Week 8 - How do you source seafood for family gathering without harming the environment?

Urbanisation brings the boom to city economies, at the same time, brings the rapid growth on population. Growth on population immediately means more food is needed to feed them. 

Food security is no doubt an issue in urban cities. With all the problems like how to grow the sufficient volume of food in time, how to deliver the food from remote area to urban area meanwhile keeping it fresh, etc. 

There are a lot of personnels and institutions working on the essential food security issues nowadays. So, despite the daily food solutions, let's put our eye on the "celebration food" for a moment - Seafood.

Seafood, to me, is not as essential as other food. It is not required in daily intake, it is rather expensive for daily food, and it is not good for health if "overdosed". But, we cannot ignore the fact that seafood is very traditional in celebrations, the closest to us, is family gathering dinner. Seafood is easy to cook, delicious to eat, and makes the whole family enjoy.

Sourcing sustainable seafood, is one of the biggest move of avoiding ailing our planet. Let us start from a smaller market - your local seafood provider. When you are shopping for simple family gathering dinner, you probably would just go to local seafood supplier. Have your found out where they sourced their seafood?

The Forbes has posted an article of "How A Fifth - Generation Family Raises Sustainable Seafood". It tells a wonderful story on how a family inherits the family seafood farm generation after generation- Taylor Shellfish Farms. They started from a small business to provide seafood to local families at the beginning, and they spreads out to the whole country. Nowadays, they are the major supplier of seafood to the whole country. And till now, the family business still insists on touching the environment and the earth lightest and create as much goodwill as possible to the public. So, if it is me, I would be more than happy to know the food I am purchasing is not harming our environment, and I would be extra joyful when I enjoy these seafood with my beloved family.

Let's now put it on a larger scale - the worldwide seafood trading business. As a sydneysider, I am pretty familiar with the Sydney Fishmarket. Also, I by chance have a family member who is currently working in a company as a supplier to Sydney Fishmarket. I am therefore quite familiar with the amount of seafood daily trading. It is already not the "small step to protect the planet" we thought, but a huge step everyday, if we insist on sustainable seafood harvesting.

A video from Australia Sustainable Seafood introducing sustainable seafood to the public:

A sustain eco-system in the ocean is as important as keeping what we see on land sustainable. From The International Institute for Sustainable Development report, it is shown that over the last year, $11.5 billion worth of sustainable seafood is sold worldwide, which accounts for 14% of global seafood production. It is a huge step up from decades ago, when sustainable seafood only accounted for 0.5% of the whole industry.

If we all step up, choose our seafood wisely, we are changing our planet everyday. The small steps are not as small as you thought. At the same time, the industry should keep themselves from overfishing. As the famous Australian Architect Glenn Murcutt says, "Touch the earth lightly", so we can all have better and healthier life.










Resources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ramcommercial/2016/05/18/how-a-fifth-generation-family-raises-sustainable-seafood/#5a5b8d73732b
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/sustainable-seafood-market-growth_us_573c340de4b0646cbeeb858a?section=australia
http://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/ssi-blue-economy-2016.pdf

Week 8 - A food solution closer to us

As mentioned in previous post, food production lands are giving their way to urban infrastructure. However, food is the essence of human living. With population growth, there is an increasing demand of food as well all over the world.


However, when urban sprawl takes up most of arable land near urban area, scarcity of urban land is leading to a longer "food miles", as arable lands are located mostly at remote area. CERES has found that averagely Australian food travel 745 km to be provided on the market. As a result, there is an increase of environmental externalities on food provision on the market. Environmental footprint on food production is thus increasing rapidly.

Sydney Urban Farming - Pocket City Farms Project

Facing to this situation, I believe that the advert of urban farming is an appropriate solution in terms of sustainability. Local residents can therefore choose to source their food wisely. Also, it is believed to be the most significant movement of time.

Benefits of urban farming seem to be obvious. Generally, there are four reasons as the significances of urban farming:

1. Renewed Local Economies - it encourages the neighbourhood economical activities. Not necessarily as good selling, but also good exchange, for example, exchanging your pumpkin with your neighbour's zucchini from the backyards.
2. Reducing environmental impact - as mentioned, nowadays food production is having larger environmental impact than it used to be. The fossil fuel used to fertilise and preserve food, transportation cost and gasoline consumption for long distance transportation, and also plastic packagings. All these are creating environmental impact on daily basis.
3. A revolution of health and nutrition - realisation possible pollution for food production, preservation and transportation is changing people's behaviours. Local grown food are less likely to be exposed in poisons as they have lower requirement on preservation. Local farmers can control their own food quality by themselves. It also provides exercising opportunities to urban residents by gardening their own farms. A healthy lifestyle is therefore predictable.
4. Community interaction - for urban farmers, it is normal that their knowledge basis on farming is incomplete. Therefore, exchange of information among neighbourhoods are necessary. Moreover, neighbours tend to share their seeds and labour. This is minimising social isolation in urban area effectively.

The urban farming movement seems to be a highly sustainable movement in urbanisation. However some economists have different ideas. This idea points out that when urban land is devoted to farms instead of human, cities' density level would be reduced and carbon emissions would increase. When we think about that urban farming is pulling us apart from each other. Lower density in urban area means longer driving time to reach your destination. It indirectly causes a rise in fossil fuel consumption in urban area. Therefore urban farming's cost is outweighing its benefits.

We cannot deny that it is a valid point. Although some urban farming projects seeks to use pocket size land for urban farms, it is difficult to be realised in some high density cities, for example, Hong Kong. However, let us think from another dimension. How about looking for urban vacant lots vertically? There are a lot of rooftop farms proved to be successful. A NYC based company, BrightFarms, has started to create rooftop farm on supermarkets, so that local food production is fresh, less poison and economically competitive. 

Therefore I believe that urban farming is still a sustainable solution to urban crisis. Environmental benefits can still outweigh the costs. Just that all new things are challengeable. Now we have the passion and initiative from people, the only thing left is to keep improving, to make its best.

Resources:
http://www.pocketcityfarms.com.au/blog/

https://www.good.is/articles/five-reasons-why-urban-farming-is-the-most-important-movement-of-our-time

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/07/urban-farms-edward-glaeser-environment-edward-glaeser-thinks-good-chance-hes-wrong/#

http://www.pocketcityfarms.com.au/blog/why-urban-farming

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/supermarket-rooftop-farms-brightfarms/

Week 7 - Sustainable Materials Products - Ford

Using sustainable materials in products is a very wise choice, especially your when your brand is already very famous. When you go for sustainability, the more product you provide on the market, the bigger effort you are making to keep our earth health.

Looks like Ford is one of the wisest business brands on the world. And more importantly, the source of making that sustainable material for vehicles is carbon dioxide, the green house gas that is harming the earth now.

The company has partnered up a company which captures GHG from manufacturing plants. It is a supplier of "resource" to Ford to develop foams for seat cushions and others.

Let's have a look at how the foam works:

To me, the most interesting part is, source to make the foam is from unwanted carbon dioxide - which is collected from manufacturing plants. The gas is making our planet warmer and warmer, but if we take it back for new material production, that means, there will be less carbon dioxide emission in the air, and more sustainable materials for us to use.

Apart from this new technology, Ford has already been on sustainable materials. Started form the Ford Mustang in 2007, soy material has already been used in cushions, setbacks and headrests of all Ford vehicles, in the US. The research team have been working on more sustainable materials as well, including tree fibres, wheat straw and shredded paper currency.

Ford's vision on sustainability actually started from 1941, where Henry Ford built a soybean car. This vision remains, till now. 

I am actually considering to buy a Ford car when I need. 





Resources:

http://www.psfk.com/2016/05/ford-novomer-create-vehicle-from-sustainable-materials.html

Week 7 - Sustainability in Business - Starbucks

How to keep improving your reputation if you are already running a successful business?

Starbucks, is already very well known by most area all around the world. The business provides fresh coffee and also cakes and pastries everyday, and the brand has been set up in most cities. People like to sit in Starbucks, get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, relax, read some books, or hang out with friends. 

Yet, the brand is not going to stop at the current stage. In order to continue on its reputation, the brand starts to resonate to sustainability to catch up the major trend around the world.

Why sustainable coffee? And how it works? The video tells you the story:

As I went through Starbucks website, I can see thare is a section about "Starbucks Ethical Sourcing of Sustainable Products". The business aims to source their coffee from arabica and is responsibly ground and ethically traded. That means starbucks has always been awared of the importance of sustainability, and has always placing it as a mission.

The announcement of making sustainable coffee is just a little add up to the brand. Now they have issued a bond to fund projects with social impact. As said by Sustainalytics' EVP of advisory services, "Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of coffee farming practices helps to strengthen the overall sustainability of the coffee supply chain while advancing the socioeconomic conditions of coffee farmers."

Have you ever wondered why coffee from starbucks is always abit more expensive then some others? Well, here is the answer. Sustainable products nowadays tend to cost a bit more than normal products. But, would you mind paying for an extra dollar to make your living environment healthier? I wouldn't mind. I hope that more business can follow up the trend, in the near future.


Resources:

http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/brand_innovation/sustainable_brands/starbucks_issues_first-ever_us_corporate_sustaina
http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/sourcing
http://www.sustainability.com/case-studies/starbucks

Week 6 - Concerns from a sydneysider - Putrescible Waste

As discussed in the previous blog, we have alternatives, or choices, to reuse or recycle those wastes which are not waste. However, there is always something that is not recyclable, for example, putrescible waste.

Putrescible waste includes "animal, plant and food matter that can biodegrade, or break down". Instead of being recycled and reused like dry waste, putrescible waste can only be put in landfill, and is more difficult to sort and manage.

Once putrescible waste enters landfill, a great amount of GHG would be emitted into the atmospheres, as the form of methane, 20-25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Leaving putrescible waste in landfill is harming the environment.

Landfill sites in Sydney reach their capacity,

A report by the government is showing that the four major landfill site in Sydney is going to be full by 2017, as estimated in 2010. The levy charged by the government to deal with waste has been increasing every year, in order to support the waste management and provide fundings for new infrastructure technology and programs to reduce waste and recycle as much as possible.

But, since the levy keeps increasing, the government should have enough funding to change the current situation, why is it still so bad?

Well, probably we stop thinking about why, but think about how to solve the problem.

Solution is actually provided. Technologies which captures the GHG on landfill site and use it in green electricity generation is actually being in used. It powers approximately 40,000 homes. The government wants to make sure that the putrescible waste becomes a benefit to the society.

Why this kind of good technology is not being used commonly? Well, it has been revealed that the government is only using 10% of the total levy in waste recycling initiatives. Relevant strategies are not yet being developed. The existing technologies cannot deal with the great amount of waste and provide green electricity to the society.

Although, the technology is not a solution to the landfill capacity, it stills provides opportunities to "reuse" putrescible waste, in some way. Solutions for the landfill capacity is still a mystery. But, at least we can do something, make it less harmful. Maybe, Australian government should have a look at other countries as well, to learn about how the other countries deal with the landfill issue, and give back Australian a better living environment.  



Resources:

http://www.issuesmagazine.com.au/article/issue-september-2010/sydney%E2%80%99s-putrescible-waste-problem-or-potential.html

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/09/15/landfill_wideweb__470x227,0.jpg

Week 6 - Alternatives? OR Compulsory?

A shocking news - Sydney's rubbish dumps will be full in six years! And, the news, was from 2010, which means the landfill capacity is running out now, in 2016.

What to do with our daily rubbish then? Well, believe it or not, our daily rubbish, travels 250 kilometres by rail heads to south to the Woodlawn dump at Tarago, according to the report by NSW government.

This is a terrified news to all sydneysiders. Landfill capacity is fulled, garbage has to travel hundreds kilometres away to be dumped. What if one day, landfill there is full as well? Would the government pay more to let the garbage travel even further? If yes, how to deal with the extra GHG emission from transporting the waste? If no, would our city be buried into all kinds of rubbish?

Transporting the rubbish far away is not a solution. We cannot run away from facing to the real problems. Figuring out the alternatives of landfill is crucial at this stage.

Alternatives for Waste Management.

So, what are the possible solutions? Actually I have seen the solution long enough in my life, probably from the time that I have memory I have seen the solutions: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. They are, probably the best answer to what are the alternatives for waste management at the moment. 
I would like to restate something we probably all know,

• Reduce means purchase upon demand. Do not buy anything you don't need to create waste
• Reuse means try to source used goods or substitutions if possible
• Recycle means manage your waste, find ways to recycle instead of letting it go into landfill

Familiar? Yes, we have been informed enough of these informations over the decades. However why the situation is still so bad when we are well informed?

I would say it is the laziness that putting us into this dilemma. I have been in Australia for more than five years. In this five years, I have lived with different people, including local born Australian, migrants, and international students. I admire the homestay family who accommodated me when I just came to Australia. They are very aware of how to sort out different wastes and reuse/recycle things. It kind of built up a seed in my mind that I need to be like that as well. However after the year, when I left the family, the most thing I have seen was people were too lazy to separate general waste and recyclable waste, also too lazy to throw their waste into two separate bins.

Another phenomena was, as I live near the university, most residents are just renting and they tend to move once per year or a couple of years. I can always tell when somebody is moving again - all the furnitures and appliances are just dumped beside the road. A lot of them are brand new and are quite reusable. What if, just stop being lazy for a minute, post a short advertisement online and sell them to someone who needs them?

It is hard to have a solution when the problem is like this. What I can do is, do my best. Just like what the homestay family do, behave, and influence people around me.


Resources: 
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/waste-solution-left-to-rot-as-landfill-capacity-runs-out-20100320-qn6z.html

http://www.lakemac.com.au/downloads/Review%20of%20Best%20Practice%20Waste%20Management%20Alternatives.pdf

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_g/G314.pdf

http://www.tinleypark.org/images/pages/N661/recycle_logo_copy.gif