BY Waveney WarthIs your bank doing all that it can to make a difference for good? Banks are one of the most powerful ‘future creators’ in modern society. More or less they get to choose who they invest their millions (and billions) in, empowering some and squeezing others. They can also affect climate through their operational footprints and have significant opportunity to give back to communities through grants and other charitable activities.
How to Save the World podcast decided to delve into finding New Zealand’s most sustainable bank. So I rolled my sleeves up and spoke with financial experts from across the sector to devise a five point criteria and weighting system for assessment and then researched and contacted each bank to see how they performed in each category. Special thanks to Professor David Tripe, (Professor of Banking at Massey University); Barry Coates, (Mindful Money CEO); John Berry, (CareSaver CEO); CEOs and Heads of Sustainability within the banking sector that were happy to speak with me; and to the people seeking finance who shared their stories. The five criteria are: Internal sustainability Looking at the carbon footprint of the operations inside the big five banks including things like electric vehicle take-up in their fleet (shout out Westpac), getting 5 and even 6 Green star buildings (that’s Kiwibank]) sorting out green business procurement (ANZ and Westpac is using Fwd.) and ASB, Westpac and BNZ all getting Toitū Envirocare[https://www.toitu.co.nz/] certification, for being carbon zero (well ASB & Westpac) or enviro mark gold (BNZ - making a start). Corporate Responsibility Looking at the social and environmental activity of the banks, how they treat their employers and what they’re doing for the wider communities they’re a part of. Including BNZ’s support of Kauri 2020 Trust and Westpac’s CoGo Partnership – a cool organisation making ethical living clearer and easier. Investment and Lending Portfolios Looking into where the bank’s are putting their money. Which banks still ‘fuel’ climate change by providing oil companies with capital? To check on your bank:
Eco-literacy of lenders As our society seeks to transition to a circular-low-carbon-economy, new enterprises with different profit and risk models are emerging, (examples include social enterprise, community enterprise, iwi enterprise, co-ownership, micro-finance, regenerative farming, organic farming, permaculture design and alternative housing solutions like homes without land, prefabs, and co-housing). We spoke with people from these sectors and asked them to share their experiences in seeking finance. In short, the experiences are frustrating. Banks can only lend to what they know and no one seems to yet have a frame of reference for loan seekers who may for example, be actively trying to reduce productivity or mitigate risk through community involvement. This doesn’t mean positive discrimination! It means banks knowing how to assess risk accurately in these new contexts. And although it may take a while to trickle through, Sean Barnes director of Fwd: says ``there is a great deal of interest from banks wanting to be better involved”. Ownership. Several of the experts I spoke with pointed out that it's important who owns a bank. While things are never clear cut, a locally owned bank in such a small country is forced to be more transparent and is able to be more responsive. Banks that are listed and accountable to shareholders have an obligation, above anything else to do all it legally can to maximise profit. Offshore owned and locally owned banks suck or circulate profits through our communities in very different ways. SPOILER ALERT: If you are planning on listening to the show to find out who we 'awarded' the most sustainable bank mantle to then don't read on.... IN SUMMARY all of the banks are doing some great things, I spoke with so many passionate people and the big banks in particular are supporting some great outcomes in the charity sector and leading the way with operational sustainability. I thought picking a winner might be really hard, but actually, each independant financial expert I asked, if they felt like they could make call agreed. If we asked the UN what they were doing to further sustainability would we expect them to talk about their office recycling programme? NO UN has power. Banks have power (arguably more power that the UN?!? - I don't know but its a lot of power). Transformational power. We have judge a bank on what it is doing with its true power - its power to shape our future by who it lends to. It also helps to be locally owned and the co-operatives are such a great business model I feel like the title is there for taking...BUT SBS, TBS and Co-Operative Bank haven't really jumped in there. A great example of what they could be is in Bank of Australia and Triodos Bank (UK). They have claimed the sustainability space and have been going gang busters ever since. May be next year you guys! The winner of the How to Save the World most sustainable New Zealand bank is …Kiwibank. The bank is New Zealand owned, and even though its not a cooperative, (because its owned by the government) it is really owned by all of us. Essentially Kiwibank won because like a lot of the other banks they tick a lot of awesome boxes but in addition they have one of the strongest no lend policies for Fossil Fuels in the world. And THAT is fantastic! Something to be so proud of! And Kiwibank is doing some great stuff in the community too. Well done Kiwibank! THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to this episode, all of the banks; all of the independent organisations from the financial sector; and all of the varied representatives from the sustainability sector: The banks
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By Waveney WarthThe task of humans in the 21st Century is to shift the momentum of 50,000 years of human history from growth to balance
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 Photo credit: Parnell Gallery, Auckland NZ. | The last blog, “Wait, Why are we here?" fascinating as I found it, left us hanging as it offered a summary of our situation – without attempting a prognosis. To recap, our situation, (underlying whatever sort of eco problem you’d like to highlight) is that we are catastrophically too dominant on the planet. Therefore, the task of humans in the 21st Century is to shift the momentum of 50,000 years of human history from growth to balance. |
So what now? If that is what we have to achieve, are we screwed or not? This is the topic of this blog and the conversation Tim and I dig into the second half of the How to Save the World episode, "Why are we here?"
Can we switch from growth to balance?
If changing the momentum of human history is possible, it doesn't sound easy. It goes against all our biological drivers; its beyond the mandate of government legislation for sure, and it doesn't sound like the kind of task well suited to technology (in kind of the same way we wouldn't expect technology to save our marriages).
Albert Einstein famously said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. To turn the ship before we hit the iceberg, we have to pull one out of the box. But how can we have different thinking when all our ideas on how we might think differently are from the brains stuck in the old operating system?
What about the collective power of small action? Well, yes, but if we start biking or buying local without understanding the ultimate goal it’s like setting off to summit Everest thinking that you are jumping out the car to quickly stretch your legs. If that happens you’d be perilously under prepared – and you’d whine a lot.
Our goal goes against the momentum of life on earth to grow whenever possible: to self-limit our species in order to protect our long term survival. Some would say it can’t be done….others would say, ...oh for goodness sake?! Really?!
Albert Einstein famously said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. To turn the ship before we hit the iceberg, we have to pull one out of the box. But how can we have different thinking when all our ideas on how we might think differently are from the brains stuck in the old operating system?
What about the collective power of small action? Well, yes, but if we start biking or buying local without understanding the ultimate goal it’s like setting off to summit Everest thinking that you are jumping out the car to quickly stretch your legs. If that happens you’d be perilously under prepared – and you’d whine a lot.
Our goal goes against the momentum of life on earth to grow whenever possible: to self-limit our species in order to protect our long term survival. Some would say it can’t be done….others would say, ...oh for goodness sake?! Really?!
SO big I missed it
Ever failed to see something because it was too big? Like not being able to see to the back of the fridge because of all the clutter, and then realising the thing you are after IS right in front of your face. Well…this is kind of the same. We actually have hundreds of longitudinal case studies, many spanning centuries, of entire civilisations that have already cracked this. If this comes as a surprise, it might be because, you, like me, come from a western cultural perspective and when you came across the “data” you didn’t see it for what it was.
Globally we actually have thousands of examples of societies that have already successfully made the transition to "self-limitation" hundreds or thousands of years ago when they faced the same issues (that humanity now faces on global scale) on regional or continental scales. That’s why locally here in Aotearoa te Ao Māori - the Māori world view is so important to our survival. Te Ao Māori, is one example of many, of humans having successfully 'curved their enthusiasm' to avoid collapse and voluntarily live in balance with the world so that it can continue to sustain us. (Yet we Pākehā can get the wrong end of the stick ay and sometimes think we are ones that have figured it all out.)
Another stand out is the Pachamama Alliance, started by Amazon indigenous communities under threat. They needed the help of wealthy savvy westerners to save their communities from bulldozers but they knew right from the start that they could gift something just as valuable in return, so they started the Alliance, which has been epically successful, to share their world view. They say, “With roots deep in the Amazon rainforest, our programs integrate indigenous wisdom with modern knowledge to support personal, and collective, transformation that is the catalyst to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable… planet.”. They have courses and all sorts of online resources and opportunites, get involved here, www.pachamama.org
This isn’t about idealising. Not all indigenous societies find balance. Which is soooooo fascinating. There are two categories of societies that didn’t (or haven’t so far): The first category is “Societies-that-collapsed” and literally haven’t survived to tell the tale; and second category is our own society, which is now global as it continues to grow and consume. Jarred Diamond in his classic book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed contends that our future is either “transition to balance” or collapse. That’s it.
Its’ a great read for anyone wanting to learn more about the well-trodden pathways to successfully avoiding collapse.
Idealism v realism
Far from utopian idealism, curbing ourselves is actually part of being human; a cornerstone of our success as a species. It’s basically how we always get what we want. Toddlers snatch. Grown-ups share.
I say this to start out How to Save the World podcast’s Season 2 with well-founded hope, and offer a guiding star that’s simple…but not easy. I think that “simple but not easy” tension is where it’s at: On the one hand we need to know our goal isn’t complex and it’s not new territory. Because its obtainable and simple we have the hope to take a step and start out. On the other hand grasping the barriers is important because this gives us the tenacity we need to reach our destination. Regardless if you are on the left or the right, its not easy to understand how life without economic growth or profit maximisation works when its really all we know.
I say this to start out How to Save the World podcast’s Season 2 with well-founded hope, and offer a guiding star that’s simple…but not easy. I think that “simple but not easy” tension is where it’s at: On the one hand we need to know our goal isn’t complex and it’s not new territory. Because its obtainable and simple we have the hope to take a step and start out. On the other hand grasping the barriers is important because this gives us the tenacity we need to reach our destination. Regardless if you are on the left or the right, its not easy to understand how life without economic growth or profit maximisation works when its really all we know.
But back to to the bubbling positivity, lets not forget the permaculture saying "the problem is the solution." If we do succeed in shifting our momentum, the very things that got us into this (our two super powers: out of the ball park smart and oil) are the very same things that could get us out - especially the smart bit.
Charles Eisenstein, a really good, unique western thinker who is able to reframe the way we see things, puts it this way in his 2013 book The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible..
Charles Eisenstein, a really good, unique western thinker who is able to reframe the way we see things, puts it this way in his 2013 book The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible..
Every member of the ecosystem strengthens the whole, e.g. the top predator, when removed, has a massive harmful effect on the whole ecosystem. We can think of each contribution as a gift. We are no different, we have a gift that can make the ecosystem stronger and better...but we aren’t using our powers for good.
By waveney warth
Wait. What are we saving the world from? Its a timely question as Tim and I start Season 2 of How to Save the World podcast and launch a website, blog and Instagram account. There's a lot of running around going on, but how do we know we are barking up the right tree?
This blog is the first of a two part blog relating to the ‘Why are we here?’ How to Save the World episode. The epsiode asks the question "What is our actual problem?" Is it climate change? Our population? Our greedy nature? Our growth based economic system? This is the most important question in the world because once we really understand the issue we can recognise the solution. The answer also forms the basis (or not) for optimism, culpability and understanding our power. This in turn effects our response – which in my humble opinion will determine our fate.
This blog is the first of a two part blog relating to the ‘Why are we here?’ How to Save the World episode. The epsiode asks the question "What is our actual problem?" Is it climate change? Our population? Our greedy nature? Our growth based economic system? This is the most important question in the world because once we really understand the issue we can recognise the solution. The answer also forms the basis (or not) for optimism, culpability and understanding our power. This in turn effects our response – which in my humble opinion will determine our fate.
How do humans cause climate change?
Climate change isn't our underlying problem: it's a symptom of our underlying problem. So how do we cause climate change? Put in simplest terms: humans cause climate change because we are too dominant in the system.
In 2018 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published a report which Darrin Qualman brings to life in his article 'Civilisation as asteroid.' The article quantifies our dominance on earth by weight.
In 2018 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published a report which Darrin Qualman brings to life in his article 'Civilisation as asteroid.' The article quantifies our dominance on earth by weight.
Here are the highlights / lowlights:
- The weight of all the people and our livestock (cows, sheep, pigs, horses, dogs, chickens, goats, etc), is 97% of the biomass of land animals and birds on earth.
- The remaining wild land animals and birds, (elephants, mice, rats, kangaroos, lions, bats, bears, deer, wolves, seagulls, eagles) only weigh 3%.
- A specific example: the biomass of chickens is more than double the total mass of all other birds combined.
- Our dominance is squeezing out other life: We are well into the fastest extinction event in the past 65 million years – (when the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs)
Why do humans rule the world?
Professor Nate Hagens of University of Minnesota specialises in explaining this very question. We dominate earth’s systems because we have, NOT ONE BUT, TWO SUPER POWERS (out of the ball park smart and oil) which we have used in the service of the basic primal forces of life, that is: To out compete; conserve our own energy and to multiply.
The good news is that we aren’t dickheads after all, humans are really just the same as all life. In the rare moments when other organisms find no resistance from their environments they act just the same (think viruses, weeds, kangaroos). Doing anything else would be weird. The 40, 000 plant species found in the Amazon aren’t sharing nicely. They are in forced equilibrium.
Here’s the lowdown on your superpowers… (referencing both the work of Darrin & Nate).
Super power #1: Smart
Super power #2: Oil.
Until we unlocked the energy in OIL things weren’t too nuts. The best overview I’ve seen of the impact of oil on our current situation is Professor Nate Hagens Reality 101 video series especially the Energy & Economy video, which explains:
The good news is that we aren’t dickheads after all, humans are really just the same as all life. In the rare moments when other organisms find no resistance from their environments they act just the same (think viruses, weeds, kangaroos). Doing anything else would be weird. The 40, 000 plant species found in the Amazon aren’t sharing nicely. They are in forced equilibrium.
Here’s the lowdown on your superpowers… (referencing both the work of Darrin & Nate).
Super power #1: Smart
- We are out of the ball park SMART…. we launch satellites.. the next best contender recognises the word “ball”.
- We were already outsmarting and killing anything we could see when we started wandering out of Africa.
- For 50,000 years the only thing that could keep us in check was bacteria & virus and the daily ration of energy from the sun.
Super power #2: Oil.
Until we unlocked the energy in OIL things weren’t too nuts. The best overview I’ve seen of the impact of oil on our current situation is Professor Nate Hagens Reality 101 video series especially the Energy & Economy video, which explains:
- One barrel of oil, (which currently costs a bit over 1 average human work day) allows us to do FOUR AND A HALF YEARS of equivalent human labour.
- OR: 1 barrel = 7045 human labourers (labouring for one day each).
- When oil was cheaper, which is what modern society has been built on, 1 barrel equalled almost 26,000 human labourers!
How does oil affect life on earth?
Oil is impacting life on earth in many ways, the first that comes to mind for most of us is climate change. But scroll back up to the three bar graph. Can you see something (apart from our dominance), that is enormously significant? Here’s a mountain bike analogy, hope it’s helpful!
How is it even possible to get 7 times over the natural carrying capacity of the earth? Was earth full of lazy mammals and birds that could have grown their populations but couldn’t be bothered? No. Earth was maxed out. Any mature stable eco-system is an insanely competitive environment because the general rule-of-thumb its millions of different inhabitants go by is “take every little bit of light and food you can get and multiple."
So how is it possible then? OIL IS WHY our population and our farm animals weigh 7 times what our earth is naturally be able to carry. Modern agriculture is the science of turning oil into food. It’s a marvel. Previously life has pretty much only had access to the daily total of energy from the sun. Oil unlocks sunlight from millions of years ago in a form more concentrated and therefore more powerful than today’s sunlight.
- If the total biomass of all land based animals and birds before human primacy weighed the equivalent of my MOUNTAIN BIKE then that’s the natural, stable, carrying capacity of the planet (in this geological epoch) – that’s the height of the first bar in the graph.
- Today, earth is now roughly supporting 7 MOUNTAIN BIKES.
- While wildlife has gone from one bike down to 20% (- the pedals?)
- …Humans have gone from weighing less that one spoke (in the first two bars in the graph the weight of humans is too small to appear) to weighing 2.5 mountain bikes.
- ….and livestock from zero to over 4 MOUNTAIN BIKES.
How is it even possible to get 7 times over the natural carrying capacity of the earth? Was earth full of lazy mammals and birds that could have grown their populations but couldn’t be bothered? No. Earth was maxed out. Any mature stable eco-system is an insanely competitive environment because the general rule-of-thumb its millions of different inhabitants go by is “take every little bit of light and food you can get and multiple."
So how is it possible then? OIL IS WHY our population and our farm animals weigh 7 times what our earth is naturally be able to carry. Modern agriculture is the science of turning oil into food. It’s a marvel. Previously life has pretty much only had access to the daily total of energy from the sun. Oil unlocks sunlight from millions of years ago in a form more concentrated and therefore more powerful than today’s sunlight.
Systems thinking V Reductionism
Mostly I think we don’t see the big picture because its just too big! But also because, if you are a western reader, you have a proud and powerful history of reductionism. Reductionism is an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to interactions of their simple parts, AKA science. Almost all academic study is reductionism. Very good reductionists are known experts in their given field. Reductionism, powerful though it is, is only a tool that works well in the right situations. It is not the right tool for the job if the job is understanding or predicting complex outcomes in systems.
Systems thinking, by contrast, focuses on connections and patterns and crucially – allows us to see emergence, (a great example of emergence: the human consciousness emerges from the sum of our cells). Nate Hagens, says “Society now is on the cusp of emergence. Not only in our collective impact but in human collective thinking and understanding about our situation” (quote from: Ecology and Systems video).
Here’s to ‘competent generalism,’
#lifegoal.
Systems thinking, by contrast, focuses on connections and patterns and crucially – allows us to see emergence, (a great example of emergence: the human consciousness emerges from the sum of our cells). Nate Hagens, says “Society now is on the cusp of emergence. Not only in our collective impact but in human collective thinking and understanding about our situation” (quote from: Ecology and Systems video).
Here’s to ‘competent generalism,’
#lifegoal.
THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM TO EVERYTHING...
In case you missed it, the underlying problem is that the smartest kid in the playground, who already had every single other kid and all her teachers under her thumb found a magic wand, which she used to make life better, but its all gone a bit Lord of the Flies. The usual checks and balances in the school playground ecosystem don't apply. The girl, let's call her Cherry Blossom, has inadvertently reduced the school's original inhabitants from 100 down to 20, but amazingly she hasn't noticed yet because she has duplicated herself 250 times and her magical unicorn horse 700 times and its all been so much fun. However, the Cherry's ARE noticing that the school, (which floats in space and has absolutely no other inputs or outputs), is not as pristine as it once was. Some of the Cherry's are trying to use the magic wand less and that's about it so far. And that's 2020.
We are completely dominating the earth, we have no competitors or natural restraints, and we are using this rare biological occurrence to do what any other organism would do in the same situation: Out compete; conserve our own energy and multiply.
Thanks
Thanks to the two exceptionally competent generalist featured in this blog, Professor Nate Hagens and Darrin Qualman.
NEXT BLOG covers off the “what now? are we screwed or not?” reaction you may have just had.
- Nate is a lecturer at the University of Minnesota and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
- Darrin Qualman is an author and commentator, check out his 2019 book, Civilization Critical: Energy, Food, Nature, and the Future,
NEXT BLOG covers off the “what now? are we screwed or not?” reaction you may have just had.
By Waveney Warth
If you want to connect with your power to make a difference you may have just found your happy place
Welcome to the new blog (and website) for How to Save the World podcast show. We are based in New Zealand, Tim’s in Auckland city, I’m in Matakana living rurally, (photo shows my farm at dawn). How to Save the World seeks to find environmentally stable pathways into our future. The blog will primarily delve into the topics we discuss in each podcast episode.
The How To Save The World Creed
Recently Tim and I were working on articulating what’s at the heart of what we do and accidently wrote a creed, (which looks like a helpful creed for the 21st Century too).
The How to Save the World Creed:
The How to Save the World Creed:
- We refuse to be paralysed by fear. We are humans and need to live full rich lives with joy and connection, and we can absolutely do this while improving the planet (in fact, those two things seem to be strongly linked!).
- We believe 90% of the population continually changing 1% of their behaviour has more impact than 1% changing 90%.
- We strongly believe that by everyone doing their part, we can change the trajectory of our planet’s future.
- We listen to the experts and the evidence to understand how we can most effectively chip away at the problem.
- We see the issues and solutions as vast but inter-connected. This means small changes can positively effect 1000s of little unrelated things, all over the world. Which means change can be SIMPLE.
- In short, we believe the most under-utilised power on the planet is the collective power of its human citizens and we are here to connect people with their power to make a difference.
- Oh! We believe that talking about sustainability can be engaging – even uplifting.
Connect with us
How to Save the World podcast
Instagram: HTSTWpod.
Facebook: HowToSaveTheWorld
Homebase: Little Empire Podcast Network. Check it & find other popular NZ podcasts
Need help finding the actual show?
Instagram: HTSTWpod.
Facebook: HowToSaveTheWorld
Homebase: Little Empire Podcast Network. Check it & find other popular NZ podcasts
Need help finding the actual show?
- - HowToSaveTheWorld.nz homepage
- - All smart phones come with podcast apps, including Spotify.
Tim Batt
timbatt.co.nz
(well done on having a single point of contact Tim, nice to work with a pro ;-) )
timbatt.co.nz
(well done on having a single point of contact Tim, nice to work with a pro ;-) )
Waveney Warth
Waveney Warth FB page.
Rubbish Free blog and website (one year zero waste challenge, Christchurch, 2008).
Rainbow Valley Farm FB page (permaculture restoration project and home).
Environmental consultancy work: Envision.nz.
Waveney Warth FB page.
Rubbish Free blog and website (one year zero waste challenge, Christchurch, 2008).
Rainbow Valley Farm FB page (permaculture restoration project and home).
Environmental consultancy work: Envision.nz.
AuthorS
Waveney and Tim co-founded and co-host the How to Save the World podcast show and blog.
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