The environment affects everyone in every level of our lives. Scalable technologies and business models are required to solve today's global environmental and social problems. Incorporating philanthropy in business practices benefits a company brand and increases employee moral. City governments or businesses could collaborate with entrepreneurs to co-develop ideas into real solutions, test and fine tune them to adapt to real life commissions.
These are a few discussion points made by participants at the i7 Summit - A Global Conference on Technology, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Society - which was held in France last week. In one of the workshops, a number of philanthropists, small business owners, start-up entrepreneurs, micro-financiers, NGO representative, venture capitalists, Fortune 500 executives, and Academics gathered together to discuss "Sustainability, Clean Technology, and Value Creation". Water topped the list of concerns, including the melting of Himalayan Glaciers (picture below) that puts in jeopardy densely populated countries via a network of rivers.
Pano Kroko, Chairman of the Environmental Parliament, commented that the developed world is responsible for most of CO2 pollution, hence creating a debt towards the rest of the world. Therefore, "we are responsible for creating and ameliorating environmental issues because of impact to vulnerable groups. " He further expressed that "governments need to be involved and if Government representatives are not planning for the future, frankly, they should be replaced". The Environmental Parliament focuses on the top-5 issues every year and the disappearance of the Himalayan Glacier has been a constant one that affect a very populated area.
Guenael Wagner, Project Manager with Veolia Innovation Accelerator, explained that their innovation accelerator program connects to clean tech communities to develop alternatives to manage networks such as water and energy. They “collaborate with start-ups to co-develop clean tech ideas to real needs in cities, test technologies, work together to fine tune the technology to adapt to real life commissions. They are provided access to structures managed by cities which provides a sense of partnership. And because the final users of technology are citizens, Veolia has to ensure technology is safe.
Dipti Pratt, the marketing director of Entrepreneur Foundation, expressed that "we need to ask ourselves, 'Are we being good ancestors?' Everything we do, we must ask 'Are we doing the right thing?'" She adds that businesses have opportunity to create an impact by implementing philantropic ideas into business processes: "Create shared values in a company with philanthropy as the driver for revenue.” Employees are happier when they feel like they’ve contributed positively to society, moral is higher and they stay employed longer.
The workshop was moderated by Olivier Jerphagnon, Editor at The Green Frog from Silicon Valley. He asked each of the participants to share one main concern facing society today. Intense discussion followed and water topped the list as the number one concern. Water issues are daunting: contamination, lack of availability, disregarded as an asset unlike electricity, and lack of infrastructure.
Other concerns were about political instability and Governments dropping sustainability from the agenda, not having a common vision for the future. Participants expressed hope that next year's gathering of NGOs, companies, and governments at the Rio+20 summit, will give hope to solutions and that business competition for clean tech solutions would help start-ups get off the ground. Pano Kroko gave an example involving Oxford University in the UK.
The issues surrounding water resonated with me because that is exactly what I observed while living in a rural village in Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Water problems affected a number of other issues such as health, education, agriculture, and economy. For instance, the only clean water source in that village was from a little spring about a mile away, which trickled out slowly, so women and children would get water from an unprotected stream even farther out when they didn't have the time to wait hours at the spring for their turn to fill their buckets. This resulted in health problems and the time women and girls took to gather water several times a day kept them away from school.
I also witnessed the challenge to provide adequate technology solutions that local communities can maintain themselves. Years before, NGOs dug deep down to the water table and installed pipes to a few spots in the village thanks to foreign aid. However, after the pipes wore out, the village didn't have the means to get them fixed, nor did they receive assistance from the district. The lack of water available for farming also kept them at a subsistence farming level and unable to participate in the market economy.
Melissa Morales is a Graduate Student at the American University of Paris, preparing a Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural and Sustainable Business Management.
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