Week 3 - Sustainable Development

Our attitude towards Mother Earth has been a repugnant one. Everywhere I go, I observe people negligently wasting electricity, plastic, food, water, petrol and other resources. I cannot describe how indignant I feel when I see this abominable waste. I shudder to think what the world will be like when I’m 70 years old and have grandchildren. Thus, I was very pleased that we discussed the topic of Sustainable Development this week.

We have been relentless in our ravaging of this planet and it is payback time! I feel that it has a lot to do with human nature. We are always tempted to get away with what we can take and as long as there are no immediate setbacks, we continue acting with our short-sighted attitude until it is too late. Few men and women have had the ability to see the greater good; fewer have had the guts to pursue it and even fewer have been able to go against the tunnel-minded and greedy majority to achieve it.

A great problem that has plagued us has been the lack of pricing of externalities; we have not been accountable to mother earth. Firms have never included Environmental Cost in their balance sheets and consumers have never paid the actual price for their products. If the damage we have caused to Mother Earth could be given a monetary value, I am sure the fine we would have to pay would exceed the world’s cash reserves!

Prof showed us “The Story of Stuff” which I found highly intriguing. An important point was raised: the time has come for humanity to consciously and actively start shifting from a linear model of industrial development (build, use, bury) to a cyclical one (full circle) which will enable economic growth and environmental sustainability for generations to come.

I second the notion that it is also important to take into account not just the environmental welfare but also the welfare of people who work in toxic environments to deliver us the good we take for granted and the animals whose habitats we destroy.

I feel that I see that some of main answers to this problem are innovation with government support. Innovation is required in the development of superior Green Technologies which can:

• Recycle most materials
• Enable most products to be biodegradable
• Allow us to harness & store renewable energy more efficiently & cheaply hence enabling us to stop depending on fossil fuels
• Recycle materials and water efficiently and cheaply    
• Cut down emissions of greenhouse gases e.g. nano-catalytic convertors in cars

Without the support of the globe’s governments, this will be extremely difficult to achieve. Governments will be needed to fund green initiatives, provide incentives for firms to go green, put in place legislation on practices and product design for firms to follow and educate its citizens among other things. Consumers too would have to do their part by boycotting wasteful products and practices.

We also touched on India and China’s rise and whether the world should expect them to reduce their aspirations of the extravagant lifestyle of waste that America has adopted. I feel that India and China will have to look at the greater good of this planet and not be as greedy and short-sighted as America. They must of course be allowed to progress but must embrace green technologies which will enable them to achieve efficiency and sustainability at the same time.  

The second half of our lesson focused on Innovation Management where Prof Shahi introduced us to his Landscape Model for Technology. It described three types of opportunities:

1. Valley Opportunities: low barriers to entry > hence high competition > hence low margins > hence low interest for investment e.g. agriculture
2. Summit Opportunities: technology intensive > hence high barriers to entry > hence low competition > hence high interest for investment e.g. smartphones
3. Cloud Opportunities: Cutting edge hi-tech goods with high barriers to entry, low competition and no current markets e.g. cloning

Taken from: BioBusiness in Asia (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004). Gurinder Shahi

I loved this quote Prof gave us:

“Life is pretty simple:
You do some stuff.
Most fails. Some works.
You do more of what works.
If it works big, others quickly copy it.
Then you do something else.
The trick is the doing something else.”
- Tom Peters

Apple has kept doing that "something else" by taking the Cloud Opportunities and creating products unknown to man; creating new wants, new markets, new technologies before any other firm. And when the others copied, it moved on; it did that "something else" again, leaving them in its dust.

Prof Shahi then showed us his R-D-A Translation process which effectively outlined the different stages of Research, Development and Practical Application in the Innovation Process.

I could go on and on about my thoughts on this week … I must say that I have enjoyed learning so much and looking at this world with new TWC glasses… I’d rate this session a 10/10 because the topic of Green Technology is very close to my heart and we also had a round of superb presentations! I can’t wait till next class :D