s Global Environment Facility. Her remarks certainly resonate with my own experience. The photograph I have chosen to include in this blog posting was one I took while working in Guinea, a French-speaking country in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can see two huts in the background of the photo, where women farmers live and work with their families. I was there working with Land O’Lakes, which most Americans would recognize as a brand of butter. It is also America’s second largest cooperative and invests in building agricultural capacity in developing countries. Virtually all farmers in Guinea are women and they work at subsistence level, producing food to feed their families and perhaps a small surplus to trade for medicines and other essential supplies. They are also especially vulnerable to Guinea’s extreme weather hazards and the accompanying income volatility, such as droughts and floods, the consequence of climate change.

I look forward to my year as a fellow with the Women’s Policy Institute and getting to know the extraordinary women who are my classmates and those who lead the Women’s Fund. I am sure I will emerge a better informed and more effective policy advocate as a result of participating in this program. And, since I have piqued your interest (I hope!), if you are interested in learning more about UNDP’s work on gender and climate and disaster resilience, please click here.

 

 

 

This is a test

Friday, September 18th, 2015

This is a test.

Legislation Proposes Oversight of the Red Cross

Thursday, September 17th, 2015

American Red CrossThe U.S. General Accounting Office just released a report, American Red Cross: Disaster Assistance Would Benefit from Oversight Through Regular Federal Evaluation, following an eighteen-month investigation requested by Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The report finds that while the Red Cross has a mandate from the government to respond to disasters, “no regular, independent evaluations are conducted of the impact or effectiveness” of its work. The GAO report cites examples of failures in the response of the Red Cross to SuperStorm Sandy and misleading statements by the Red Cross leadership as to how the organization has spent funds raised for disaster relief work.

Indeed, this is nothing new. Following the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the Red Cross broadcast national appeals for aid for the “Liberty Fund” which appeared to suggest that all funds raised would be donated to those who lost family members or were left homeless as a result of the terrorist attacks. When the organization was slow to distribute the aid, public outcry forced the Red Cross to change its practices and begin more proactive outreach to Lower Manhattan communities impacted by the events of 9/11. Other critics of the Red Cross, such as Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), questioned the efficacy of the organization’s work in Haiti following a devastating earthquake.

In response to the findings of the GAO report, Congressman Thompson has drafted the American Red Cross Sunshine Act, legislation that would require regular audits of the financial operations of the Red Cross and evaluations of its response to disasters in the United States and abroad as well as other reforms. The American Red Cross has pointed out that that it is not a federal agency, its disaster relief efforts are privately funded and its work is performed almost entirely by volunteers. These are all valid points and all underscore the need for transparency and oversight of the Red Cross – no other organization has a government mandate for disaster relief work in the United States. Clear accountability and oversight gives donors the confidence that their contributions will be used in the most effective way, consistent with the donor’s intent and the organization’s mission. Congressman Thompson’s bill deserves support and all Americans owe thanks to Pro Publica, the non-profit journalism organization that provided an in-depth look at the response of the Red Cross to SuperStorm Sandy.

This is a test

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

This is a test.

Most UK Small Businesses Are Without Continuity Plans

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
Unprepared Everywhere

Unprepared Everywhere

The failure of small businesses to plan for disruptions appears to be a universal phenomenon. The sixth annual Data Health Check Report surveyed more than 400 businesses in the UK  and found that just 27 per cent of small businesses have business continuity plans in place, compared with 68 per cent of mid-sized businesses and 75 per cent of large companies. This finding has remained roughly constant over time, which is curious, as cloud computing and other innovations have reduced the costs of data backup and basic continuity measures. The report also found that 73 per cent of the small businesses that have a business continuity plan in place have not tested it within the past year and nearly half of them have no plans to do so in the near future.  Of those small businesses that had not tested their plans, only 28 per cent expressed confidence that they could successfully initiate a recovery operation in the event of a disaster. The study also found that the leading cause of data loss is human error (24 per cent), with hardware failure a close second (21 per cent).

 

This is a test

Monday, September 14th, 2015

This is a test.

Book of the Week: Climate Capitalism

Sunday, September 13th, 2015
Climate Capitalism

Climate Capitalism

I just finished reading Climate Capitalism, a book that presents the opportunities afforded by entrepreneurial solutions to achieving a low-carbon economy. I particularly appreciate that the authors addressed the importance of small businesses, as “the economic engine of any country, in North America generating more than half of non-farm private gross domestic product.”  They support this claim with familiar figures courtesy of the U.S. Small Business Administration: small businesses represent 99.7 per cent of all employer firms, employing nearly 60 million workers, or about half of all private-sector employees. In the past decade alone, small businesses have created 60 to 80 per cent of net new jobs each year. The authors recognize the importance of small businesses in efforts to reduce our carbon footprint in writing (page 39) that small businesses “confront correspondingly promising opportunities and bear significant responsibility for global sustainability.” But small businesses generally lack the resources to hire chief sustainability officers or undertake the measures pursued by Fortune-500 companies to address climate change.

Fortunately, the authors present pragmatic ways small businesses can contribute to global solutions for climate sustainability. They write (page 39) “Energy efficiency remains one of the best investments that a small business owner can make.” They cite examples of small businesses that reduced their energy bills by two-thirds employing such simple measures as replacing incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs or holding meetings in rooms lit by natural light. They also show how the use of power strips prevents appliances from consuming electricity even when they are switched off, a wasteful practice known as “phantom load”. I was stunned to read that Americans spend more money supplying electrical powers to DVD players when they are turned off than when they are actually in use. The authors demonstrate how small businesses implementing weatherization programs (such as caulking windows and sealing leaky ducts) have realized a 40 per cent return on their investments. Programmable thermostats typically return 30 per cent in annual savings. This book presents practical steps small businesses can take to achieve a sustainable environment and I highly recommend it.

Today is World First Aid Day

Saturday, September 12th, 2015
World First Aid Day

World First Aid Day

Today is World First Aid Day, designated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to take place on the second Saturday during the month of September. To harmonize life-saving practices internationally, the IFRC developed a set of recommendations to guide the development of first aid training. These guidelines can be adapted to disasters or mass casualty situations. They are also intended to facilitate the dissemination of life-saving practices, since it has been proven that fatalities and the severity of accidents significantly decrease with widespread public knowledge of first aid. Today, local Red Cross and Red Crescent chapters worldwide will hold public events to demonstrate the benefits of first aid training for safety. You may want to check with your local Red Cross chapter to see if they will deliver a training course to you and to your employees at your workplace. And having today’s date marked on the calendar reminds me that I am due to refresh my training as it has been a little while since I did the CPR practice. I cannot imagine anything worse than seeing an emergency situation unfold and feel unprepared to help.