A conversation with Ben Sandzer-Bell, CEO of Co2Bambu

http://beyondsustainabilitymag.net/a-conversation-with-ben-sandzer-bell-ceo-of-c

Regenerative Businesses are designed to fulfil a greater good - a purpose larger than simply turning a profit - are often born out of a response to a challenge or problem.

We spoke with Ben Sandzer-Bell, CEO of Co2Bambu early on during the development of the 'Regenerative Business 1.0: Beyond Sustainbility' eBook; at this stage we had only articulated 3 principles of regenerative business:

1. A regenerative business invests in regenerative assets.
2. A regenerative business collaborates before competing.
3. A regenerative business contributes to communities.

We've since articulated 3 more principles of regenerative business, which you'll have to stay tuned in order to read about.... the eBook will be launched free to the world on 11.1.11, to start the conversation of an idea whose time has come: What lies 'beyond sustainability'?

How and why was CO2Bambu was created?


Ben Sandzer-Bell: The business, CO2 Bambu, started as a personal green project of mine, when I reached a point of frustration as VP of Strategy for a leading aerospace company. I was unable to convince my boss, the CEO of the company, that our future as an aviation related company was intrinsically linked to two fundamental trends, i.e. the inevitable rise of oil prices due to the disconnect between supply and demand, and the inevitable targeting by European carbon trading regulators of the aviation industry as a high polluting industry.  I made enough headway to get the company to take SOME steps toward reducing our carbon footprint, by changing machinery, adjusting processes etc.  I even got the company to become the first US aerospace company to become carbon neutral, by buying carbon credits on the voluntary market.  However, I did not manage to reach what I felt was a more obvious step, which was to convert our 20 year history as a leading aircraft maintenance company, to grab a leading position in the highly similar wind turbine industry, by positioning ourselves as the go to place for wind turbine maintenance.  This, apparently, was a bridge too far, and my CEO ultimately lost interest in these initiatives, on the basis that, to quote him, ¨alternative energy is a fad¨.  Since I had a successful career as an aerospace executive and did things seriously, I hadn´t just come to the table with an idea.  I came to the table with a near lock on a $25M multi-year contract to repair and manufacture wind energy blades out of fiberglass, for a leading European blade manufacturer desirous of breaking into the US market.  This was in the thick of the Obama campaign and perhaps politics (he is a hardcore Republican, and I am a hard core Democrat)  biased my CEO´s otherwise keen intellect.
 
Sensing a significant disconnect between my strategic analysis and my company´s likelihood of forward movement toward a greener future, I negotiated a 4 month sabbatical to get over my frustrations, and vowed to return to finish some unrelated international programs.  I thus went on sabbatical to Nicaragua, where I had started a couple of years prior, to visit, with a thought of eventually making Nicaragua a fall back option when the US economic system would crash, inevitably, as oil reached a historic peak.  At the time oil was at $90 a barrel, still a long way from the historic $147 per barrel price that was at the base of the 2009 stock market and real estate  market crash.  I thus went to Nicaragua and decided to launch a small reforestation project that would center around native bamboo.  I launched over 4 months a program, on my own funding, which eventually planted 60,000 guadua plants in Nicaragua.
 
I returned to my aerospace job, but by then oil was already over $100 per barrel and the likelihood of a system collapse was already clear to me and I started to project out a couple of years (that was my job, after all, as a strategist) and extrapolated how things might evolve.  I saw no reason to believe that oil pricing would go down, given Chinese and Indian demand, while Saudi and Russian oil supply kept contracting.  It would follow that all airlines would face dramatic cuts, our company would be impacted, and I would become a casualty of a shrinking aviation sector.  This in essense is what happened 2 years later.  But in the meantime, I decided to pre empt and start visualizing  what our life would be like in Chicago, as an out of work aerospace executive, versus what our lives could be like as a Nicaragua based eco entrepreneur.   That was an easy decision.
 
I researched what green challenge I could take on in Nicaragua, dabbled with the thought of wind energy turbines, but that required capital I did not have, and returned to the bamboo plantations concept.  I researched the ideal product for the particular bamboo that grows natively in Nicaragua, found out that it was uniquely fitted for construction industry applications.  My next step was to decide whether I wanted to cater to retiring US baby boomers who would ultimately conclude that they can.t actually live out the American dream in the U.S. post economic crash and would naturally gravitate to lower cost of living countries south of the US border, OR seek to address a massive housing deficit at the bottom of the pyramid.  I chose the latter, for obvious social impact reasons.  This was 3 years ago.
 
Today, CO2 Bambu has developed a full line of low cost housing and post disaster reconstruction shelters that are ecologically friendly.  We are working on post hurricane Felix reconstruction in Nicaragua, and I write this from Haiti where I am building the first bamboo shelters for post hurricane reconstruction.


How does CO2Bambu invest in regenerative assets? 


Ben Sandzer-Bell:  This is the most fundamental aspect of our business, namely, by deciding to launch a bamboo industry, a bamboo VALUE CHAIN, in a country that has or had some native bamboo, but no industry to speak of before we came along.   Bamboo is the ultimate regenerative asset in that it behaves as a raw material like wood, but the more you cut it, the more it grows.  In a world where demand for commodities is accellerating exponentially, courtesy of Chinese and Indian rising standard of living, it seems to me that any opportunity to substitute bamboo for wood should be seized.
 
Beyond this literal reference to regenerative assets, there are two other regenerative assets that are core to our activities to date.
 
First is our factory.  A factory is a key business asset.  I decided to our factory in bamboo.  This way, we would not only do what we preach, namely substitute bamboo for traditional construction materials, but we would also use our capital asset, the factory, in a regenerative way, i.e. as a way to GENERATE business for us.  And this is in fact what has happened.  Most of our customers visit our factory and say some variant of ¨if you can build THIS factory, then obviously you can build my small casita.
 
Second is our product line.  We are consciously targeting schools as a market.  The logic is that if we expose children early on to bamboo schools, and if, like the Green School in Bali, we manage to incorporate bamboo related themes in the curriculum, then we can shape mindsets about the use of bamboo in construction to future customers and thought leaders.



How does CO2Bambu focus on collaboration rather than competition?

Ben Sandzer-Bell:   The bamboo industry is the ultimate collaborative bunch.  In launching our CO2 Bambu business, we have received the generous technical support of Ecuadors leading builder of low cost housing, Jorge Moran and Hogar de Christo, an NGO that builds 50 houses per day! 

We then reached out for technical help on imunization from Colombia"s brilliant guadua bamboo bridge builder Joerg Stamm, and finally we turned to Costa Rica, also a user of guadua bamboo, to ask for help in devising attractive flooring solutions. In all cases we have received unbriddled help and remain friends with all these bamboo players. 

Interestingly, recently, we had a rather non cooperative potential customer who sought to do high end houses in Nicaragua.  We apparently did not meet his expectations in some ways and, despite our having delivered significant amount of data, insights about bamboo design options, this customer proceed to invite in our home country, competition from a highly recognized bamboo building company in Hawaii. 

Essentially, the would be customer took our thoughts and brought into Nicaragua our competition.  That's what he thought at least. 

Before anything materialized, I received a  call from this Hawaii outfit, asking me, bamboosero to bamboosero if I was aware and if this would create friction, i.e. non collaborative behaviours in Latin American bamboo world.  I thanked them for their call.  Fast forward 4 months, we are now in discussion over a strategic alliance with this Hawaii player, to build their houses under license in Nicaragua, and have both agreed to NOT work with this client, precisely because none of us want to work in this type of unpleasant, non civil way. 

Collaboration ALWAYS wins over competition in bamboo world. 

How does CO2Bambu use profits to build the communities it serves?

Ben Sandzer-Bell:  This too is a truism for Co2 Bambu.  In a very concrete way, we plow back some of our profits to do several things in the communities where we work: 

1) we built a bamboo factory IN the indigenous communities where we are selling bamboo houses, precisely with intent to create job opportunities in a region that is plagued by 85% unemployment.  The idea  is that the more value added work we provide in the community, the more likely we are to receive future housing contracts from the communities. 

2) we reforest in the communities where we harvest.  This is a cost item for us and gives us little return, but it is a way to broadcast that we are indeed using some of our funds to develop plantations and expand the bamboo biomass, rather than reduce it.

And finally, 3) we crafted, at the prompting of a social impact investor who is a shareholder of CO2 Bambu, a very creative program to literally funnel this investor"s profit, his returns based on financial investment in our business, into our community. 

How so?  It struck us that while we work on bamboo housing, most of our workers live in homes that are in line with Central American Bottom of the Pyramid housing.  We decided that we should try to serve our immediate stakeholders, namely here our workforce,  and opened a "Workers' Housing Fund".  All royalty payments owed our lead investor, instead of being paid back to him, are funnelled through this fund and a lottery will decide who amongst our workers will get a new bamboo house. 

But since they have bought into the regenerative model, the work force recently turned down the opportunity to select randomly the lucky recipient of the next house.  Instead, they voted to have us choose someone from a particular community, Muelle de los Buyes, a town in the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, where there is an important competition for low cost housing. 

Their thought: if we  build a house there, we will have a model on the ground, which will help us get the contract.  More contracts, more jobs and more chances to get a bamboo house, next time around.

What does 'Regenerative Business' means to you, and what are the principles you have designed your business around?

Ben Sandzer-Bell:  Regenerative business, for me, is the cross road between business for financial returns and NGOs for social impact. 

The major problem with NGOs, however well meaning and even well run, is that NGOs are by construct not self sustaining, not regenerative.  I see this every day in Nicaragua.  Countries, such as Northern EUropean countries (Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden...) have been active in Nicaraguan civil society for decades.  They have focused on health improvement campaigns, illiteracy, municipal infrastructure such as sanitation etc. 

Now, Nicaragua has a President, Daniel Ortega, who enjoys political theater, in the vein of Cuba's Castro and Venezuela's Chavez.  So his level of political rhetoric is high.  But the poverty that is systemic to Nicaragua remains as real as it was 4 years ago.

European NGOs are leaving in droves and fast.  This is counter productive and counter to the very ideal that these apolitical NGOs claim to adhere to. 

A social impact business can provide regenerative traits to a social impact mission.  If a business is successful, it will keep going... it will regenerate and not be dependent on the largess of specific donors who may not like the politics of the day or month.

Inilah Foto Satelit 'Piramida' yang Ada di Garut

http://nasional.inilah.com/read/detail/1800074/inilah-foto-satelit-piramida-yang-ada-di-garut

INILAH.COM, Jakarta - Staf Khusus Presiden bidang Bencana Alam dan Bantuan Sosial Andi Arief mengatakan, di Desa Sadahurip dekat Wanaraja Kabupaten Garut, Jawa Barat, ditemukan sebuah bangunan purba yang terkubur.

Andi Arief menjelaskan tim katastropik purba telah mendapatkan gambaran bentuk bangunan tersebut seperti piramida, melalui foto satelit IFSAR, geolistrik, dan berbagai survei.

Umur bangunan yang terpendam diduga lebih tua dari Piramida Giza, Mesir. Tim katastropik purba telah meneliti secara intensif dan uji "karbon dating untuk memperkirakan umur bangunan itu.

"Kita sudah pastikan bangunan itu bentuknya mirip piramida. Ditengarai ada satu pintu untuk masuk ke bangunan tersebut, kita terus lakukan penelitian," kata Andi Arief kepada INILAH.COM, Kamis (24/11/2011).

Sekadar catatan, Piramida Giza selama ini dikenal sebagai piramida tertua dan terbesar dari 3 piramida yang ada di Nekropolis Giza.

Tim Katastropik Purba akan terus berkoordinasi dengan bidang kepurbakalaan, antropologi, arkeologi, pakar budaya, ahli sejarah dan lainnya. Disamping itu, juga akan terus berkoordinasi lintas ilmu kebumian sehubungan dengan temuan-temuan sejarah bencana-bencana lokal dan global untuk dicari mitigasinya. [bar]

Cloud Computing Ibarat Penggunaan Air & Listrik

http://www.detikinet.com/read/2011/11/24/135756/1774774/398/cloud-computing-ibarat-penggunaan-air-listrik?i991102105
Ardhi Suryadhi - detikinet

Jakarta - Layanan cloud computing dinilai menyerupai layanan listrik dan air bersih dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Dimana untuk mendapatkan layanan listrik, kita tidak perlu membeli genset, membangun instalasi di rumah, dan membeli peralatan lain. 

Menurut Ary Setijadi Prihatmanto, Manager di Microsoft Innovation Center Institut Teknologi Bandung (MIC-ITB), analogi tersebut dipakai karena untuk mengadopsi layanan komputasi awan, perusahaan tidak perlu mengeluarkan biaya untuk membeli perangkat keras maupun perangkat lunak. Perangkat ini sudah disediakan oleh provider sesuai kebutuhan pelanggan. 

Jadi mirip-mirip dengan layanan air dan listrik. Kita cukup berlangganan kepada PLN secara bulanan dan membayar sesuai kebutuhan dan penggunaan listrik. 

Begitu juga dengan layanan air bersih. Kita tidak perlu membuat sumur, membeli mesin pompa, hingga pipa jaringan untuk mendapatkan air bersih. Cukup berlangganan kepada PDAM, kebutuhan air kita bisa dipenuhi. Setiap bulan kita cukup membayar sejumlah air yang kita gunakan. 

"Begitulah kira-kira cloud computing," tukas Ary, dalam keterangannya, Kamis (24/11/2011). 

Komputasi awan sendiri memiliki tiga segmen layanan, yakni perangkat lunak, platfom, dan infrastruktur dengan tujuan dan produk yang berbeda untuk kepentingan bisnis maupun individu. Layanan pertama, Software as a Service (SaaS) adalah layanan berbasis konsep menyewakan perangkat lunak. 

Dari layanan SaaS, industri dapat bermigrasi ke Platform as a Service (PaaS) yang menawarkan pengembangan platform untuk pengembang (developer). Pengguna layanan ini bisa membuat kode sendiri dan penyedia PaaS mengunggah dan menampilkan di web. 

Layanan PaaS juga menyediakan layanan pengembangan, pengujian, penyebaran, hingga menjadi tuan rumah, dan menjaga aplikasi.

Sedangkan layanan ketiga, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) yang memungkinkan pengguna cloud computing membeli infrastruktur sesuai kebutuhannya. 

Ada keuntungan yang bisa didapat dari layanan ketiga ini yakni pengguna hanya membayar layanan sesuai kapasitas yang mereka gunakan. Pengguna tidak perlu membayar mahal untuk membeli layanan yang sesungguhnya kurang banyak digunakan. Pengguna, baik individu maupun perusahaan, hanya membayar apa yang mereka pakai.

Perokok adalah Orang Egois

http://www.metrotvnews.com/read/analisdetail/2011/11/14/220/Perokok-adalah-Orang-Egois
Kartono Mohamad
Senin, 14 November 2011 21:45 WIB

Jusuf Ronodipuro, seorang pejuang dan pelopor Radio Republik Indonesia, meninggal beberapa tahun lalu akibat kanker paru-paru. Beliau adalah perokok berat. Menurut cerita puteranya, Bapak Darmawan Ronodipuro, almarhum mengakui bahwa perokok itu orang yang egois. Tidak memikirkan kepentingan orang lain, termasuk kesehatan keluarganya. Oleh karena itu beliau meninggalkan pesan agar puteranya jangan merokok. Kalau sudah terkena penyakit, harta dan ketenangan keluarga terpaksa harus dikorbankan untuk mengobati penyakit yang diakibatkan oleh egoisme si perokok.

Bahwa kebiasaan merokok lebih banyak mudharatnya daripada maslahatnya sudah diketahui oleh kalangan kedokteran sejak abad ke-18. Tetapi kepentingan bisnis yang banyak membawa keuntungan membuat industri rokok di mana pun juga akan berjuang mati-matian agar dagangannya tidak dihambat. Kalau perlu dengan berbohong atau bersikap munafik.

Mahkamah Agung di Washington pernah memvonis bahwa para CEO industri rokok telah melakukan pembohongan publik karena tidak berterus terang tentang bahaya rokok kepada konsumennya. Sejak itu antara Kongres Amerika dengan industri rokok dicapai kesepakatan mengenai Mutual Settlement Agreement. Artinya, konsumen berhak menuntut pabrik rokok jika ia terkena penyakit akibat rokok. Ganti rugi yang terbesar yang pernah diputuskan oleh sebuah pengadilan negara bagian untuk seorang korban rokok mencapai tiga juta dolar AS.

Sejak itu industri rokok Amerika merasa gerah untuk berbisnis di negerinya sendiri. Mereka berekspansi ke negara berkembang, dengan bantuan diplomasi pemerintah Amerika sendiri (!). Bagi Pemerintah Amerika mungkin berlaku dalil “jangan racuni rakyat Amerika sendiri, tapi racunilah rakyat negara berkembang”.  Maka ketika konsumsi rokok dalam negeri menurun sebesar 20 persen, eskpor rokok mereka ke negara berkembang meningkat 300 persen.

Dapat dimengerti ketika dunia melalui WHO sepakat untuk mengatur konsumsi rokok untuk menekan meningkatnya penyakit tidak menular (Non Communicable Diseases), Pemerintah AS (Presiden Bush) menolak untuk ikut menanda tanganinya. Mereka mengatakan biarlah masalah kesehatan diatur oleh masing-masing negara. WHO tidak usah ikut campur. Ironisnya, di dalam negerinya sendiri peredaran rokok diatur secara ketat. Sekali lagi terbukti bahwa kepentingan diri sendiri lebih diutamakan.

Sikap egois perokok juga muncul ketika pecandu rokok tetap merokok di tempat-tempat umum meskipun orang di sekitarnya berkeberatan. Bukannya merasa salah, ia justru akan marah kalau ditegur. Sikap beradab pecandu rokok sudah menurun. Dia hanya takut kalau di berada di negeri orang. Sikap egois juga terdapat pada para ulama yang perokok lalu tidak mau mendengarkan pendapat bahwa merokok lebih banyak mudharatnya daripada manfaatnya.  Boleh saja ia tidak mau berhenti merokok, tetapi membiarkan para santrinya merokok adalah sama dengan menjerumuskan mereka ke penyakit-penyakit yang mahal pengobatannya.

Contoh bahwa perokok adalah orang egois adalah ucapan salah seorang anggota Perlemen Daerah Makassar, Yusuf Gunco yang juga Ketua Badan Legislasi Parlemen Daerah, yang menolak membahas rancangan peraturan daerah tentang Kawasan Tanpa Rokok yang sudah diamanatkan oleh Undang-Undang Kesehatan, hanya karena ia sendiri perokok. Demi agar kenikmatannya tidak terganggu, ia lebih senang membiarkan rakyatnya tidak terlindungi dari asap rokok orang lain.

Kartono Mohamad
Mantan Ketua Umum Ikatan Dokter Indonesia (IDI)

Why Do Jews Succeed?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/muller2/English

Jerry Z. Muller

WASHINGTON , DC – In recent decades, economists have been struggling to make use of the concept of human capital, often defined as the abilities, skills, knowledge, and dispositions that make for economic success. Yet those who use the term often assume that to conceptualize a phenomenon is a first step to manipulating it. And, indeed, “human-capital policy” is now much in fashion. But what if many of the abilities and dispositions in question are a product of history, capable of being understood and explained but not readily replicated?

Simon Kuznets, one of the twentieth century’s great economists, was a pioneer of human-capital theory. Not long before he died, Kuznets recommended to a young colleague that one ought study the role of Jews in economic life.

By and large, economists and other social scientists have neglected the history of Jews and capitalism, for reasons that are understandable, though unconvincing. For most economists, the extent to which modern capitalism has been shaped by earlier cultural predispositions is a source of puzzlement at best, if not merely a factor to be dismissed.

Such cultural considerations simply do not fit into the categories in which equation-fixated economists are predisposed to think. When economists examine “human capital,” they prefer measurable criteria such as years of schooling. To the extent that human capital involves character traits and varieties of “know-how” that are transmitted within the realms of the family and the community, rather than by formal education, it becomes both methodologically elusive and difficult to manipulate by public policy.

A look at the historical experience of the Jews shows that while most Jews were mired in poverty at the beginning of the twentieth century, over time they tended to do disproportionately well in societies that allowed them to compete on an equal basis. That was the case first in central and western Europe, and then in the United States.

They did particularly well in commerce. In search of economic niches not already occupied by others, Jews frequently created markets for new products and services. They pioneered new retail institutions, from department stores to box stores.

The fastest growing sectors of the economy since the late nineteenth century have been those loosely classified as “service industries,” often involving the dissemination of information and entertainment – activities in which Jews have been especially prominent, from publishing to vaudeville and from movies to commercial sports. They also tended to do disproportionately well in the learned professions – such as medicine, law, and accounting – that are so central to modern capitalist society.

The fact that Jews were long a minority subject to discrimination is sometimes given as a reason for their tendency to devote themselves to commerce, finance, and the professions. Yet not all minorities long subject to discrimination necessarily succeed under conditions of market competition.

There are a number of ways to account for Jews’ disproportionate achievement. For one thing, Jews had more experience with commerce than most other groups, and the tacit knowledge of buying, selling, and calculating advantage that was passed on in families with ties to business helps explain why Jews tended to be better at it.

Moreover, in much of Europe, Jews had long been excluded from most of the established economy of land ownership, and from many other fields that were reserved for Christians. So they learned to be on the lookout for new opportunities in underserved markets, working as peddlers, for example, or creating new products, or new forms of marketing.

Social networks also played an important role. Jews were spread across many countries, but to some extent shared a common language and a sense of common fate. So they were more aware of distant opportunities, had more international contacts, and were disproportionately active in international trade.

In addition, Jews had a religious culture that promoted universal adult literacy – at least for men – and a culture that respected book learning. Those attitudes and dispositions were transferred from religious texts to secular forms of education. As a result, Jews were highly oriented toward education, and willing to defer current pleasures and income to obtain more of it.

Such factors provide a sense of why attention to the history of Jews under capitalism helps us to understand capitalism more generally. It reminds us that much of success in a capitalist society is based on cultural and historical factors that produce qualities such as innovativeness, willingness to tolerate risk, and willingness to defer gratification through savings and education.

These cultural traits are difficult to quantify, so economists are uncomfortable in dealing with them. They are often passed down within families, so they elude social policies that are based on the notion that equality of opportunity can be created by government action.

Exploring the economic history of the Jews also reminds us that groups that are disproportionately successful are met by different political reactions. Societies long oriented to economic dynamism tend to welcome the economically successful, viewing them as a source of mutual gains.

But cultures that tend to resent the economically successful – either as an affront to equality, or on the implicit assumption that the economic gains of some must be at the expense of others – tend to be more hostile toward Jews and given to conspiratorial theories to explain their economic success. Most societies lie somewhere along a spectrum between these two poles.

Some social scientists are wary of calling attention to the reality of disproportionate Jewish economic success for fear of arousing anti-Semitism, or contributing to conspiratorial theories about Jewish economic dominance. No doubt, conspiratorial minds will always find fodder for their obsessions. But the fact that the history of Jews and capitalism calls current social-scientific wisdom and method into question is all the more reason to explore the topic.

Jerry Z. Muller is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., and author, most recently, of Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton University Press).

Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2010.
www.project-syndicate.org