Spring 2008
In short...
One of our supermarket chains better known as Colruyt, is a true trooper in sustainability. Last year, the company transformed 12.000 ton of fruit and veggies in green energy. The produce that is not sellable or cannot be used for the food bank, are recycled during 34 days.
Through this process, biogass is released that the company then transforms into electricity as to heat its building and water. The amount of energy that Colruyt produced last year, is comparable to what 750 households consume annually.
It is not surprisingly that Colruyt won the 2007 Mercurius award from the Belgian Distributors Federation, FEDIS, as being the most sustainable company and it is worthwhile to mention some of its initiatives.
In 1990, Colruyt started with the Green Line Charter. Colruyt can only guarantee low prices if costs remain low. This entails saving on energy, packaging and waste. Colruyt also develops different green initiatives, ranging from the reduction of CO2 in its distribution centers and shops (by means of functional and energy saving lights and closed deep freezers) to the increase in production of green energy.
The group is using 2 wind turbines near their distribution centers. It also invested in solar energy through the installation of solar panels on the roof of their storehouse. These wind turbines and solar panels reduce CO2 emissions by 2,130 tonnes per year. Moreover, Colruyt has equipped its first supermarket with solar panels. Each time a shop is rebuilt, the group installs solar panels and replaces the heating system by a gas installation, using less energy.
Logistics
Colruyt also addressed commuter traffic, goods transport and road safety issues. It encourages employees to go to work by bike and has equipped 850 employees with bikes. It also runs a carpooling and scooter project in which 1,900 employees contribute. This saves 1,151 tonnes of CO2.
Furthermore, upon request of its truck drivers, Colruyt has installed dead angle cameras on its trucks to decrease risk of accidents.
How to...
Learn about new business opportunities in the green emerging markets. Take some time to explore the following five of our favorites.
Where to...
Go in order to learn about the latest green solutions that companies offer? One place only: the GO Green EXPO on April 26th and 27th at the Hilton Hotel in New York:
Go Green Expo is the brainchild of Bradford Rand and his team at Expo International.
On April 26th and 27th, at the Hilton in New York, you can attend a truly unique event from the ground up. Go Green Expo will change not only the public's perception of environmentalism but also how events like this are produced and managed. Companies large and small ( they expect around 200 exhibitors ) are showcasing what they are doing to reduce their respective carbon footprint. Consumers will have hands on experiences with "eco-friendly" alternatives to current everyday products and services.
Go Green Expo invites both consumers & business owners to learn more about what is available so they can do their part as to make our communities greener, one city at a time.
We, at Sustainable Styles, are proud to be a sponsor of this event and will be present during the entire expo. The Sustainable Planet film festival will be offered to the visitors on Sunday, the URBAN ECOLOGY workshop will be conducted on both days and Pamela Peeters, the founder and editor of Sustainable Styles book will sign her latest book.
Interview...
Meet John Elkington, the founder of SustainAbility, probably one of the best consulting companies out there. We met in Washington during a presentation for his new book and another initiative called VOLANS.
From the summer on, we will have webcasts on this site. The interview will be made available at that time.
PP: You are considered a pioneer in the field of sustainability, having released books, articles, research papers, assisted companies in their transition towards sustainability and so on. You just released a new book on social entrepreneurs, what more was there to say?
JE: The book is called “The power of Unreasonable People” and it focuses on social and environmental entrepreneurs. As to represent that group of people, I can think of Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize. These are people who attempt the impossible where mainstream would not dare to venture and they just go to these areas of market failure and they just try stuff and the stuff fails and they keep on trying new stuff.
The book tries to capture the attention to the reality that shows: look where progress comes from, not from reasonable people because they adapt. Progress comes from unreasonable people who don’t adapt and look at the world and say: that’s completely dysfunctional, how can I change it and even when it ‘s impossible that’s what they exert themselves to do.
PP: Is that what you were, were you an unreasonable man when you started SustainAbility.?
JE: Well, I started SustAinability in 1987 with one other person Julia Hailes who was then 22 or so and we didn’t think of ourselves as entrepreneurs back then. There were a couple of reasons why we “accidentally” fell into this space and we were just starting doing stuff. It’s easy to look back and say: “we knew exactly what we were doing” well we didn’t.
PP: What dominates in your work, knowledge, technology, nature, preservation, altruism, business, profit, a mix of it all?
JE: All of those and a bunch of other things. Altruism?, …….Well, I gave my sweets away to my siblings as a child ( the elder child syndrome ) but it’s not THAT that drives me. I was brought up in the country side and I had an amazing experience one night when I was growing up and it made me discover that there was this mismatch between the world we humans are building and the natural world in which we ultimately sit.
What drives me is a deep anxiety about the way things are done and SustainAbility is in a way in service for future generations. It sounds really wild right! That’s in a sense where I come from, the future is not going to work unless we change fundamentally.
PP: For many people like you, their calling comes at a young age. What did you dream of becoming when you were 12.
JE: Business was not a part of it in that stage. We were living in a farm in Northern Ireland and what happened to me, I must have been 6 or 7 and I walked back home late at night from a supper at a neighboring farm. It was completely dark, there was no moon and on this farm there were these flax ponds where they used to grow a useful agricultural crop. And I suddenly felt at my ankles this extraordinary movement, and I put my hands down and between my fingers were these young eels. I did know about the eel migration and after a moment of utter terror, I felt this extraordinary sense of connnection, which was a wider world, so it was not business but something bigger that came to me.
PP: Can you describe a day in the life of John.
JE: I am a reptile and find it very difficult to get up in the morning and I avoid that as long as I possibly can. If I am in London ( which is a rarity) at that moment and it doesn’t rain, then I go to the company by bike and cycle through a series of different parks and arrive around 9.00 am.
When I am in the office, we are a small group and publish a lot of reports, so I may be writing, or I may sit down with people from major companies or with social entrepreneurs. It’s quite diverse, there isn’t really a standard.
PP: Your biography shows participation in many councils and committees. With which one do you have a particular connection.
JE: There are so many. Can I do abuse your question and take two? When I was eleven I raised money for the WWF. This was 1961, the year that WWF was founded and asked their pocket money and got it for two weeks. So, I am on the Council of Ambassadors of the WWF and I like that organization because I think what they do for biodiversity is important.
But if I had to take one organization, then there is an Indian entrepreneur who set up Aflatoun, better known as “child savings international”, I am involved in that. They look at extremely poor young people - particularly in poor countries like India - and try getting them in a habit of saving. It’s all very well to pick people out of the streets but unless you don’t break the cycle of poverty you are not really materially improve their lives and what’s interesting is that banks now are getting interested because what you are creating is financial literate people and in the longer term clients.
PP: Did you have a mentor, or a particular source of inspiration?
JE: Many. I just made a bio for the new organization we are about to launch (VOLANS) and looked back at every person who influenced me along the way. If it had to be one, then it would be Max Nicholson, (who died when he was about 98) one of the founders of Wwf and IUCN. He and I set up a company in 1978 called environmental data services, that still exist. He had a huge impact on how I view the world and he just gave me confidence to do things I otherwise would not have done.
PP: Wind energy is getting more and more momentum, do you think that relying on renewable energy such as wind will change our relationship with Planet Earth?
JE: The answer in the longer term: probably yes. But there is also a problem in that these renewable energy technologies/products are not entirely clean or innocent. You mention wind mills and you should think of bird migration and the way it might affect bird populations and you think of biofuels and think of the impact on food prices around the world.
Yes, I think it is great we are moving towards a renewable energy economy, but I don’t think it is going to be painless or free of trade-offs. I think Governments have an important role to play in making sure the transition, as it builds, is done in a way that it minimizes the social and environmental repercussions, which inevitably will come from some of these new technologies.
.
PP : According to you, what human behavior could improve in quality, if we would listen to the language of nature or imitate nature more?
JE: I think if I go back to the sixties and the seventies when I started being interested in the environment professionally 
and working in that space, there were designers like Buckminster Fuller who I was very interested in and had a profound impact on me. But in today’s world, people like Janine Benuys with her book on bio mimicry, I think using natural, biological models to shape the technologies of the future, there is a huge unexploited potential there, so hugely interesting area, I wish I knew more about it.
PP: What is your wish for the future of our planet
JE: James Lovelock of the Gaia hypotheses, I hope that the world as we have inherited it finds room for us. Because it isn’t guaranteed.
Pamela Peeters Productions L.L.C. 2007 © All rights reserved
