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Posted on April 22, 2013 by Sarah Daly

WHY THE WORLD’S VERY SURVIVAL COULD DEPEND ON

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Published in The Guardian (26.04.13)

Friday 26th April is World Intellectual Property Day – one, which like many themed days, will probably pass most people by. A day that few will consider has any relevance to them.

But IP is one of the most profoundly important aspects, not only of our history but the very future of our economy; some may now say, our very survival. The UK design industry is ranked fourth in the world and our army of 350,000 designers needs to be recognised, not only in the traditional areas of design, but as leaders in the socially-responsible and environmentally-sustainable innovation that will become the cornerstone of the emerging e-conomy.

Like the industrial revolution, post-war consumerism and the IT revolution, we are in a state of massive change. Yet unlike those periods, the convergence of economic, social and environmental pressures has created an even more perfect storm for innovation. There are seven billion people on our resource-constrained planet and at the current rates of development that will be nine billion consumers by 2040 and by some estimates, 11 billion by 2050.

In order to survive as a race, our very existence will depend on the most incredible surge of creativity and invention known to mankind. The next thirty years will be defined, not so much by the gadgets and frivolous inventions of the past thirty years; but necessity will once more be the mother of invention.

Currently we know that much British IP is being acquired by organisations in China and the Middle East. Ironically whilst we have the opportunity to develop oil and gas independence with renewables, we are losing our rights to those inventions because we do not sufficiently value uncommercialised design assets until it is too late.

So why doesn’t the UK Government prioritise and support intellectual property development as the lifeblood of our economic recovery? A recent All-Party IP Group undertook an enquiry into the “Role of Government in Protecting and Promoting IP” and agreed that IP is vital to economic growth, though worryingly, it is overlooked by many Government departments who do not grasp its importance.

IP education plays a key role in the UK’s economic development plans. Intellectual Property Awareness Network (IPAN) has an education group which is working hard to ensure the next generation of students is introduced to IP rights at university. Indeed research partnerships between the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), IPAN and the National Union of Students (NUS) are ensuring more graduates recognise the value of their own intellectual property and those of the businesses they enter.  At secondary school level excellent work is done by the Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics network (STEM) which is promoting careers in science and design; and the BBC’s Newsround Inventions Competition is aimed at children as young as eight years old, to stimulate and promote invention.

Research for the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) by IP expert Dr Robert Pitkethly of Oxford University revealed that 97% of small companies do not have an IP strategy. Critical work in this area is done by Anti Copying in Design (ACID), a leading IP membership organisation which has an “Educate to Protect” programme which is specially-designed to support micro and SME’s with simple and practical self-help tools for protecting rights.

Recognising the solutions for tomorrow’s world is perhaps the most pressing motivation to encourage creativity and invention; but pure creativity also contributes to our rich and diverse cultural identity and is another highly-prized, yet domestically undervalued, facet of British design. From clothing, jewellery and graphics to furniture, lighting and giftware; the confidence, quirkiness and sheer economic pulling power of British design is vastly disproportionate to our size on the world stage. Indeed, it is estimated around £35bn per annum is contributed to the UK economy by the design fraternity. Far from being whimsical and fringe, design is actually the beating heart in virtually every commercial sector.

Yet we still have situations where our designers, especially the young and micro-businesses which dominate the scene, are systematically ripped off by our own corporations – major brands who should be acting ethically and championing and supporting ‘Great British Design’ by paying a licence fee to the originator; a situation which ‘World Intellectual Property Day’ can also help to highlight.

Sustainable design doesn’t just mean ‘green’ or ‘environmental’ technologies, but in terms of viability we need to encourage our designers to come up with alternative materials and manufacturing processes for our resource-constrained future. That will not mean the equivalent of hair shirts and brown sandals – indeed we already know that design ingenuity has come up with a host of exciting apparel solutions from recycled plastics into jeans and hoodies, to old car tyres fashioned into uber-trendy footwear. We are only limited by our imagination and the desire to gain global competitive advantage by playing to our strengths; but with parity and fairness.

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The energy legacy of the Thatcher years; a personal reflection

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Sarah Daly

Published on 2degrees and edie.net

It is a more than averagely interesting week in politics; not least because the death of Baroness Thatcher has opened such emotional debates around a woman who was both heroine and villain; visionary and autocrat. One of her most divisive legacies was the deconstruction of the coal industry – so how did it feel at the time and how should those decisions be perceived in our fight for today’s low carbon economy?

Margaret Thatcher first came to power when I was a 16 year old Convent girl in Cheltenham, studying for  O’levels with little political perception. I clearly remember the power strikes of the early 1970’s which seemed to so vividly epitomise the era; huddled in the cold doing my homework by torchlight and even shopping in candlelit supermarkets. If felt bleak and Dickensian. There was deep anger and unrest in the air.

When I eventually went to Trent Polytechnic it was 1983 and the miners’ strikes were in full flow. Moving from middle class Cheltenham to the grit of Nottinghamshire was an immediate culture shock and eye-opener. I took my first degree in photography; it was a reportage/socio-documentary course, so we were all eagerly exploring the world and trying to make sense of the times through the lens. It felt like an especially aggressive political era. I took photos in Handsworth in the wake of the riots and visited mining villages where families were surviving on thin air; determined not to let Thatcher win and fighting for their right to jobs. I was met with a mix of suspicion and candour “Eh up duck; which p’per are y’from?” Students were no threat so I was able to carry on taking pictures of empty streets and desolate faces – all the more evocative in the black and white of the day. There was little need for colour film.

Even at that young age as I wandered the streets of villages like DH Lawrence’s Eastwood, Rainworth and Ollerton, I wondered what these people were actually fighting for? Did they really want jobs that necessitated unspeakable working conditions, abhorrent long-term health risks and extreme physical danger? I felt they  were clinging onto the hope of ‘jobs’ not necessarily mining jobs – but there was little differentiation.

For me, Thatcher’s great mistake was to present the economic case for mine closure in such a way that those communities felt totally victimised. There were few options for people who were so immersed in generations of mining. Communities that for the most-part didn’t exist before and defined themselves singularly by the culture of mining.

Nearly twenty years later, still based in Nottinghamshire, my work as a strategic marketing consultant had taken me into projects around sustainability and I was part of a public- private sector team funded by SRB2 (Single Regeneration Budget) to look at ways to stimulate economic development in the ex-coalfield villages of north Nottinghamshire and north Derbyshire. It struck me how little had changed in those intervening years. Most of the villages, though the mines were long closed, had an air of futility and sadness. High Streets were barren, lined with charity shops, bookmakers and bargain booze outlets.

Whilst I felt strongly that these people deserved better, I could see from an economic development standpoint that trying to resuscitate these communities was probably a hopeless task.  There have been regeneration successes in parts of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, south Wales and the north-east, but that has mainly been attributed to enormous inward investment. There was no longer a queue of American and Japanese corporations clamouring for enticements to breathe new life into faded economies.

I wondered if people, rather than the corporations, had been incentivised to relocate to more viable areas, if that would have been a better solution? Many of these villages are not located in areas that new businesses or even existing ones, would want to move to, even with incentives. They exist because of their historic resource, not because they are strategically well-placed. It may seem like a harsh view, but over the centuries, workforces have had to be mobile – yet there seemed to be a feeling that the world ‘owed’ these communities and needed to bring the jobs to them so the resentment smouldered on. That was until I came across Sherwood Energy Village; a notable example of vision in the midst of hopelessness.

A group of ex-miners led by local councillor Stan Crawford, acquired the 90acre Ollerton mine for £1 from British Coal and set about raising the £5m from European funding to remediate the site and create a truly sustainable community with a business park, housing, leisure and community facilities as part of a zero carbon masterplan. This audacious, award-winning concept created a truly comprehensive live-work solution. Center Parcs was one of the first companies to occupy the site with their new headquarters and in the early days, the business park flourished. Sadly SEV went into liquidation in 2006 due to funding issues trying to get the zero-carbon housing development off the ground. It was simply too far ahead of its time and house-builders, who are now searching for Code for Sustainable Homes exemplar sites, simply did not understand the concept of ultra energy efficient homes.

There was something very neat about a zero-carbon development on the site of an old coalfield. The idea that ‘energy’ was still at the heart of the community; but the opportunity to envisage ‘new energy’ and not the soul-destroying toil of coal extraction suffocating the souls of the workers and the lungs of the planet.

Now based back in Gloucestershire, I’m very much part of a drive to create a more sustainable county and am especially delighted to be Sustainability Advisor to Gloucestershire College, as they design a new low carbon, state-of-the-art further education campus which will be the focus of the regeneration of the Cinderford mining community in the Royal Forest of Dean.

It is my hope that this education and training hub will become the focal point – not just for an exemplar educational estate, but very much in Stan Crawford’s vision – to show how ‘new energy’ can rise Phoenix-like from a decimated community providing better jobs, in viable, sustainable and future-proofed sectors.

So to Mrs Thatcher I say, it was absolutely right to terminate the declining coal industry; but the way you went about it was absolutely wrong.  We are now in an era of massive innovation and investment in new technology and low carbon solutions – so let those ‘energy communities’ have their day again and let them become the new energy hubs of the future.

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What does a sustainable organisation look like?

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Sarah Daly

This article was first published in The Guardian

The most frequent introductory question I am asked as a strategic sustainability consultant is: what on earth is that? My simple response is that I help make organisations more sustainable – which is usually met with a fractionally less blank expression than before I replied.

The problem we have, in my neck of the sustainability woods, is that most people have been led to think that the only measures of sustainability are energy/carbon and waste; with water perhaps sliding in from the wings making a more recent appearance. Yes of course it is true that understanding these impacts and reducing them is the backbone of a more sustainable business. However, trying to achieve this sequentially looking at each impact in turn, as appears to be the norm, is likely to yield fragmented and unsatisfactory outcomes in our brave new world.

The reason for this is that, like it or not, the resource issues we face in the coming decades will not be solved with tidy little incremental improvements. So whilst it is great to see businesses engaging with the issues, they won’t thank people like me for presenting the tasks through rose-tinted glasses. It’s tough out there and the companies that will survive and thrive are those which look at the whole business; looking at all the issues simultaneously and holistically and then developing a clear plan to resolve them in an integrated way.

To some this might seem overwhelming – so isn’t it better to look at one thing at a time and move on to the next issue? Logic might suggest yes; but here’s the rub. Let’s assume your business takes the singular approach. Let’s start with energy. We all know there are some great ‘quick wins’ to be had in areas like lighting, boilers and refrigeration. Let’s assume the estate/facilities management team put together a compelling business case for energy/carbon reduction and get Board approval to implement the changes. The Board is happy they can report some positive environmental activity and the Financial Director is pleased as the operational cost savings will make a welcome bonus to flagging profits after a relatively short pay-back period. Buoyed by their success, towards the end of the investment period, the estates team make further suggestions for more improvements. However, the payback periods are much longer and therefore look less attractive to the Financial Director, who can see a hard sell in the Board Room. So the next phase of improvements is put on hold and the environmental programme stalls.

Meanwhile, the biggest competitor has taken a different approach. The enlightened CEO, immersed in the growing evidence-base for doing ‘better business’, has decided to take a whole-business approach and brought in said ‘strategic sustainability consultant’ who can help them structure the programme across the entire business including all stakeholders to achieve: total staff engagement, estates/facilities, products/services, logistics and supply-chains. Every single area of the business is investigated with a very upbeat, can-do and positively-challenging approach. This consultant does not pretend to be an expert in the detail of each area; far from it as the organisations’ people and some extremely clever associates will be much better placed to develop the detail – but what they can do is help bring the CEO’s vision to life by structured and systemic adaptation within an exciting, vibrant, aspirational but wholly achievable plan.

With the full involvement of the company and supply-chain, all inspired by the CEO’s vision and the evidence that it will secure and future-proof their business, they set about defining what ‘best in class’ looks like – indeed in many areas they go beyond ‘best’ to consider disruption and unassailable competitive advantage looking at every single facet of their products, operations and business model.

They identify the ‘quick wins’ ensuring that the savings are ‘recycled’ into on-going projects which are all designed to create operational cost reduction whilst the product and marketing teams adapt the market-facing messages and set the tone for the ‘new era’. This is not done with complacency or trumpets – but with some humility and collective recognition; showing how the culmination of big ideas and little gems creates a culture of innovation and belonging, deep into the organisation and its supply chain.

The company notes that the staff is more energetic and committed than ever. Absenteeism falls and staff retention increases. They have more applications to work for the business as they are seen as progressive and ‘caring’; locally and internationally their profile hits new heights and they start to win awards. Suppliers trust them and are prepared to do better deals as they feel supported and share in the new success. Customers start to use them as the ‘exemplar’ and this consolidates the relationship so more contracts follow. Each wave of improvements is accompanied by further cost reduction, increased market share and enhanced reputation making them not only a ‘better business’ in terms of impacts – but substantially reducing the competitive and market risks which faced them before the new era.

The product portfolio has been radically streamlined so that declining products have been dropped in favour of investment in new products which can be manufactured with less environmental impact whilst retaining only the positive attributes of their predecessors. The products use considerably less resources and are packaged in fully recycled and recyclable materials with considerable weight reduction which has immense savings for distribution. The estate has been rationalised with lean processes in less space and with vast improvements to the retained areas which are now low carbon and healthier, more productive spaces. The resulting overhead savings in personnel alone ensure the investments are cost neutral across the estate; indeed some excess space is being sold off or sub-let to generate more investment capital to support R&D and some additional revenue to ameliorate yet more operational investments which are also funded by an ESCo-approach to energy management. The overall saving in carbon will mean massive potential savings over their baseline position in Mandatory Carbon Reporting and also safeguard their position with key customers who are all prioritising resource-efficiency in their supply-chains in order to meet their corporate goals. This is what I would call a sustainable business. It’s an ever-moving goal in many respects but replace the word ‘viable’ for sustainable and you see it is not just about the attitude to physical resources that makes the difference. The leanest company in the world could go out of business because of poor positioning.

Some might say this is a big business model; that they have the resources to set about the audacious reinvention that small businesses can only dream of. This is totally untrue however. Small businesses are only limited by their imagination as they are usually flat and lean enough to adapt very swiftly to changing opportunities. Larger businesses are often behemoths with layers of cynical management who can be more suspicious of change and less willing to adapt. So each has its challenges – but each also has the opportunity – if there is the vision to see a different future; a future which accelerates doing all the right things for the right reasons and reaping the rewards.

So if someone asks in ear-shot what on earth a Strategic Sustainability Consultant does; I hope you know the answer!

 

Posted in CSR, Perspectives on Sustainable Development, Sustainable Business, Sustainable Development, Waste | Leave a comment