Finding

The oceans provide hundreds of millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars to the world economy, in addition to invaluable and irreplaceable functions such as oxygen production, climate regulation, carbon sequestration and as a source of food. However, climate change, overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans at an unprecedented rate, depleting ocean life at a planetary scale, diminishing the ability of the ocean to provide the above essential ecosystem functions, and causing job and economic losses globally.

YGL Response

A global policy to restore ocean health would reverse the global ocean degradation and restore ocean productivity of goods and services to its maximum for the benefit ocean life, human health and society, and the global economy.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Major contribution to the Global Redesign Initiative Report. Was able to increase the amount of protected oceans by X %.

Working with Oceana-Chile, inspired creation of Sala y Gomez Marine Park, covering 4.4% of Chile’s water

Next Milestones

- Development of financial risk and economic models pointing to the benefits of marine protected areas
- Doubling of the marine protected area of Costa Rica
- Commitment from Mediterranean political and business leaders to help protect at least 10% of the Mediterranean – Monaco leader summit, February 13-14
- Commitments from Seychelles and Kiribati to expand protection in their waters
2012:
- Major session at WEF- Davos 2012 on the economic and social benefits of marine protected areas and other economic ocean solutions that work – with participation of key political, business, and non-profit leaders
- Commitments from additional countries towards 20% by 2020

Leadership

Alfredo Capote, Matthew Anderson, Cristina Bitar, David de Rothschild, Enric Sala, Ricken Patel, Jayne Plunkett, Josh Spear, Kevin Casas-Zamora, Kohey Takashima, Kristin Rechberger, Leo Schlesinger, Marco Fiorese, Matthew Anderson, Mattias Klum, Kohey Takashima.

More Information:

Finding

It is widely accepted that the climatic change that will occur in much of the first half of this century is already locked into the climate system. As a result, there will be significant increases in water scarcity beyond that already predicted (affecting 700 million people today to 3 billion people by 2025, according to the UN), greater intense-weather events such as floods, and a decline in water quality as groundwater supplies become polluted. These issues will exacerbate the development challenges already faced, with more people lacking access to clean water and sanitation.

YGL Response

This project will ensure that water – a critical component for health, education, economic growth, industrial production and food production – is discussed at the right levels in every market with a major scarcity or quality risk.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Formation of YGL initiative to dove-tail the Forum’s broader Water Initiative. The YGL component will focues on the media campaign and multimedia outreach.

Next Milestones

To be determined…

Leadership

Mina Guli

More Information:

Finding

The Department of the Environment in the UK estimates that 2 billion tonnes of waste products is generated in the European Union each year: a third from agriculture and forestry, another third from construction and demolition, and the remainder from mining and quarrying, manufacturing, municipal waste and energy production. The most predominant form of waste management is landfill use: in 2004, a survey of waste management in the European Union found that eight countries rely on landfill for over 50% of their waste disposal, and five use incineration to meet over a third of their waste management needs. Only a few countries relied on recycling as their primary waste management solution, and in the United States recycling adoption has only reached 28%.

YGL Response

Closed-loop economics will call for a re-examination of company strategy. Consumer goods companies, for example, will be forced to go beyond their position as value-adding intermediaries between raw material suppliers and end consumers, and instead broaden their reach into new sectors of the economic loop. Far from buying raw materials, manufacturing products, and selling them on to retailers or end consumers, consumer goods companies will have to take responsibility for the impact of their products at every stage from production and manufacture to consumption and recycling. This extended reach will require companies to manage larger and more complex networks of relationships beyond the traditional supplier-customer dynamic, and to more actively manage the whole-life impact of their products.

Key 2010 Accomplishments

Held session with YGLs in Tianjin, China and held a Webinar with interested YGLs

Next Milestones

Taskforce reception and Davos launch of the YGL Taskforce position paper (private side event). Will include Bill McDonough the father of Cradle to Cradle as keynote.

Leadership

Peter Lacy, David Rosenberg, and Jill Otto.

More Information:

Cities are for people

This YGL GRI develops collaborative strategies for promoting efficient urban mobility (e.g. battery standards, cross-industry collaboration, effective multi-modal transportation etc.) How would CO2 efficient urban means of transport ideally be if they were rethought systemically? How do we improve safety for all (motorized vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians) and reduce localized concentrated air and noise pollution and yet reduce congestion and travel time? Can we create powerful alternatives by cross-industry collaborative efforts, using existing technologies?

“Our cities are becoming more and more crowded. A city needs cars like a fish needs a bicycle primarily because you can’t use all that speed because of the many obstacles. (…) in 20-30 years people will not primarily use cars to get around in the cities”. Dean Kamen

Background

In January, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, United Kingdom Prime Minister and Group of 20 Chairman Gordon Brown appealed for “business to formulate with us the economic and policy conditions that will incentivize their investment and that will bring the low-carbon economy into being.” To this end, he called on the Forum to facilitate a “new business-led mission in support of an ambitious climate agreement in Copenhagen, focused on the policies that will lead to business investment in a low-carbon recovery.”

Between 1990 and 2007, transport emissions increased by a third while emissions from other sectors decreased; the share of transport in total emissions rose from 1990 to 2007. More than half the global population now lives in urban environments, by 2030 an estimated 60% and by 2050 a whopping 80%. Although this is a quick and dirty approximation it does indicate the need for rethinking Urban Mobility.

The problem is even more pressing in developing countries. With an increase in population and a steady stream of people moving into cities, there is a huge pressure on mobility infrastructure in cities which will become even more acute in the coming decades. The developing world, or „first billion‟ and their cities have evolved in a particular direction in the 20th century. It is absolutely impractical, unviable and impossible that the „next six billion‟ representing the developing world can follow a similar „car-centric‟ model. There is a crying need for integrated system thinking for the (mega) cities of the future to work out mobility requirements vis-á-vis individual, city, and environment cost.

Together cities are already bigger than any individual market or alliance.

Meanwhile, urban populations are becoming increasingly uniform, as a consequence of globalization. Already, cities have more challenges in common than countries have with each other and have less difference – no foreign policy and military and such. Inter-city governance structures are slowly forming. The need to reduce CO2 emissions, a global, urban market, and new, altered traffic habits have combined to contribute to the generation of new needs and new products, under the name of “Urban Mobility”.

Are there opportunities for private – public partnership to respectively tackle urban CO2 emissions and leveraging a new market?

Idea

The main idea is to create an Urban Mobility authority in order to connect the stakeholders within urban transport and create common standards and promote a holistic approach.
Issue

Decreases CO2 emission globally, harmful pollution locally and improves lifestyle, security and health issues in cities.

Impact

It creates an Urban Mobility authority allowing for the creation of new product typologies, systems and business models for urban transport.

Criteria

The success criteria would be to create an urban mobility authority whose initiatives spur cross- disciplinary cooperation. The ambition is to find a pilot city that would implement the policy recommendations.

Challenges

To make people within very old and stable silos communicate. No immediate authority on the subject. To overcome stakeholder‟s short sited self-interest.

Change
• We need to define urban mobility as unique field rather than a subset of ecology, urbanity, transport
• We need to prioritize the greening of cities • We need to rethink business models / incentives to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration
• We need to integrate existing infrastructure, public and private offerings and potentially smart grids
• We need to cherry pick best features from private and public transport respectively and have a place for all relevant areas of multi-modal transportation including motorized and non-motorized transportation
• We need to address distinctly different demographic needs across cities and map-out city typologies
• We need to integrate new social behavior and tools into commuting • We need to apply off the shelf technologies to spur new solution • We need to bring together distinctly different and relevant fields of expertise and industries

Leaders

Siddhartha Lal, slal@eicher.in, +91 11 41437616
Jens Martin Skibsted, jm@skibstedid.com, +45 28 14 49 18