"Curiosity Matters" Meets Ampleen: Interview with Shoko Sekiguchi

My usual role is to observe and ask cleaver questions.  This week, the role was reversed and I was interviewed by "Curiosity Matters".  Curiosity Matters is a popular blog by Molly Aaker and she writes about a diverse subject matter related to creativity, strategy, design and business.

Here is an excerpt from the interview and check out the whole interview at Curiosity Matters:

In your current job, you help multi-national corporations develop their IT strategy. How did this job lead to supporting sustainability practices?
The multi-national corporations are looking into cost reduction by being efficient. Going green should really bring an efficiency to the corporations when it is planned well. So, many corporations asked me how to be green and efficient in their IT solutions and that is how I started looking at sustainability very seriously.

Sustainability on a corporate level can cover everything from LEED certified buildings, to energy efficient server management and increased recycling. What sustainability efforts can have the most positive impact on the environment?

That is a great question. I believe that starting with the sustainability projects that can be easily translated into cost reduction would most likely have the biggest impact on a CEO’s decision to get further involved in the sustainability effort. As a result, it will lead to the most positive impact on the environment.
 

What companies have served as examples to the sustainability movement?

There are several such as Google and Whole Foods. I am particularly impressed by the effort of Patagonia, an out-door clothing brand. I wrote about them in a post on Ampleen, ”What’s the Responsible Company?”

Although caring for the environment has gone mainstream, I’m sure it can still be difficult to convince companies to be sustainable especially if there are extra costs involved. How do you do this?

As mentioned earlier, companies, especially public companies, are looking into being efficient and need justification for every spending. But, like the new Bank of America Tower, if the green initiatives can prove great savings over time, the key stake holders are more likely to be receptive about the projects.

What keeps you motivated to become more involved in the sustainability movement?
When I see some positive changes, rather than negatives facts, I feel compelled to get more involved in the movement. For instance, I started seeing more people coming to the Union Sq. green market in last a few years and being interested in what it’s all about. I am excited to see the change and like to see more of that.

Water and the City: The Case of Bermuda and NYC

Bermuda's colorful houses

Have you ever thought that you knew everything about a certain subject and later found out that you were missing some vital information that was under your nose the whole time?   

 

I had that experience during recent visit to Bermuda.  I learned something significant about the island -- about its water supply -- for the first time after several visits to the island.

 

The only source of fresh water in Bermuda is rain and every drop of rain has to be captured efficiently and quickly.  I have always appreciated the colorful walls and beautifully designed white roofs of the typical house in Bermuda but, actually I found out the roofs are designed to capture water easily.  The rain is collected on roofs and diverted into storage tanks. Each house usually has at least one of these tanks forming part of its foundation. 

In this way, Bermuda has been able to maintain sustainable water supply. 

Bermuda's solution for fresh water reminds me of our own water issues in NYC.  Did you know NYC's tap water quality is rated one of the best in the world?  But now our water quality is being threatened by a possible change in NY state's policy against fracking operations.

 

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural grass from shale rock layers deep within the earth. Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreachable with conventional technologies. Recent technology advancements in drilling have led to new man-made hydraulic fractures in shale plays that were once not available for exploration.

The problem with fracking is that it causes something like a mini-earthquake and some people say the chemicals released by this drilling operation can pollute an area and contaminates local water.  This contamination has been known to cause lung damage and, cancer, and even death.

New York state regulators are now examining the potential public health effects of hydraulic fracturing as part of its review of the controversial natural gas drilling process.  But it isn't clear how the research results will influence a decision by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to allow such drilling in the state. 

An island such as Bermuda has been successfully preserving its water by each household's effort and each Bermuda resident's collective effort to maintain its water sustainability. 

I wonder how we can, residents of NYC, similarly help preserve our precious water? 

What do you think of environmental hazards of fracking?  Should governments put a stop to it?

PS: Speaking of water, did you know that we have World Water Day, March 22nd? Also, did you know that we just had a World Water Week from September 1 -6?   Water indeed is our life, and we should acknowledge its importance and should be grateful to have abundant fresh water in our daily life.  Do you agree?

Sharing a Cup of Coffee in the City: Think Coffee's Case

I've worked at coffee shops for a nearly embarrassing amount of time. I hand out hundreds of paper cups a day only to see them in the garbage on the corner just outside my shop when I leave work, which suggests to me that they were used for (and I'll be generous) twenty minutes.



Guest Blogger: Mia Schachter

In the last several years, "green" cups have cropped up -- cold cups are made of corn and hot cups are made of potatoes. These cups are compostable, which means that even if they don't make it into a commercial composting facility to be churned into fertilizer, they won't sit in a landfill for hundreds or thousands of years. From my year-long stint selling coffee and coffee products wholesale, I know that these cups are substantially more expensive than the ones you get from the bodega. Choosing to sell coffee in these cups is a calculated and deliberate choice to be conscious about the waste produced at a shop.

For some of us, refusing plastic takeout containers and bringing our own bags to the grocery store is something of a hobby. We seek out ways to be more self-sufficient and feel guilty when we forget our Klean Kanteen. For others, it's an obligation. And for still others, it's merely a welcome bonus if our coffee cup happens to be compostable.

I no longer work at Think Coffee, but as far as I can tell, it is doing the most of any coffee shop to reduce waste. Think Coffee almost exclusively offers compostable to-go materials. Considering the existence of companies like Greenware, which specialize in these sustainable products, one might think it would be easy to use exclusively compostable goods. It's not.

The container your salad comes in might be compostable, but those little ones your salad dressing comes in? Maybe not. Your cup might be, but not the straw, because the only compostable straws I've seen crunch in your mouth and break easily. Hot lids often shrink and expand with extreme heat, and you asked for your latte extra hot, to which I begrudgingly obliged, but now your lid is dripping, or it split when you put it on the cup. They are designed to break down easily, unlike plastic, but sometimes the breaking down starts a little too quickly, as in while it's in your hand.

Think Coffee has compostable wax paper, utensils, bags, napkins and clam-shell takeout boxes. But once you've got the stuff, you leave.

Think Coffee also has a garbage sorting station, the fanciest of which is at its 8th Avenue location. Each hole is cut in an image of the type of thing that can go in there. While it's confusing and tedious, it's the only way to offer the opportunity to care to those who do. And when in doubt, the "landfill" hole is the safe bet.

There is a Portlandia sketch about a garbage sorting station on steroids with color coding and a tiny box exclusively for nail clippings. What they fail to mention is that if you fail to sort your garbage and your stuff doesn't make it into the composting hole at a Think Coffee location, you can still rest easy that it will eventually decompose somewhere.

Our world is outfitted for garbage. The movie WALL-E served as fair warning that our garbage disposal methods themselves are not sustainable. Action Carting, a company that sends garbage trucks around the city picking up contracted shops' compost, provides a necessary service for shockingly cheap. It surprises me that there aren't composting cans next to every garbage in the city considering how cheap it is. Farmers’ markets often offer composting stations where you can bring your household waste.  

My household compost pales in comparison with the compost gathered at a Think Coffee, which only reminds me how fantastic it is that they put in the effort to make the most use out of everything that comes through their doors. Food scraps, coffee grinds, newspapers (yes, you can compost newspaper) all make it into the compost. The real cost is the effort it takes to initially set up a contract with Action and to order the appropriate goods, and then the time invested in education for employees.

It's hard to notice when goods we receive are compostable. Other than things we would actually put in our mouths and swallow, cups and utensils are assumed to be garbage. One actually has to read the fine print on cups to notice that they are made from corn. Just as vegetarians often believe that they are exercising their power by simply removing themselves from an action, one can witness the power of removal by refusing to participate in the kind of passive consumerism that occurs when we waste.

I've served enough coffees that are left untouched to know that often we consume merely in order to participate in a collective social hobby. The new hobby that has come to the forefront of the hip and trendy is the attention to one's carbon footprint. Among the foils of the meat industry, people can be overheard discussing their transportation habits, their consumption habits, and ways they reduce waste.

And all this over a cup of coffee.

<About Our Guest Blogger>

Mia Schachter 

Mia has been a barista in Los Angeles, Austin, and New York for almost six years. She is part time student at Columbia University's School of General Studies, studying Philosophy.  She currently works at Irving Farms on the Upper West Side.

Recycling at the London Olympics: A New Community in the East End

After the 17 days of competition, the London Olympics ended yesterday. Were you excited to see last night's Closing Ceremony? What do you think of the Spice Girls?

The British government earmarked an extra $64.3 million to double budget for the opening and closing ceremonies for the celebration. The Olympics is about our hope that people across borders can be united under one roof in the spirit of sportsmanship.

But after all the competition and celebration, have you ever wondered what happens to Olympics sites after the events are over?

Beijing's deserted Olympics site now
David Gray/Reuters

The other day, I found such a sad picture of Beijing's deserted Olympics site. It has been four years since Beijing hosted a spectacular summer Olympics. As with every Olympics, China's bustling capital prepared by vastly improving its public transportation and building extensive new infrastructure. However many of the venues built for the event have long since been neglected and, underused, draining public finances and seemingly being totally abandoned.

"The main "Bird's Nest" stadium" and the "Water Cube" aquatics center were regarded as the crown jewels among other buildings that pleased many eyes and raised much attention globally. They were described by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge as "beautiful" and "unprecedented" venues, and they certainly helped one billion sports enthusiasts get excited about the Olympics.

Yet today, the original purpose of both places has been forgotten, and now they are better known for the steady stream of curious tourists they attract -- some 4.61 million people in 2011. While the Bird’s Nest now hosts the odd soccer match or track and field competition from time to time, it has also been the site of a "winter wonderland" theme park as well as concerts. The stadium's management estimates that, at the current rate, it will take some three decades to recoup the three billion yuan ($480-million) cost of building it.

The neighboring Water Cube lost an estimated 11 million yuan last year, even with a state subsidy and revenue from an attached water park built after the Olympics to capitalize on its fame.

However, the London Olympics is becoming known as the most sustainable Olympics event ever hosted. One of the notable differences with past Olympics events is that the London Olympics has been the first to set up a London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) right from the start. LLDC is a public-sector, not-for-profit organization that is responsible for the long-term planning, development, management and maintenance of the Olympic Park and its facilities after the 2012 Games.

Artist conception of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

In May 2012, LLDC unveiled its plans for the opening of the future Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

LLDC's plan will see the park be transformed from an Olympics site into a brand-new piece of the city, right in the heart of London’s East End, in the 18 months following October 2012. By spring 2014, the 560-acre Olympic Park will become an exciting new visitor destination and community park, unlike any other in the U.K.

Historically, the East End has suffered from under-investment in both housing and infrastructure, and this is the reason for one of the recent initiatives to transform the area into a new community. The Olympic Park was created on former industrial land around the River Lea.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, had this to say about the park:

“Within a year of the close of the 2012 Games, the park will be ready to welcome not only another major sporting event, but also the thousands of residents and workers who will reap the benefits of this brand new district of the capital. The fantastic new sporting venues are only one part of the unfolding legacy story. The park will help drive the growth London needs to steer it out of recession and on to long term prosperity.”

The first area will re-open in July 2013 – exactly one year after the Olympics opening ceremony.

Recently there has been much criticism about the meaning of the Olympics. Flying thousands of athletes by jets to one city generates criticism globally in terms of a carbon footprint, and the event has become increasingly commercialized. The London Olympics has been also praised as the most sustainable, but, it is also reported that ticket sales have been disappointing.

While the city of London regards the overall event commercially unsuccessful in generating explosive sales, it might be disastrous if British officials are looking only at a short-term gain through this event. Fortunately, London has already a long-term plan: recycling the Olympics site to build a better community.

Hosting the Olympics to impress other member of nations is passé. What has become more important is to focus on the long-term goal of creating a space for the local community using the Games as an opportunity. We need to learn how to incorporate the growth of communities after each Olympics and look forward to this after the big event.

What do you think of the plan for site of the London Olympics?

New Distribution Model: How to "Relocalize" Our Food and Community

One typical summer weekend afternoon, I was having a relaxing brunch with some close friends at my neighborhood's outdoor cafe in NYC.   I casually asked one friend "How is your mother doing these days?"  My friend took a quick breath and told us, "My mother in Spain is doing fine but her concern is the current state of Spain.  I, too, can't believe how bad it recently has  become"    She was clearly upset and explained how her Spain friends' Facebook updates have described their lives have gotten worse and worse and been turned upside down.   

After Spain went through the Franco's dictatorship, people of Spain finally gained freedom just a few decades ago.   I can imagine how desperate her mother and friends in Spain must feel about the country falling apart now.   Listening to her, I thought of my friends and family in Japan, who are going through a big shift right now, and wondered how we all got here.                                              

  

As a result of greed and lack of accountability in a small segment of population or, approximately 1% , we have recently experienced a financial crisis and recession that we have never seen before in history.  The crisis just started in one country and one sector, but it has had a huge impact across the globe.  The globalized economy is clearly at a crossroads. 

So, where should we go from here?  Where should we look for the "new" economy that we can trust and rebuild our life upon?  

I realized then that there is already a new movement happening around us if we look closer and connect some of the dots.

Real Food Works founder
Lucinda Duncalfe (right) and me

During a recent interview, Lucinda Duncalfe, the serial entrepreneur, award winning professional and founder of Real Food Works, mentioned that she was first inspired by Forks Over Knives, a documentary describing how a plant-based diet will prevent most degenerative diseases. Her new venture delivers plant-based foods prepared by independent local chefs to subscribed clients, and her goal is to create happiness and more energy in her clients' lives.   

I also recently attended a meeting for  "food+tech", a Meetup group whose purpose is to harness Web-based tools to communicate about food, provide information about food in a new and meaningful way.   At the meeting, a group of great innovators in food distribution were introduced to over 70 attendees.  Here are some things I learned about some of the new start-ups out there:

• Relay Foods is disrupting the largest retail category – groceries, while also efficiently connecting farm and fork.
•  Appetude is a social network that lets users discover, share, and order dishes online.  
• FarmersWeb is an online marketplace where wholesale buyers can connect and transact with local farms.
• Wholeshare helps people get access to good quality, affordable local food by organizing group purchases.

What's more, I learned these new things are not only happening in the start-up scene in NYC.   A recent Wired article reported that Mike Roberts, former president and chief operating officer of McDonald's, started a sustainable food chain called Lyfe Kitchen.   He pulled together two of Oprah’s celebrity chefs, Art Smith and Tal Ronnen and created a team for Lyfe Kitchen.  Roberts hopes to transform the way the world produces organic ingredients, promoting responsibly grown meat and veggies.  

Through their new businesses and innovations, we - consumers - are able to develop a local community and re-create the connection with food sources -- they help us "relocalize."  Because of the way we eat, we have destroyed our connection with the community, with the natural processes, with those who grow our food, and with the essence of life.   Our awareness, facing a daunting predicament with the way we’re producing and consuming our food, actually has inspired some of us to create these new businesses. 

Going back to my earlier question, Where should we go from here at the cross-roads?   The issues around the globalized economy seem to be huge and complex.  Spain's economy won't be remedied tomorrow.   Japan's issues concerning nuclear power will take decades to see any resolutions.   However, I believe that we will be able to address these global issues by bringing a new value into our daily life, such as a new way of viewing and treating our food.   

In short, we must learn how to eat seasonally and locally.  We must develop new skills and knowledge -- composting, cooking, sharing, creating communities, and relocalizing.

What do you think about local food?   What is your view on the huge shift in the world?

New Yorkers seeking locally grown apples
in Union Sq. Green Market 

'No Impact Man' in the City: Colin Beavan's Latest Challenge

A recent Facebook update from my friend who lived in NYC for over a decade and recently moved to Korea made me think of plastic bags.

According to her, no grocery stores give shoppers a plastic shopping bag any longer in Korea.  She found out later that they have to buy a trash bag that is supplied by the government and costs about $13!

Along the same lines, when I shop at Trader Joe's, my favorite store, I always choose a paper bag over plastic.  I bring my cloth bag, but sometimes I can't fit all the items into my bag (yes, I should buy just the amount of food that I can carry in one bag!).   But, in other grocery stores, I have no choice but to use plastic bags.   

Did you know Americans use approximately 1 billion shopping bags, creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste each year?    Worse, plastic bags do not biodegrade.  Light breaks them down into smaller and smaller particles that contaminate the soil and water and that are expensive and difficult to remove.  Perhaps not surprisingly, less than 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled each year.

And recycling one ton of plastic bags is not cheap either: it costs $4,000.  So, actually the Korean government is giving people a break since the recycled product can be sold for $32, according to the report "Why Plastic Bag Fees Work" (May 2009) by the Clean Air Council.

NYC itself creates enough garbage to fill the Empire State Building each day.
That means New Yorkers are filling up a space that is 37 million cubic feet in size!

In any case, so, a country like Korea implements a drastic regime that encourages people not to use plastic bags.  But really, what can we do about changing our casual sense of using a plastic bag or reducing garbage in our everyday life?

Colin and me at the private showing
of No Impact Man

Last week, I was invited to a private viewing of a film called No Impact Man at OMEGA, a nonprofit educational center offering programs for wellness and personal growth, in Hudson Valley, NY.

The film is a 2009 American documentary directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein.  No Impact Man, which premiered Sept. 4, 2009, follows Colin Beavan and his family during their year-long experiment to stop a consumption lifestyle and have a sustainable zero impact on the environment out of their 5th Ave. co-op apartment in NYC.   

I had the fortune to meet with Colin Beavan, the main character of the movie, at the viewing.  He mentioned that there was much criticism of his choices, including that his new life-style was a publicity stunt.  He explained that it was not meant to be a publicity stunt, but, sometimes we may have to utilize that to make an important statement -- in this case, changing our consumption-based life-style choice. 

What I was intrigued by the most during their experimental year was a change in the family dynamics.  Michelle, Colin's wife, and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray unwillingly.  Zero impact on the environment is not easy task to achieve in Manhattan.  But she gradually changed her attitude toward her husband's attempt. 

Overall, I found the movie an incredibly compelling story about one New Yorker family's struggle to change their view of the world.

Now, Colin is running for the US Congress, representing central Brooklyn.  He said that he is doing this not only to win, but, to make a strong statement.  His aim is to create an engaged and opened community that I support.   If he survived during the experimental year, I believe that he can excel in this new challenge, and I am curious to know what comes out of his trial this time.

How do we minimize our trash?  What do you think about No Impact Man?

A good source of statistics about our waste:
http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html

No Impact Man trailer:
http://www.noimpactdoc.com/trailer.php

Composting in NYC – Charlie Bayrer’s Earth Matter

Like many New York women, I have this favorite hand-bag that is a perfect size to carry when I travel abroad, and this hand-bag has traveled with me everywhere from Cambodia to Colombia in the last several years. 

It's leather and is becoming dirty, so I decided to get it professionally cleaned.  But, I was surprised to find out this week that cleaning my hand-bag costs over $140!  I thought, how easy to replace old things by new ones, and how often we throw away the perfectly functioning things in our lives.  

Something is fundamentally wrong with this picture.

To put this in perspective, there was recently an article in the New York Times introducing the "Repair Cafe" in Amsterdam.  The Repair Cafe provides a place where people can bring in whatever they want to have repaired, at no cost, by volunteers who just like to fix things. 

The Repair Cafe Foundation has raised about $525,000 so far, and it's spreading across the Netherlands.  As part of a counter-movement against the "throwaway culture" that we have blindly enjoyed for a long time, the Repair Cafe has taken off as a way to help people reduce waste.

A founder of the Repair Cafe said, “It’s a shame, because the things we throw away are usually not that broken. There are more and more people in the world, and we can’t keep handling things the way we do.”

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to see no life or value in things once they serve us their primary purpose.  But, I believe that there is still life and meaning in a thing after it serves its initial purpose.

Compost Learning Center's Entrance

Obviously, I am not the only one who believes in that.

I met a unique group of people this week who believe that things, food in particular, will take different forms and continue serving a purpose.  The group of people are a part of Earth Matter, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art, science, and application of composting in and around NYC.  Earth Matter runs the Compost Learning Center  on Governors Island, a military base turned public park in New York harbor just off the southern tip of Manhattan, open every summer weekend.

What is composting?  Composting is the process of creating the ideal conditions for the rapid decomposition of organic materials. You can imagine composting as the speeding up of the way nature recycles food.
 

Volunteers working
on food scraps

Under the strong summer sun, several volunteers were working diligently when I visited the center.  Earth Matter volunteers and employees take food waste from food vendors and resource recovery stations throughout the island, to the Compost Learning Center, where it is processed.

I had the fortune to speak to Charlie Bayrer, the co -founder and, the Operations Manager and Director of Earth Matter.  He explained that food scraps being gathered at over 30 locations across NYC's green markets come to the center, and they also sort out the food scraps.

Later I learned that Bayrer is the driver behind a growing grassroots composting program that diverts 1,500 pounds of food waste from landfills each week.

Bayrer, a longtime community gardener and composter in Brooklyn, was instrumental in founding the Fort Greene Composting Project in 2005. That project collects food scraps from shoppers at the Fort Greene Park Farmers Market and distributes them to local community gardens and to a larger community farm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Bayrer obviously cares about more than composting and enriching soil -- one article about him said that "he wants people to see the big picture of how what we eat (and what we don't) affects the environment around us."  Through his openness to talk to us about the Learning Center's mission and operation, I felt his genuine concern about how we handle food and, perhaps, ourselves. 

Do you compost?   What do you think of our throwaway culture?

Charlie Bayrer,
Co -founder, Operations Manager and
Director, Earth Matter

Food as Health Reform: Michelle Obama's New Book -- American Grown

What was your favorite food when you were growing up? What was your most memorable experience with the food? What does eating mean to you?

Last time I visited in Tokyo, I brought back a green glass bowl from my parents' house. It was rather heavy to carry back home but, I love the well-balanced design and the fresh color, and it brings back great memories of my childhood. My mother used to serve salad with the green glass bowl, and I was very fond of the memory -- a fresh taste of tomato and seasonal green.

I've always loved vegetables more than anything, perhaps, because I grew up with them. Like New York City's kids who love sushi, I grew up in Tokyo with many different diverse foods. It greatly influenced my taste buds -- I can eat anything and like to explore new and different things.

These experiences have led me to believe that "we are what we grew up to eat", rather than "we are what we eat." Food is our most basic need, so it follows that our preference of food and cravings for particular food are usually developed when we are much younger. In other words, what we are feeding children today will shape tomorrow's diet and future life style.

This very fundamental idea of "we are what we grew up to eat" is finally seeming to sink into our society following two recent widely publicized food-related initiatives.

Disney's new logo for products
that meet its nutrition standard

One is coming from Disney. All products advertised on its child-focused television channels, radio stations and Web sites must comply with a strict new set of nutritional standards. This is a serious decision for Disney, since it means Disney may risk losing some advertising money -- the media industry's lifeline. Major American food companies spend $20 billion on marketing, and $950 million annually are spent on television marketing tailored to children under 12, according to industry estimates.

The second one is coming from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. His proposal is to place a ban on the sale of large-size sodas and other sugary beverages. The ban would outlaw such drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants, food carts and any other establishments that receive letter grades for food service, with the exception of grocery stores. Perhaps taking a cue from NYC's proposal, now the Massachusetts city of Cambridge wants to outlaw large sugary drinks in restaurants. Cambridge is looking into a similar crackdown to combat obesity and diabetes.

Why do we care now? What's triggered these initiatives?

Did you know that Americans spend $100 million for diet aids and $200 billion for diet related illnesses each year? With these huge figures, we finally had to face the music: we realized how costly to it is to be ill, the significance of our diet is to our health, and that healthy eating habits prevent us from being ill. We started seeing food as health.

American Grown:
Michelle Obama's recent book

Michelle Obama seems to take "food as health" a step further to "food as health reform". In 2009, she planted a kitchen garden on the White House grounds, becoming the first first lady to do so since Eleanor Roosevelt. She has recently documented this in her new book called "American Grown".

I discussed the community garden as a platform of a trust-based society in my last post, "Building Trust in the City: The Case of El Sol Brillante " -- a post I received a lot of positive feedback on. The first lady also sees gardens as a symbol of the growing movement of eating healthy. As fresh vegetables, fruit, and herbs sprouted from the ground and her first harvest yielded 1,600 punds of produce, her effort inspired a new conversation across the country about the food we feed our families and the impact it has on the health and well-being of our children.

The first lady was a working mother in Chicago when she first addressed the issue of childhood health. Her pediatrician pulled her aside one day and suggested that she check out her family's diet. She was shocked when she found out how many things she could improve, and it was a beginning of a health awakening at her home. Her family stopped sugary drinks, started using portion control, and started going to local green markets to buy fresher foods. Her point of view has therefore been shaped from her initiative as working mother who cares very much about her daughers' well-being and the next generation's. She described her approach in a recent interview, saying it's about learning how to treat ourselves as gently as we treat our garden.

We are indeed what we raised to eat. With our generation, we are resetting the clock and rebuilding our health and healthy future, literally from ground up.


What balance do you try to achieve with food and health? What do you think of your diet?

Building Trust in the City: The Case of El Sol Brillante

What do you think about the word "trust"?  What does trust mean to you?  What defines trust in us?   How do you develop trust in your personal or business relationships?

Shared Squared Panels

I came across these questions this week when I attended a meeting called the T8 TRUST SUMMIT w/ NYC's finest minds hosted by Shared Squared.  Shared Squared is a community where people believe and promote a concept of collaborative consumption or sharing economy. 

We discussed trust that is essential to this economic model -- trust that has to happen in order for collaboration and sharing activities to flourish between strangers or virtual communities.  For example, consumers have to be convinced that their apartment or house is safe if they rent it via airbnb.com.  Or, consumers need to feel comfortable when they share a ride with strangers using carpooling.com.  

During the meeting, over 60 participants struggled to define what role trust plays in the new economy.

One of the participants described a community-based society that has always allowed us to have a sense of trust in each member of society in the past.  Listening to his comments, I was wondering where has this sense of trust gone?  When did we stop hitchhiking and become afraid that a stranger will harm us?

El Sol Brillante's front gate

The close relationship between the community and trust reminds me of my experience last weekend -- my visit to the community garden called El Sol Brillante, Sr.

It is a little park in New York City's East Village that is a part of the East Village Parks Conservancy and it is located on the south side of East 12th Street between Avenues A and B.

Did you know there are more than 600 community gardens in NYC? Several dozen of them are in the East Village area. Like El Sol Brillante, Sr., they are tended to by volunteer members of their garden associations/trusts.

Neighbors enjoying the afternoon

A lush, well-tended garden provides the community a true oasis. An artful wrought-iron fence surrounds park, creating a whimsical feeling and inviting passers-by.  When I visited last weekend, several neighbors were working on the garden while some were simply enjoying the peaceful afternoon.   The garden is open to the public when a member is present. 

Many historic buildings in NYC share interesting, sometimes twisted, stories.   El Sol Brillante, Sr., is not an exception: it has an interesting history behind its beautiful surface.  In the 1970's, difficult economic times meant that city coffers were unable to meet budgetary needs.  According to the website TreeBranch Network, "overgrown land created 'mugger cover' hiding drug deals and other nefarious activities."  Empty and abandoned lots rundown and arson-destroyed buildings came into city ownership for nonpayment of taxes.  That became the source of much of the vacant land.  The land El Sol Brillante, Sr., sits on was owned by the city and eventually was sold to the community garden coalition.  That was a starting point of turning the "mugger cover" into an urban oasis.

When I walked down the space, I immediately felt a sense of community and trust -- trust that the garden would not be vandalized or destroyed, trust that people would care for others' effort, and trust coming from the people who built trust in the community when violence and poverty were all around the East Village.  I found the community gardens a powerful and dynamic platform to re-create a trust-based society in NYC. 

Building trust in the urban environment takes time and patience.  But, El Sol Brillante, Sr., shows me that it can be done. 

Have you visited a neighborhood garden or park recently?  What is your experience?

Learning How to Live with Biking in the City: NYC Introducing Citi Bike Program

How do we figure out the best way to get from point A to point B?  Does finding the most scenic and peaceful route, such as one with a walk by a beautiful park, matter to you?  Is the quickest and most cost-efficient route, such as by subway, more important to you?  Or, is getting to where you're going as quickly as possible, such as in a taxi that is able to rush through the streets, the best way for you?

In New York City, there are many ways to get around the city -- subways, trains, buses, taxis, pedicabs, ferries and bikes, to name a few.  I often use HopStop apps to find the most efficient way to get to my destination of the day.  With these kinds of choices, New Yorkers can plan how to get to where they're going in any number of ways. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of all people who commute to work in NYC, 41% use the subway, 24% drive alone, 12% take the bus, 10% walk to work, 2% travel by commuter rail, 5% carpool, 1% use a taxi, 0.6% ride their bike to work, and 0.2% travel by ferry.

The NYC Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles, or 1,056 km of mainline track).  With such excellent public transportation, NYC has been regarded as one of the most energy-efficient cities in the U.S. 

To further expand and improve our current transportation system, in May 2012, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that 10,000 bikes, docked at 600 stations, are expected to be available for Citi Bike Share Program by next summer.  The city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) said it would unveil a map of the bike stations in May and the first bikes are scheduled to reach the streets in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn at the end of July 2012. 

Citibank endorsed $41M for the Share Program in NYC

In 2009, the NYC DOT announced a strategic plan with an accelerated goal of doubling bike commuting between 2007 and 2012, and tripling it by 2017.  Amazingly, the city reached the goal of doubling bike commuting in 2011, a year early, and a recent New York Times article, "This is How We Ride", and its number of readers responses show just how overwhelmed New Yorkers are about the recent increase of bike riders in the city.

One of the Times readers, Yang Congtou from Beijing, referring to other readers' opinions, said "It always surprises me that the resistance to bicycles is so deeply entrenched in the US."

I don't know if this attitude reflects general opinion of most Americans but, certainly New Yorkers are not thrilled by the recent increasing use of bike use in the city.  Over 8 Million New Yorkers in five boroughs have to live harmoniously with cranky and self-absorbed pedestrians and aggressive taxi drivers.  But add to that bikers flying down the street and ignoring traffic rules, and no wonder why many New Yorkers feel uncomfortable about growing number of bikers in the city.   

More than 200 cities around the world now have bike-share programs and people especially in Europe take advantage of these programs.  In many cities in the world, the bike is increasingly regarded as an integral part of urban transportation.  In line with this trend NYC's DOT will launch a Citi Bike Share Program.

What, then, is the gap between what the DOT is promoting for the city's transformation and how the bike in general is perceived?  Why do we struggle with this change in NYC?  What can we do about it?

I found the magic words to understanding the city's issues in one sentence of the article.   The writer, David Byrne, noted, "European bikers take traffic rules seriously."  This, however, is not the case with NYC bikers.  I just don't know how many times that I've been almost run over by bikers who ignore red traffic lights, and I don't know when I've seen any law enforcement stop this hazard.  

In one of my past posts "New Wealth", I discussed how the new world allows us to breathe and gives us freedom.  I firmly believe our increasingly globalized and interlinked economies and communities will bring us "new wealth" and a new paradigm.   Still, we need to follow basic rules in order to live harmoniously and freely with millions of people in condensed urban environments.  If the DOT would like to transform the city, it needs to have a practical and effective plan for handling the new traffic. 

Living considerately -- that is a mark of a true sustainable society.  Do you agree?

<Information of NYC Bike Map>
http://www.nycbikemaps.com/

Clean Cabs in the City: A Battle between the City Government and Taxi Operators

As most New Yorkers do, I love New York City, but, I also find it fascinating to visit other cities and discover similarities and gaps compared with New York.  Many of these experiences allow me to  gain a fresh perspective on the various issues of urban living.  

Boston's CleanAir Cab

Last week, I had one of these experiences when I visited Boston for a conference.   Boston welcomed me with a small surprise at Logan Airport.  As I was about to take a taxi downtown,  I noticed a car with green and earth-brown strips.  I looked closer at the green strip and saw a logo: Boston's Clean Air CABS.

Little did I know that Boston launched the CleanAir Cabs program in April 2007.  The taxi picked me up at the airport was a program participant and Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV).   

In addition to Boston, several other major cities in the world have been adding hybrid taxis to their fleets since North America's first hybrid taxi was put into service in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2000.

Have you seen the color of NYC's new taxi for the boroughs around anhattan?  The new taxi was finally unveiled in April by Mayor Bloomberg.  What color does it look like to you?  Lime? Pistachio?  Bloomberg called it "apple green."  Is the new cab really that green?

New York City's new cab (Hiroko Masuike
/The New York Times)

The color of the new taxi was kept a secret until the last minute, so it could be hyped up by the media.  However, no particular regulatory changes for taxis were announced at the unveiling.  Bloomberg had set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 % by 2030, which is considered to be an integral part of the 2007 PlaNYC, an economic and environmental initiative to prepare the city for one million more residents.  Somewhat surprisingly, however, greenhouse gas emission reduction not reflected at the unveiling. 

In fact, NYC along with other cities, has gone through much debate about the deployment of hybrid taxis.

In September 2008 a group of taxi operators sued the city claiming that hybrids were not suitable for city taxis and in October of the same year, a federal judge blocked New York City from implementing the fuel economy requirement.  There was another battle in 2009 between the city government and taxi operators.

We have seen a similar battle in Boston.  A group of taxi drivers and medallion owners sued in federal court for the city of Boston to block the requirement and requested the city delay the changeover for two or three years.

This is a complex issue.  Do you know how much it costs to get a taxi medallion in NYC?  It is $400,000 per medallion.  Medallion owners, therefore, need to make money as soon as they hit the road.  NYC's cab drivers do not make a lot of money. The Taxi and Limousine Commission estimates that drivers earn an average of $130 a day, down from $150 in 2006.  NYC's cab drivers claim that hybrid cars are not sufficient to handle the city that never sleeps: a car requires a 24 hours-drive capability to enable a return on investment.  

As a small business owner, I totally understand the rationale of taxi drivers and medallion owners against the regulations.  On the other hand, I would like to see a more creative way to entice businesses to participate in the conversion.  

Looking at Boston's better success with hybrid, I see the CleanAir Cabs program was created around the benefits for cab drivers.  First, the operating cost savings for drivers are great as hybrid taxi cabs can get up to three times as many miles per gallon of fuel as the old Crown Victoria cabs.  Second, hybrid taxi drivers get two "front of the line" passes per shift at Logan Airport, allowing them to make two extra trips daily and gain more earning opportunities.

I believe that regulators' involvement in sustainability needs to be well designed and in balance.  We do not want to lose employment to keep the earth green.  That is just not realistic.  I believe in creating a space for all of us to "participate" rather than enforcing rules that would be only used as a measurement for regulators' success.

What do you think of the NYC cab driver's situation?  What would you do if you were Bloomberg?

  

New Wealth – New American Dream?

When I was growing up in Tokyo, Japan experienced a historic economic boom. From the 80s to early 90s, such major Japanese acquisitions as Sony’s 1989 purchase of Columbia Pictures roiled the corporate world, and Japanese companies and corporate titans flooded into New York during the real estate boom, with Mitsubishi Estate’s purchase of Rockefeller Center touching off an outcry over foreign control of American property. 

In Tokyo, I remember that European luxurious-brand products were inundated Japan and my friends in high school carried around Louis Vuitton bags as if they were everyday items.   Everyone seemed to be wealthy, and no one was left behind.  Japanese people seemed to be moving forward as if the sky were the limit for the new opportunities.   

Fast-forward to Japan today, and there is no word to describe how much has changed since then.  Landmarks such as the Chrysler Building are now owned by many Arab groups, with the Chrysler Building now being 90% owned by the Abu Dhabi government.  And Rockefeller Center is now owned by Tishman Speyer, a German real estate developer.

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, is well-known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe.  We should all know by now that only constant is change.

Coming from the perspective of the big shift in Japan, I am intrigued by the constant change in our world and what it means for the notion of happiness that many of us feel we were promised.  What if things that we were taught by our school or society have been wrong? What if we are looking for  true happiness in the wrong place?  

Yesterday’s New York Times reported that 94% of students who earn a bachelor’s degree borrow to pay for higher education — up from 45% in 1993. In 2011, the average debt for lendees was raised to $23,300. Didn’t we grow up hearing that a college education would further your standard of living? After just reading about a recent graduate whose debt is over $100,000 and who now waits on tables, a college education doesn’t seem to support the American dream anymore.

Van Jones, a civil rights and environmental activist, is known for his best-selling book, Green Collar Economy.  His book outlines a plan for simultaneously solving socioeconomic inequality and environmental problems, and he has recently initiated a movement to reclaim the American dream. The American dream in essence is not about purchasing power, but opportunity; it's not about financial wealth, but about community and hard work for all people.  I would like to call this a "new wealth." 

I firmly believe that a sustainable society helps give us space to breathe and grow for individual well-being and helps support maintaining a healthy body and mind.  It doesn't determine your value in the society by your religion, sexual orientation or color.  A sustainable society is a sharing society based upon new wealth.  Best of all, a sustainable society is created upon the interrelations of a diverse group of people, flexible and ready to transform.

What do you imagine for the "American dream"?  For me, the critically acclaimed movie American Beauty comes to mind.  While keeping up appearances of a beautiful home and family image, the members of two "typical" American families are shaken by different circumstances that force them to come out of their cocoons and make voyages of self-discovery to see both the complex beauty and tragedy of life.  I found the message courageous and most inspiring. 

 

What about you?  What is your American dream?

  

What Is "Insourcing"? Doug Feirstein Talks About LiveOps, the World’s Largest Virtual Call Center

President Obama said that same-sex marriage should be legal during yesterday's Good Morning America, after nearly two years of saying that his views on same-sex marriage were “evolving.”  This has made Obama the first U.S. president who endorses same-sex marriage, and as same-sex marriage has been one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day, I applaud Obama's courage and the strong leadership.

Obama’s announcement is significant from a symbolic standpoint. We have moved into more than a new millennium. We are moving into a new age of social realities -- a set of realities that will reshape and redefine the very philosophical and pragmatic pillars that have historically served as the foundation for our family and community. 

Speaking of new realities, Obama also endorses "insourcing," which he describes as his latest push for bringing jobs back to America. As a sustainable nation should maximize its domestic workforce, U.S. companies hiring U.S. people to work for them seems fundamentally the right course of action. Companies, however, are here to make money. Making money entails managing costs. Labor, especially, is a huge business expense. So how can we seek profitability while striving to be sustainable?

This week, I had the fortune to hear Doug Feirstein speak at a monthly meeting of Shared Squared.



With Doug Feirstein and his wife, who
was the first trainer for LiveOps' agents

Feirstein is a co-founder of LiveOps, one of the largest outsourced work-at-home call centers in the world, with more than 20,000 work-at-home agents. LiveOps concentrated on using the Internet to build a business, enabling people across the country to establish their own home-based businesses and provide call center services to LiveOps clients.

Feirstein explained that LiveOps overcame issues such as maintaining agent quality when they couldn't see the agent by implementing a "result-based routing system." In this system, better agents get more calls and produce higher sales as a result. To enhance technology, LiveOps later merged with CallCast, a California-based startup company.

I am a strong believer that the marketplace creates needs and that the government should have limited control over it. Obama's enforcement of insourcing might only create more problems in U.S. companies. LiveOps produces an unlimited number of business opportunities for people wanting to work from home regardless of their location. On the other hand, LiveOps delivers the scalable workforce to U.S. companies that have benefited from flexible workers. LiveOps touts that a sound business model backed up by innovative technology creates true "insourcing" that benefits both the underutilized U.S. workforce and U.S. companies.

We are moving into a new set of realities, indeed. Do you agree? What do you think of insourcing?