EarthMatters

Continuing our interviews with entrepreneurs at the Sustainable Hamilton-Burlington Expo 2018:

Adam Firchuk, Director, Business Development for Rodan Energy Solutions; and Robert Pocius, President of TekPak Solutions.

And we spoke with Marissa Slaven, palliative care physician and author of an eco-mystery novel aimed at the Young Adult audience, 'Code Blue'.

Despite the doom and gloom we often hear, the disasters and catastrophic events that grab headlines, there is an optimistic stream that flows through society when we here of individuals, organizations, and increasingly businesses that refuse to just let human-induced climate change take over. 

Are we reaching a tipping point when a 15 year old goes on strike against Climate Change? When Millenials take governments to court? When countless small companies use business to do good?

Refficient - recycles electronics.  https://www.refficient.com

Green Planet Bio-fuels- gathers used cooking oil to process.  http://greenplanetbf.com/

Humble Bee - guides homeowners on how to raise bees in their backyard.  http://humblebee.buzz/

Many feel that society's most challenging problems can`t be solved by government and non-profits alone.  Companies, small businesses and worker co-ops also play a significant part in addressing socio-economic and environmental issues.

Certified B Corporations are businesses that focus on social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.  B stands for Beneficial.

We spoke with Kasha Huk, Country Manager with B Lab Canada who explained further what becoming a certified B Corporation can do for a company.

After that we spoke with Court Desautels of the Neighbourhood Group of Companies, one of the few restaurant chains that is a B Corporation.

Kate Pepler moved to Canada's east coast and attended Dalhousie University. 

There she learned about environmental issues and it troubled her that more wasn't being done to reduce waste and recycle. 

After a year of learning how to source sustainable items and reduce her own waste, Pepler created a website to inspire others to become more eco-conscious and began hosting workshops for people living in her new hometown, Halifax, Nova Scotia to help them move towards a zero-waste lifestyle.  

Earlier this year, Pepler opened a zero-waste store called Tare in the North End of Halifax to provide access to zero-waste shopping and coffee.  

ourpositiveplanet.com         thetareshop.com

Peter Bartelmus is an honorary professor at the University of Wuppertal, Germany.  After his work in the United Nations, he taught economics of sustainable development at Wuppertal and Columbia University in New York.

Peter is the author of the book 'Sustaining Prosperity, Nature and Wellbeing'.  It's an examination of the many different ways we try to measure economic growth, wellbeing, happiness, and environmental impacts. 

The subject matter is intense, especially for those who may not be well versed in economics, but give this episode a listen to better understand that simply using the Gross Domestic Product accounting system as the sole method of measuring progress is not enough to help us deal with our modern environmental challenges.

In a provocative paper, titled 'Turning over a new leaf: the role of novel riparian ecosystems in catchment management', authors Samantha Capon, and Gary Palmer, examine research done on Novel riparian ecosystems.  These ecosystems host new combinations of species – some might call invasive species – with natural areas affected by human infrastructure. 

While posing numerous risks to riverine biodiversity and ecosystems, novel riparian ecosystems can also have many beneficial effects at local and catchment scales and may help address critical river management problems, e.g. bank erosion, degraded water quality.

Capon and Palmer feel that conventional management approaches (for example, weed control and eradication) can be ineffective, expensive, time consuming and associated with a range of unintended outcomes (such as, soil disturbance, habitat loss etc.).

 Samantha Capon is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University and the Australian Rivers Institute in Brisbane, Australia. She has a background in the ecology and management of riparian and wetland vegetation with a particular focus on vegetation dynamics, restoration and monitoring. 

To represent a countervailing view, and one some might say a more traditional approach to dealing with invasive species, I spoke with Tys Theysmeyer, Head of Natural Lands at Canada's Royal Botanical Gardens.  Tys, an aquatic ecologist by training, has been involved in habitat restoration projects for over two decades.

The UN Refugee Agency estimates that by 2050, up to 250 million people will be displaced by climate change impacts such as rising sea levels, floods, famine, drought, hurricanes, desertification and the negative impacts on ecosystems.

Amali Tower is the Founder and Executive Director of Climate Refugees. Amali has worked the past 12 years to promote the protection of refugees and forcibly displaced persons in a variety of contexts, including in refugee resettlement, protection, evaluation and research.

http://www.climate-refugees.org/

Sue Reid is the Vice President Climate & Energy & for Ceres.

Ceres is a sustainability non-profit organization working with influential investors and companies to build leadership and drive solutions throughout the economy. Through powerful networks and advocacy, Ceres tackles the world's biggest sustainability challenges, including climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and human rights abuses.

Whether it's because of the dire warnings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the pressure from consumers to do better, businesses are slowly starting to incorporate sustainable practices into every facet of their operation.  Real sustainability, not just greenwashing, is being demanded but where can CEO's and business leaders get authentic information, samples of best practices, and verifiable results?

There is no shortage of 'sustainability experts' with varying degrees of credibility.  Often, businesses do have reliable resources within their own locality.  GreenEconomyCanada is one example, a network of six Green Economy Hubs, each tailored to understand local community needs and apply global standards.

In today's EarthMatters we speak with Mike Morrice, Executive Director of GreenEconomyCanada, and later attend the launch of an online, interactive, sustainability toolkit initiative taken by one of those hubs, SustainableHamiltonBurlington.

Green Economy Canada works with community organizations to launch, grow, and promote Green Economy Hubs across Canada. Green Economy Hubs support local networks of businesses to set and achieve sustainability targets — bringing together, empowering, and celebrating businesses as they achieve their goals.

Green Economy Canada builds in community organizations to launch and grow Green Economy Hubs by providing training and resources, tailored support, amplified impact, and a supportive community of practice, and mobilizes network-wide funding, engage in policy discussions, and share stories of success to demonstrate that a more sustainable economy is possible.

Sustainable Hamilton Burlington is a non-profit social enterprise serving the neighbouring cities of Hamilton and Burlington in Ontario, Canada. It is dedicated to inspiring sustainability leadership in business organizations for a healthier environment and thriving, prosperous community.   

Today's program is about permafrost, and specifically the impact that warmer temperatures are having on the melting permafrost that covers some 24% of the Northern Hemisphere.  I spoke with Dr. Sean Carey.

Dr. Carey directs the Watershed Hydrology Group at the School of Geography & Earth Sciences at McMaster University, and his research interests include hydrological, biogeochemical and land surface processes in natural and human impacted environments.