John Robinson, executive director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, sits in his office across from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, overlooking an artfully overgrown and, yes, green courtyard.

“We, uniquely, can be society’s test bed for sustainability,” he says. “We can prove out the technology and the economics in a simpler institutional environment, and then work with partners and say, ‘How would we do this in a more complex environment?’ ”

Indeed today, the billion-dollar catchphrase at UBC is “living lab,” and it would be a herculean challenge to spend any significant amount of time with any member of the administration and avoid speaking about the subject.

At this stage, most of the living lab schemes are conceptual, yet some have moved from imagination to realization. Among the most conspicuous of these are the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), a 60,000-square-foot homage to UBC’s environmental commitment, and the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project (BRDP). The CIRS building aims to reach new heights

in terms of sustainable infrastructure: a building that is “net positive,” incorporating geoexchange, rainwater harvesting, solar photovoltaics, salvaged pine beetle-killed timber and greenroof technologies. Robinson and his team are also focused on housing a community that is “happier, healthier and more productive”. The BRDP will harness Vancouver Parks’ biomass waste and convert it into 7.5 per cent of UBC’s electricity needs.

In its quest for sustainability, UBC is naturally endowed with a variety of competitive advantages. It boasts unparalleled autonomy for a university—its endowment lands are outside of the City of Vancouver’s jurisdiction— and BC Hydro already provides the school with the vast majority of its clean electricity from hydropower.

To stay ahead of the sustainability curve, however, UBC has begun to push the envelope in different arenas. It aims to create a culture of research, instruction, administration and operations that can help the university achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The hope is that it can also be replicated outside the campus. Additionally, UBC is revamping its curricula to allow students in each and every faculty to pursue a minor in sustainability.

Pierre Ouillet, vice-president of finance, resources and operations at the university, has jumped into the UBC Sustainability Initiative head-first. According to him, the aim is “to try to build viable ecosystems that make sense environmentally, socially and financially.”

In contrast to the nearly ubiquitous trend that has seen student groups in universities across Canada push their respective administrations towards sustainability, UBC has experienced the inverse. Most sustainability action has been driven by top-down initiatives.

Justin McElroy, coordinating editor of The Ubyssey student newspaper, is blunt on student engagement.

“Was [the summit] something that resonated with most students? Not really. If you are a student already interested in the environment or sustainability studies, you’re going to find lots of opportunities for you. But if you’re just an average student, you can pass through the university for four years, [and] just see a few more signs trumpeting how much energy UBC saves.”

Though Robinson is acutely aware of this disconnect between the administration and student body, he has theories he is eager to test to help bridge the divide.

“We have to learn to engage people where they are. My feeling is [we need to] engage [students] in ways that work for them—ways that are less preachy and more about solutions and being positive.”

Robinson also has high hopes for sustainability’s potential to permanently alter campus culture.

“Sustainability could become something that’s fundamental to the identity of the university.” Perhaps it already has.

The post More emerald than ivory appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Andrew Weaver, a professor at the University of Victoria and generally recognized as Canada’s top climate scientist, worries about the approach.
We know climate change is bad, getting worse and expected to get downright nasty. We also know what kind of broad strokes we need to make and the tough decisions that lie ahead. It’s time, he recently told me, to get focused.

“The problem is so big, people don’t know where to begin,” said Weaver. “So this has to be tackled in little pieces. We need to see international efforts moving to deal with specific issues.”

In other words, stop operating with hammers and start using more scalpels.

I would argue this approach is just as relevant on a national level. It’s often said we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but perhaps the best way to move forward on the climate-change file in Canada is to identify a lot of smaller opportunities, set achievable targets, and deal with them with a healthy and creative balance of government and private-sector support.

In 2009, the federal Conservative government announced its $1 billion Clean Energy Fund as a major pillar of its commitment to tackling climate change. The money, dispersed over five years, had no particular focus—research, development and demonstration projects of all kinds could apply.

At least half of the fund has been earmarked for expensive carbon capture and storage demonstration projects—experimental pipe dreams that may well prove disappointing. Dispersal of the rest of the fund has been somewhat scattershot.

“Canada has no plan,” Weaver lamented.

This got me thinking about Canada’s off-grid north. Years ago, I wrote about the potential of getting our most remote communities off diesel fuel and onto a combination of wind and energy storage, such as hydrogen or flow batteries. Sure, there was some talk and the odd pilot project, but nothing ever came of it.

Why is that exactly? Tackling diesel use in the north would seem like low-hanging fruit. As oil prices increase, diesel prices increase. On top of that, the 150 or so remote communities in Canada dependent on diesel generation pay a huge premium—actually, Canadian taxpayers ultimately pay the bulk of it—because their fuel has to be flown in.

Pierre Rivard, former chief executive of hydrogen fuel-cell company Hydrogenics, estimates the real cost of diesel-fuelled electricity generation in northern, mostly aboriginal communities at about 63 cents per kilowatt-hour, more than six times what city folks might pay.

This excludes externalities such as 24-hour noise, fumes and pollution. Soot or “black carbon” from diesel generators, for example, is a known contributor to climate change because when it lands on snow it can reduce the albedo effect (the surface’s ability to reflect sunlight).

“A wind-hydrogen combination can deliver at a lower cost [than diesel generation] while eliminating damaging emissions,” saus Rivard, adding that a lot of thought has gone into analyzing the issue. “But no one is moving forward yet in a significant way.”

To his frustration, Tim Weis has come to a similar conclusion. Weis, director of renewable energy and efficiency policy at the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based energy and environmental think tank, did his PhD thesis on this very issue and over the years has watched Canada squander what leadership it had. Australia and Alaska now lead in research and deployment. “We’re basically playing catch-up,” says Weis.

The first project of this kind in Canada began in 1978. Since then, there have been 10 or so similar pilot projects, mostly in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Ontario. They didn’t include storage; rather, they focused on using wind to offset diesel use. Many have been abandoned, though one wind-diesel project in Ramea, Newfoundland, does stand out as a success story. In fact, hydrogen storage has since been added to further reduce the community’s reliance on diesel.

But even with rising fuel prices and falling technology costs, particularly around storage, the concept hasn’t taken off. One big problem, as Weis sees it, is that there’s no vision, no strategy around deployment.

Building a wind-diesel system—never mind replacing diesel altogether with wind and energy storage—is only half the battle in a remote community. The other half is keeping it properly maintained, and this means having skilled workers on hand or nearby to do it. In communities with small populations, that’s a major challenge—and a risk that prevent projects from getting off the ground.

What’s needed is a coordinated plan, says Weis, one based on a “hub and spoke” model that targets several of the larger, more populated remote communities first (1,000 people or more), after which built-up expertise can be shared with smaller neighbouring communities (a few hundred to a few dozen people) in a regional cluster.

“That’s what we’ve been pushing in Tuktoyaktuk,” adds Weis, pointing out that the approach has been successful in Alaska. “The government there [in the Northwest Territories] is totally committed to it, but can’t get matching funding from Ottawa to get it going.”

A few years ago the Canadian Wind Energy Association proposed that the federal government set aside $63 million in capital grants that would support the deployment of 20 wind-diesel projects in remote communities and six projects in northern industrial facilities, such as mining operations.

The association estimated these projects would save $500 million in diesel fuel costs and, from a carbon emissions perspective, would take the equivalent of 26,000 cars off the road. It would build up expertise, create a track record for Canadian technology and lead to export opportunities down the road.

I would go further. Ottawa should identify 50 projects, add storage to the mix and plan deployment around a “hub and spoke” model that would nurture the creation of several regional clusters.

The feds should also target dates for completion and, at potentially no cost to taxpayers, it should craft a loan guarantee program that would help these small communities get access to affordable capital.

We have to stop dithering. This can be done, and it doesn’t have to come at huge cost. In fact, if done right it will save taxpayer dollars spent on diesel fuel, create jobs and effectively address one of the “little pieces” that are part of Canada’s greenhouse-gas puzzle.

“Given the Conservative government’s renewed interest in the north, and particularly Stephen Harper’s interest in the north, it seems like an obvious opportunity,” says Weis.

Pass the scalpel.

The post Remote possibilities appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Across the world, universities are hotbeds of innovation. And in Canada, a growing amount of that Ivory Tower ingenuity involves a vital subject: water. Unfortunately, many of the great Canadian solutions to water issues stay locked away in labs, never making it to the market. That’s happening despite the fact that the need for marketable, environmentally friendly water inventions—a.k.a. the Blue Economy—is more pressing as climate patterns change, the population increases and people all over the world strive for a higher and more water-rich standard of living.

The result, say some of those charged with bringing lab-born brainwaves to market, is that Canada is spending as much as $6 billion a year to fund academic scientists, but their discoveries aren’t making life better, greener or bluer for Canadian citizens.

“There’s no shortage of discoveries,” says John Molloy, president and chief executive of PARTEQ Innovations, a Kingston, Ontario based company set up to take inventions from Queen’s University to market. But, unlike the United States, Canada still lacks the suite of models necessary to push academic inventions into the marketplace, Molloy says.

A report from the Conference Board of Canada in June ranking 17 developed countries on innovation placed Canada near the bottom of the heap—at 14th. The report said that while scientific output s strong and internationally respected, “Canada does not take the steps that other countries take to ensure science can be successfully commercialized and used as a source of advantage for innovative companies seeking global market share. Canadian companies are thus rarely at the leading edge of new technology and too often find themselves a generation or more behind the productivity growth achieved by global industry leaders.”

Not only that, but while the scientific research on water is ripe for commercialization and the need for innovation is clear, the path to the market is not straightforward, says Bernadette Conant, executive director of the Canadian Water Network in Waterloo, Ontario, which seeks to ensure that science shapes the water-management innovations that draw investments. Some of the advances that could help instead fall into a political vacuum.

“The needs are clear,” says Conant. “What we lack is a single or clear client-approval process.”

And, in a trend Molloy sees as dangerous, more and more universities are shying away from available market mechanisms in favour of waiting for industry to front the cash. “I’d like to see it go the other way,” he says. An early triumph for Molloy’s group is a process developed by Queen’s scientists Stephen

Brown and Peter Aston who figured out how to find E.coli and other disease-causing organisms in drinking water more quickly and reliably. They were galvanized by the Walkerton, Ontario, tragedy of May 2000 in which seven people died and thousands fell ill from the notorious bacteria.

PARTEQ, which has about a dozen industry sponsors who pay to sit at the table and help decide what gets developed, helped license the Pathogen Detection Systems technology. It was eventually sold to the French multinational corporation Veolia, and spun off into its offshoot, ENDETEC. The new system is now being launched internationally and PARTEQ and the scientist inventors stand to make royalties once the upfront development costs are paid back.

One of the key organizations set up to commercialize academic inventions from all over the country is GreenCentre Canada, also based in Kingston. Established in 2009 with $22 million from the federal and Ontario governments, it aims to match start-up investment money with clean, energy-efficient chemical processes—known as green chemistry. It does that both by buying licences to the technology and selling them to industry, and by creating new companies to house the innovations.

“The idea is to get it beyond: ‘Gee, isn’t it a great idea!’ ” says Rui Resendes, its executive director.

Resendes says in the two years since GreenCentre began, there’s been a spike in interest and investment around the world in Canadian inventions. “Water has become the new currency,” he says.

He points to an invention by Rob Singer, a professor of chemistry at the Maritimes Centre for Green Chemistry at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, which is still at the laboratory stage but has immense potential for commercialization. GreenCentre has done a market assessment and wants to license

the invention with a consortium of industry partners. It involves ionic liquids, meaning salts that are liquid at or below room temperature. These have unique chemical properties, Singer says, because they stay liquid instead of easily becoming gas but they also bind to metals.

That means they can grab onto metals in water but not evaporate into the atmosphere. And in turn that means they can decontaminate water of metals, keep them from polluting the atmosphere and allow the metals to be harvested for reuse. It’s a blue benefit on all fronts.

Conceptually, the ionic liquids could replace toxic solvents in hydrometallurgical metal refining, suck the valuable metals out of discarded electronics for resale and even clean up tailings ponds. Singer is still trying to figure out how toxic the ionic liquids are over time and is focusing research on making them both non-toxic and biodegradable.

Perhaps the most famous recent success story is an invention by Don Mavinic, a civil engineer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who figured out how to mine phosphorus from liquid sewage. Phosphorus is a precious element, mined in only five places in the world and poised to run out in a century.

It is also crucial to feeding the global population because it stimulates plant growth, whether on land or in water. Left in wastewater, it can run into coastal waters and cause destructive algae blooms and low-oxygen zones as phytoplankton convert it to food.

Mavinic figured out how to cause a chemical reaction in liquid sewage to extract most of the phosphorus and turn it into environmentally friendly, slow-release fertilizer. The process is patented, licensed and managed out of the Vancouver company, Ostara NutrientRecovery Technologies. It’s in use at Edmonton’s Gold Bar wastewater treatment plant, in Portland, Oregon, and in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and is being tested in Europe. The fertilizer is used in horticulture and on turf, marketed as CrystalGreen.

“We see ourselves as a fertilizer company,” says Ahren Britton, Ostara’s chief technology officer, who helped develop the idea as a grad student of Mavinic’s in 2000. “We just happen to mine from wastewater instead of the ground.”

Britton says the company reckons there are 200 to 300 plants in North America that could use the system to treat sewage and as many in Europe. China and Southeast Asia are also prospects. Ostara believes it will eventually mine as much as one million tonnes of fertilizer a year, reducing the amount needed to be taken out of the ground. Ostara, which has grown to 35 staff from just three in 2006, has won awards as a clean technology pioneer and was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, his year.

The innovations aren’t only chemical, though; nor do they relate only to water quality. One of the globally significant water inventions under development in Canada is a project to harness tidal power in the Bay of Fundy. It’s a collaboration among academic and government scientists and industry, including Nova Scotia-based companies Nova Scotia Power, Minas Basin Pulp and Power, and Fundy Tidal; French company Alstom and U.K. company Atlantis Resources. The Bay is considered the prime site in the world for tidal speed and height, and the tidal power would replace some of the coal-fired electricity Nova Scotia uses now. It’s one of just two massive commercial tidal power turbines being developed in the world, along with another in the Orkneys in Scotland.

A test turbine the size of a house went into the Bay’s Minas Basin in November 2009 and came out 13 months later, likely failing in the first few weeks because of the ferocious flow, says Anna Redden, a biologist with the newly launched Acadia Tidal Energy Institute and director of the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy.

Now, four sets of cables are going down in the Bay so that energy from four new test devices can feed straight to transmission lines next year. Redden says there are still unknowns about the direct effects on the environment and wildlife, but she’s helping design tests to figure that out. And although tidal power has gone in and out of vogue every few decades, Redden is sure it’s here to stay now.

“I think we’ve come to the point where it’s never going away,” she says. “We have to harvest tidal energy.”

While Redden and dozens of other academic scientists continue to piece together the complex puzzle of how to help society benefit from their water research, Conant of the Canadian Water Network has some provocative ideas about what the future will hold. Because water is integral to life and a shared commons, she posts that within a decade, patents and licences on water inventions may be passé. Instead, the new trend may be to break open the market, making patents openly accessible in the hopes that innovation will accelerate, and the Ivory Tower will be an even nimbler and more powerful driver of the Blue Economy.

The post Making waves appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Wanless, a lawyer at Klippensteins Barristers and Solicitors, is working on two cases that have implicated Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals Inc. and its subsidiary, HMI Nickel Inc., in serious human rights abuses in Guatemala. Both cases concern Guatemala’s CGN security forces, employed by HMI Nickel. In Choc v. HudBay, it’s alleged that security personnel shot and killed Adolfo Ich, a well-known Mayan Q’eqchi community organizer, in public and in broad daylight on September 27, 2009. His wife, Angelica Choc, has brought a wrongful death case forward against HudBay. In the other lawsuit, Caal v. HudBay, it’s alleged that CGN employees, the Guatemalan army and police took part in the gang rape of 11 Mayan Q’eqchi women during the forceful eviction of their homes in Lote Ocho. The women are suing HudBay for negligence.

In a statement from HudBay, John Vincic, vice-president of investor relations and corporate communications, said, “In both cases we believe the allegations to be groundless, and we are defending ourselves vigorously against them. …We continue to cooperate fully with Guatemalan authorities to ensure all the facts are uncovered.”

Both cases raise the significant dilemma of who should take responsibility for human rights violations when business-as-usual goes wrong.

“The bullet that killed Adolfo was shot in Guatemala, but the decisions that ultimately led to Adolfo’s death were made in Canada,” Murray Klippenstein has said.

So, is HudBay, the parent company, liable for actions taken by subsidiaries that it hires? And if not, who should be held accountable, and how?

The problem is not unique to Guatemala and the allegations against HudBay. Trouble has been reported at Canadian mines across the world, including infractions in Mexico, Tanzania, India and Papua New Guinea. Companies including Anvil Mining, Barrick Gold and Banro Corporation have allegedly been involved in human rights abuses at mines abroad.

“This is a global problem with a Canadian flavour,” says Wanless. “As a result, it becomes Canada’s responsibility to do something about it.”

But Canada isn’t doing much. For reasons entrenched in our judicial and political infrastructure, most of these cases will never be heard in Canadian courts. It remains relatively simple for Canadian companies to press responsibility on other parties, or to get the case thrown out of Canadian courts. It’s par for the course for many mining companies to argue that human rights lawsuits should be heard in the country where the infraction took place.

In some cases, this makes sense. But experts including Grahame Russell at Rights Action and Audrey Macklin, a professor of human rights law at the University of Toronto say this most often ensures justice will never be served. In developing countries where mining takes place, judicial systems and the legal and political realms are often not at all equipped to handle these cases. For example, similar cases in Tanzania, the Congo and Sudan have been tossed out of court on minor technicalities.

However, a recent case alleging environmental damage against oil giant Chevron was heard in an Ecuadorian court, where a local judge found the company guilty of damages to forestry and community health, and ordered it to pay an $8-billion fine. Chevron responded with outrage, and is seeking an injunction to block enforcement.

“So even when they’re sued there, they’ll stop at nothing,” says Macklin. “Ultimately, it’s not really about claiming where it’s appropriate. It’s all about avoiding legal accountability, anywhere.”

Since 2009, four foreign-plaintiff cases have been brought against mining companies before Canadian courts, and two of those are the lawsuits against HudBay. One of the cases was dismissed from Ontario courts; the other, surrounding Anvil Mining’s actions in the Congo, is still under review in Québec courts. Wanless says the cases against HudBay could prove to be a precedent if they’re tried in the Canadian judicial system.

“Either this case is heard in Canada, or it is not heard at all,” he says.

Canada and its mining companies are signatories to a worldwide framework known as the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. The international decree sets out to guide extractive companies working in developing countries on how to handle risk regarding human rights and the environment.

The principles generally fall into three categories: risk assessment, relations with public security, and relations with private security. The framework acknowledges security as a fundamental need, and urges respect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the need to mitigate potential conflict.

“The fact that they have a code like this is a tacit acknowledgement that they have an obligation and responsibility,” says Karyn Keenan, a program officer at the Halifax Initiative, a coalition of human rights, labour and development organizations. “Companies have a legal obligation with respect to the firms that they hire,” she adds. “If a mining company doesn’t undertake reasonable due diligence before hiring a security firm, they can be found liable for negligence.”

Vincic notes that HudBay follows the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, and says that corporate social responsibility has always been a priority for the company. About 66 community programs and initiatives are run through HudBay, he says, and the company also supports a not-for-profit foundation.

Russell says he’s weary of corporate responsibility initiatives like those that HudBay has in place.

“I think it can work in a national context within the borders of a country like Canada, but it cannot and will not work whatsoever in the international sphere unless it’s backed up by hard and binding law,” he says. Corporate social responsibility “is part of the problem in this case, because the companies and the Canadian government say they have standards in place, but everyone knows it’s self-regulated so there’s no enforceable regulation whatsoever.”

There is consensus from all sources in this article that government-backed legislation needs to be put in place before these human rights violations will stop entirely.

“If our government were serious about this, they could legislate to enable access to their courts for people who claim they have been harmed by the actions of a Canadian company abroad,” says Macklin, adding: “It’s very controversial.”

Wanless adds that government regulation creates a risk to business. “The creation of risk is a great way to regulate corporations,” he says.

The problem is, our government has already tried and failed to enact such legislation.

In 2009, Liberal MP John McKay introduced a private members bill, Bill C-300, to the House of Commons—the Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries. The bill would have: regulated the relationship between Canadian government agencies and Canadian corporations working in developing countries; listed guidelines regarding human rights treatment in these countries; and set in place a complaints mechanism that would investigate complaints against a company.

Bill C-300 was written based on outcomes from the National Roundtables Process on Corporate Social Responsibility, which took place in 2007. In the end, Bill C-300 was narrowly defeated.

“None of the challenges were anticipated by me, I can tell you that,” says McKay. “The first challenge was the indifference of the Canadian public…. Canadians either don’t know or don’t care about what’s going on by their companies in third world countries.

“The second was resistance on the part of the mining industry…. There seemed to be a lot of buyers’ remorse on the part of the industry that signed on for the Roundtable. It was unseemly, the furious backpedalling that was going on. Their strategy was to denigrate the bill left, right and centre.”

McKay is blunt when it comes to Parliament addressing corporate social responsibility in the mining industry: “Hell will freeze over waiting for that,” he says. “But I do think that there is an appetite for [corporate social responsibility] on an international scale.”

The issue has even been addressed by those heavily involved in the legal system. In a 2008 speech to the Canadian Bar Association, Supreme Court of Canada justice Ian Binnie said that human rights enforcement mechanisms are lagging.

“My point simply is that you cannot have a functioning global economy with a dysfunctional global legal system: there has to be somewhere, somehow, that people who feel that their rights have been trampled on can attempt redress—and if the complaints turn out to be unfounded, so be it,” he said.

Education in post-secondary institutions, it turns out, is playing an important role in changing our current view of Canadian human rights abuses abroad. As more law and business schools integrate principles of environmental, social and governance criteria, a shift towards a more ethical approach to business-as-usual is hopefully on the horizon.

“The interest in the bill migrated from the development crowd to the law schools,” says McKay. “When the law schools begin to talk about it, you know it’s getting a bit more serious. Then it migrated to the business schools, and they’re starting to get serious about it because they’re going to have to apply this and take it into consideration.”

But it isn’t just about legal and business education, though those are the professions most affected by corporate social responsibility.

“There are also other actors involved that require education, like the geologists and engineers who receive a narrow, technical education,” says Keenan. “I’m not sure that those entering the industry are provided with the opportunity to think about those issues and understand how important they are.”

Once occupations involved in the extractives industry acknowledge the impact of their work on human rights, the courts will be better able to hold businesses accountable.

In a speech last December, Osgoode Hall Law School professor Craig Scott summed up the conflict between legal accountability and societal responsibility in Canadian law: “If a plaintiff cannot find justice in Canadian courts on these facts, then what hope is there— not only for future plaintiffs, but for us as a society that likes to tell itself that Canada is amongst the better angels in this world? If not now, when?”

It will probably be years before Angelica Choc and the 11 women of Lote Ocho fight for legal justice, anywhere. As Klippensteins prepares for initial hearings and appeals to get under way in late 2011, Wanless says the cases won’t see much action within the next four years. Nonetheless, the firm remains “cautiously optimistic” about what the lawsuits mean.

“If a Canadian court hears this case, that sends a signal to mining companies that if they screw up, they can find themselves in Canadian court. It could have a major impact in the way they think about business.”

The post Going deeper underground appeared first on Corporate Knights.

What never ceases to amaze me on the show is the utter devotion of all the health care providers who make up our Canadian health care system. It makes it clear that a sustainable society’s need for competent and passionate health practitioners is as perpetual as the seasons – new generations of high-quality doctors must be encouraged to come out in droves.

And thankfully, they are out there. In my role as radio host, I am often awarded the privilege of hearing from such committed and motivated students embarking on the early years of their medical journey. Recently, Nicole Perkes of Port Coquitlam, B.C., sent me a note announcing her acceptance into medical school, and thanking me for the show’s contribution to her success in making her vision for a future in health care a reality.

In my congratulatory note to Nicole, I reminded her that she did all the work getting past the interview and into medical school—and that she will need a lot of dedication and perseverance to survive her undergraduate years and beyond.

But there is another obstacle in Nicole’s way, lurking in front of all medical students, and whittling away at the numbers of Canada’s future family care providers: debt.

As it turns out, students like Nicole will also need quite a lot of money to graduate. Medical school tuition is rising as though the schools themselves were filled with helium. According to a survey published in Maclean’s magazine last fall, first-year tuition for the previous academic year ranged from a low of $7,499 at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of medicine to a whopping $20,831 at McMaster University. Québec medical schools offer lower tuition costs to Québec residents. University of British Columbia, the school Nicole Perkes enters this September, charged $15,457 tuition to first-year students.

And tuition is only the beginning. Add in books and equipment, plus the cost of living, and the total price becomes daunting.

When I left residency back in the 1980s, I owed the bank $9,700 in student loans. That’s small beer compared to the debt racked up by today’s medical students. According to the 2007 National Physician Survey, more than one-third of respondent students said they expected their medical school-related debts to top out at more than $83,000. Among third- and fourth-year med students, a little more than five per cent said they expected to have total debts of over $160,000.

Yet believe it or not, it could be worse. Three years ago, I travelled to Ireland to visit Geoffrey Stevens, one of several thousand Canadians studying medicine abroad at the time. Stevens, a native of Ontario, attended medical school at Dublin’s Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Stevens admitted he didn’t get into a Canadian medical school because he favoured partying over studying during his undergraduate years and his grade-point average suffered as a result. Medical schools in Ireland aggressively recruit students from North America, but at a cost.

At the time, Stevens’ first-year tuition alone cost €34,000. Annual tuition increases, living expenses and the then-weak Canadian dollar drove his total costs to close to half a million Canadian dollars. The debt was always on his mind.

“It influences how my future will unfold,” he said during an interview on White Coat, Black Art. “No matter where I go, I will always be thinking about how to pay this back.”

And why should the dwindling bank account of a medical student matter to you?

Because rising debt doesn’t only affect those budding physicians. It has a huge impact on the health care system itself. According to Statistics Canada, in 2010, 4.4 million Canadians or 15 per cent of the population age 12 and older did not have access to a family doctor. The same survey found that 53 per cent of those without a regular medical doctor had tried unsuccessfully to find one. Among these, 40 per cent said that doctors in their area were not taking new patients, 31 per cent said their own physician had retired, and 27 per cent said there were no physicians available where they lived.

There’s growing evidence that rising medical student debt is playing a role in Canada’s lack of family doctors. Back in 1997, 45 per cent of Canadian medical school graduates chose residencies in family medicine. Since then, there’s been a steady decline. Alain Vanasse, a family physician and a professor of family medicine at the University of Sherbrooke in Québec, and his colleagues analyzed data from the 2007 National Physician Survey and uncovered a disturbing result: Fewer than 31 per cent of medical students choose family medicine. That figure is far below the goal of 45 per cent set nationally and a target of 50 per cent of med school graduates in Québec.

Vanasse and colleagues found that the most important factor driving career course decisions for young doctors is medical school debt. And the heavy financial burdens are swaying more students towards specialty medicine over family care, because there is a better chance they will be able to pay it back. According to the survey, between 54 and 64 per cent of medical students agreed with the statement that if a student has a lot of financial debt, “it is better to choose a specialty as you will make more money and be able to pay off your debt faster.” In fairness, the remainder of students surveyed agreed with the contrary statement: “Choose family medicine as the residency is shorter and you can start paying off your debt faster.”

Either way, like a virus, student debt enters the hearts and minds and the career choices of Canada’s future doctors.

A sustainable society needs family practitioners. Study after study in recent years has concluded that primary care is at the very foundation of good medicine. For one thing, family doctors are more likely to confront a problem at its source, before it even really exists. That’s because they practice the art of prevention before the art of the cure. Your family doctor is aware of your family history, your environment, your personal and financial stresses and your relationships. Their approach to your care is all encompassing.

The orthopedic surgeon who fixes your hip may have excellent technical and diagnostic skills. She may even recommend that you lose a few kilograms before your operation. But it takes a primary care provider like your family doctor to encourage you to eliminate or modify risk factors for diseases like heart attack and stroke in the long run. Family physicians are most likely to encourage a philosophy of prevention, concerned with the entire biological, psychological and social impacts of day-to-day life that might result in illness. Not only that, but you can’t expect a specialist to know your entire medical background the way your family physician does. Historical perspective, especially when it comes to thorough and effective treatment, is not to be underestimated.

Family doctors aren’t just good for the sustainability of patients and society; they’re also good for the system itself. Family physicians deliver timely and detailed care that saves precious health care dollars.

Personally, I think we don’t celebrate primary care enough. As it is, the rate of dissatisfaction among Canadian physicians is high. A 2008 survey by Dr. Joseph Lee, a family physician in Kitchener, Ont., found 42.5 per cent of family physicians have high stress levels, and nearly half of those surveyed said they have high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization—the hallmarks of burnout.

The impact of distress among physicians goes deeper, extending into the quality of care we might receive. A survey of nearly 8,000 American surgeons published in the Annals of Surgery in 2010 found that nine per cent of them admitted to making a medical mistake in the operating room. After crunching the data, the authors concluded that the two strongest factors associated with errors were burnout and depression.

And so, the apparent decline in those entering family medicine as a result of rising tuition is troubling. Another point to consider is how many desirable medical school wannabes glance at the cost of tuition and simply take a pass?

I know that medical school is costly. I understand why debt-ridden provincial governments say they can’t shoulder the financial burden of subsidized medical tuition alone. Yet they are being shortsighted if they don’t consider the broader implications of tuition that’s beyond the reach of many of our best and brightest students.

Some provinces are bucking the trend. Last year, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger announced that medical students in that province would have their tuition fully paid for if they agreed to set up practice in parts of the province that are designated as under-serviced – including Winnipeg’s inner city and parts of rural Manitoba.

Earlier this year, Scott Dobson-Mitchell penned a blog at Maclean’s On Campus with the intriguing title “Should med school be free in Canada?” He asked if taking the financial pain of med school could solve Canada’s health care crisis.

I think it’s an idea worth considering, provided students sign a contract guaranteeing they’ll work in an area that needs physicians. But why stop there? The provinces could consider paying tuition for nurse practitioners (NPs) too. In 2007, the Ontario government announced the creation of 25 NP-led clinics, a new way of delivering primary care in which the NP takes the lead, consulting with family doctors only when their patients require care that falls outside the NP’s scope of practice.

Canada made publicly funded, universally accessible health care a core value of our nation. In doing so, we decided that people of all economic demographics should have access to decent health care. It’s time we made a medical degree accessible to eager students regardless of their ability to pay. All of us have a stake in making sure that bright, passionate students like Nicole Perkes can find their place in the halls of medicine, unfettered by insurmountable student debt.

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I haven’t quite figured out why that is. Perhaps it’s bad timing in the economic cycle. Or maybe I don’t have the skills or education that easily place me in a traditional role. I prefer to think something fundamentally inherent in my character and makeup: I’m more excited by the prospect of creating something new versus filling an existing job. And I don’t think I’m alone — many graduates are out there looking for a job that reflects the values and principles of sustainability they have grown passionate about during their studies, and coming to the realization that this job may not actually exist.

This may be especially true for those seeking a “green job,” or a job that reflects an integrated approach to sustainability, because many of these jobs simply haven’t been invented yet.

But there is a silver lining for those of us who find the job search akin to fitting a round peg in a square hole. Where there is a gap there is an opportunity for growth, so why not harness your inner entrepreneur and invent the job you want to have?

While you may not immediately self-identify as an entrepreneur, chances are you hold many of the traits that pick one out of a crowd. When you are in the middle of a job interview, do you find your mind wandering to that groundbreaking idea for a business you’ve been mulling over? Do you find your thrills while planning and talking about new business ideas? Do you stay up at night dreaming about what that “big idea” could be, what the company could look like and what it might be named? If you answered “yes” to a few of these, you might just be an entrepreneur.

And this is good news. The reality is that much of green business growth is being driven by entrepreneurs—people who have caught sight of a business opportunity of the future before the rest of the market has. And that’s because green markets are growing fast, and the future opportunity is larger than ever before, so it requires an entrepreneur’s forward-looking insight to really comprehend the potential of the idea.

While certain sectors like solar and wind are already mainstream, many others in the green economy have yet to take hold. Next-generation biofuels, electricity storage, electric vehicles and smart grids are examples of inascent sectors whose potential has not been fully expressed in the marketplace. This is also true, I believe, of many non-technological business opportunities. Consumer goods, financial services, advertising, new media and communications will all see an explosion of new green business ideas in the future.

If you have the desire, and are willing to do what it takes and put up with the inevitable hassles and challenges that come with running your own business, you should consider the option of starting one. Though tremendously difficult and exhausting, the pay-offs are equally exhilarating.

If you choose this route, here is some advice to get you started.

First, just because others say it cannot be done does not mean it cannot be done. But you have to listen to them anyway.

Whenever you pitch a new idea, you will get a much longer list of why it cannot be done than why it can. And indeed, if it were obvious or easy, it would have been done by now. But heed the advice. Satisfying those concerns is important because you will run up against them again and again when you raise money, hire people or pitch to customers. The ability to listen to the objections without folding and walking away from the idea is a critical balancing act.

My second piece of advice is to write a plan, even if it’s just for your own use. Not only will it help get your idea straight in your mind, but it will also help get you feedback and advice, along with confirmation that your idea is a good one.

Finally, surround yourself with intelligent advisors and get them engaged.

These should be people you trust, but not necessarily your friends. Above all, they need to be people who have a good business sense and who are also willing to tell you what you may not want to hear. They will also be the ones to help you through the challenging times and keep you focused on your ultimate goals.

With a good idea, a written plan and good advisors, you’re well on your way to realizing your entrepreneurial aspirations. There will be many more challenges to face, of course, and each step of the journey will have its own obstacles, but at least you’ll be pointed in the right direction.

The entrepreneurial route is certainly not for everyone, however, and many find it impractical to take the financial risks that usually accompany a start-up venture. If this is the case for you, don’t despair—you still have promising options to pursue your ideas in green business.

Getting involved with an early-stage business that has some history, customers and a good track record can be the perfect incubator for sustainability innovation. Seek out companies that have received venture funding, which means they have some capital to invest, and try to set up a meeting. Since these companies are typically not doing formal job searches, taking the initiative may be the only way to uncover these diamonds in the rough. To narrow your parameters, try identifying a particular industry you are interested in, and begin to attend related trade shows and conferences. Over time, you will build up your connections and put yourself on an inside track for job opportunities.

Of course, these strategies take time and investment—luxuries not available to everyone. For you, being part of the solution may mean working from within a more traditional job, Trojan Horse style. This is an often-overlooked way to create change, but it is no less effective, especially if you are comfortable working within large organizations. Look out for companies that are actively recruiting positive change agents—in a company’s corporate social responsibility department, for example. No matter what your tactic, by helping your company improve its environmental performance and become more competitive, you will be performing a great service to the company and to the world.

I like to refer to those who create change from within a company as intrapreneurs. This approach can be monumentally effective because the large companies often have the resources and clout to get things done. But intrapreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Working from within an organization requires careful thought and strategy into building the necessary support and infrastructure for change. Volunteering for your company’s sustainability committee, or starting up such a group, is the kind of action that can quickly set you apart and put you a position to innovate for sustainability. Remember: patience is a virtue. You aren’t likely to change an established company overnight, but the energy and input to create positive change will be fruitful in the long run. Larger companies are like super-tankers; it can take a long time to get them to change direction, but when they do, they are more committed to the course.

So don’t be jaded by the tortoise pace of the green job market – harness your revolutionary spirit and set a new pace by leading the way with your own ideas. Whether you choose the path of an entrepreneur starting a new green business from scratch, or plant yourself as an intrapreneur working to influence and change a corporation from within, there is some commonality to the quest: you have to be bold and you have to let your best ideas drive you. In the end, your success will be determined by the quality and effective communication of your ideas. If you focus on those two factors, you can indeed be the master of your own domain, and be the change you want to see in the world.

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On May 27, Canadian media and data conglomerate Thomson Reuters announced it would acquire Point Carbon. Founded in 2000, Point Carbon is a Norwegian-based carbon consultancy that provides news, data, and analysis to hedge funds, financial institutions, businesses, and governments. Backed by investors such as Schibsted ASA, Norway’s largest media company, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Mizhuho Financial Group, Point Carbon has a staff of 137 and offices in Asia, Australia, and the United States.

Thomson Reuters is following rival Bloomberg LP’s acquisition last December of New Energy Finance, a Point Carbon competitor. The news and data conglomerates will provide technology, marketing power, global scale, and a client base that neither New Energy nor Point Carbon could have developed on their own.

Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg made these strategic acquisitions because they saw increasing demand for carbon news and data services and large dollar signs on the horizon.

The real game changer may be the $603 million all-cash friendly tender offer announced April 30 by Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) for London-based Climate Exchange. The merger could result in the creation of the first global exchange of carbon derivatives.

Derivatives are widely used financial tools that allow investors to trade an asset without actually having to own it. They are attractive because investors can leverage their investment to intensify gains as well as losses. The value of a derivative can rise significantly while the underlying asset barely changes in price, so investors use derivatives to speculate, but also to manage risks.

The target company, Climate Exchange (CLE), was founded in 2003 and is the leading owner and operator of environmental financial electronic exchanges around the world, trading products such as carbon derivatives. CLE operates the Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange and has affiliated exchanges in Canada, Australia, and China. Richard Sandor, the renowned cap and trade pioneer, is CLE’s Chairman and one of its largest shareholders.

ICE, a leading owner and operator of exchanges trading energy commodity derivatives, was founded in 2000 by the who’s who of oil, gas, and commodities trading. Initial investors include affiliates of BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Duke Energy, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale. It operates in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.

With 830 employees and a market capitalization exceeding $8.5 billion, ICE is exceptionally profitable. The company reported its sixth consecutive year of record revenues, totaling $994 million in 2009, a 22 per cent increase from 2008. In the first quarter of 2010, ICE’s earnings jumped 40 per cent over the previous quarter.

While some believe the 56.9 per cent share premium offered to CLE shareholders may be too high, the acquisition gives ICE global market share in carbon trading. Moreover, the merger will give ICE a monopoly in certain markets and increase its market power to impose its practices. The combined entity will be the market leader with the technology, know how, and resources to develop and operate carbon and environmental electronic trading exchanges on a global scale.

ICE’s Chief Financial Officer said in a recent Wall Street Journal interview, “The more time we spend with money managers, the more they come to understand our model, and the more interest we get.” Markets seem to believe ICE could once again benefit from the regulatory environment.

The same year ICE was founded, lobbyists representing Enron and other large energy market participants quietly inserted a provision in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that later became known as the “Enron loophole.” The loophole exempted energy commodity derivatives from being traded on regulated exchanges and virtually eliminated regulatory oversight.

During those years of deregulation, ICE went on an acquisition spree and morphed into a multi-billion dollar cash machine.

It was not until 2008, after public outcry against high gas prices and allegations of speculative oil trading and price manipulation, that Congress closed the Enron loophole. Only then did the Commodities Futures Trade Commission (CFTC), whose hands had been tied, begin to oversee and regulate energy commodity derivatives.

It may not be a coincidence that ICE’s announcement to buy CLE came only days after the CFTC voted against regulating carbon derivatives in a widely reported unanimous 5-0 vote. The CFTC’s decision sent a signal to the market it had not ended the era of low regulatory oversight, giving a boost to innovative carbon financiers.

As public concern about global warming and rising energy needs increases, investors will seek to profit from these trends. In an age of high budget deficits, markets are betting carbon trading will become more appealing to governments that aim to curb greenhouse gas emissions without increasing their deficits.

Yet, if we don’t want to trigger another round of bailouts and want to limit the risk of a crisis provoked by deregulation, legislators and regulators need to step in to oversee the highly innovative, virtual, and increasingly global carbon trading industry.

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