young sustainable impact is an oslo-based youth innovation program with a mission to empower youths to solve the sustainability challenges by creating measurable impact. norway itself is the cradle of sustainable policy-making, ranking number one in the world for initiatives like tax-free electric vehicles.

but even here the young are sick of greenwashing. “we’ve heard a lot of talking from businessmen and politicians—but where’s the action?” asks marcus bruns, 26, chief executive officer of ysi. and thus, ysi was born with a simple phrase: makers gonna make.

“our starting point was to see what would happen if you brought together the smartest young minds of our time to tackle the sustainability challenges,” says bruns.

when a friend told me that ysi was “run by a bunch of 20-year-olds in norway,” i was sold.

i joined 20 other talented youth in ysi’s third batch. in teams of three, we worked together in a five-month online innovation program culminating with a two-week conference in oslo in august 2018 to pitch our start-ups. some of the innovations included smart toilet sensors, vegan kombucha leather, and even an uber-like trash pickup service.

4 things to learn from 20-year olds

after being part of the third cohort and witnessing how ysi is reinventing innovation for the future, i have four main takeaways for how we can innovate and reclaim the reigns of sustainability:

1. crack ageism in entrepreneurship

according to ysi innovation director didrik strohm: “statistically, the best and most successful start-up founders are between the ages of 45 and 47.”

that’s why we need experienced entrepreneurs to collaborate with youths and share their experiences to reduce a dismal nine out of 10 startup failure rate. but in my experience, a mentor or founder will usually ask a young person questions about their start-up as a lead-in to a pre-packaged lecture, not to construct a dialogue.

since the younger generation gets branded as naïve and idealistic by seasoned experts in an industry, ysi advocates for an equal setting for all ages to work together. a mentor might walk into a meeting expecting to give advice for digital marketing, and leave having learned about a simple but elegant billboard bed campaign in pakistan from a participant.

strohm adds: “they [experts] know everything inside that field, but more often than not, those people don’t change systems. they keep grinding along the same path, which is why we need both old and young together.”

2. capitalise on collaboration, not competition

rather than emulating the cutthroat environment of silicon valley, where intellectual property must be guarded under legal writ, ysi is capitalising on collaboration.

the sustainability issues that each team is working on has little risk of being crowded out. two waste management projects will find more than enough trash to go around in the developing world. and it may take more than one start-up to disrupt the $100 billion leather industry. when team 7 unexpectedly sold 4,000 t-shirts made from recycled plastic bottles in less than a week, fintech expert louis wouters from team 1 was more than happy to sit with them and help write up their financials.

participant usama tauqeer from pakistan affirms: “there are start-ups that go in to win competitions, and there are start-ups that go on for the long-term and then monetise. i prefer to be the latter.”

our task as the last generation with a shrinking window for action on climate change is not to save the world, but to build the things we really need for a thriving, sustainable planet.

3. flip power asymmetries

the majority of ysi participants have never pitched in front of high-level investors to acquire seed funding. getting people twice your age to buy into somewhat crazy, futuristic concepts is a daunting task. and without investor money, it can seem like those dreams will never take off.

but what strohm advises is to flip the power asymmetry if need be. we approached investors not as streams of cash flow, but as partners taking equity in our companies. start-ups could frame the ask to an investor as:

“this is something i’m going to do anyway, and we need to find out; are we the right fit for each other?”

by doing that, the 20-year old participant is protecting his or her status and the importance of the proposition, and should also be ready to walk out of the room if that goes south.

but start-ups needs to know their audience to play hardball. a tactic like this, which might work in norway or the us, might not work in japan.

4. the market may be your best teacher

despite the science of innovation that we may read dozens of books on, or hear countless ted talks about, the market is ultimately the best teacher for what solutions work. ysi advocates breakthrough innovation, and yet the least innovative start-up this year got the most traction. a team making mixed fiber and plastic t-shirts broke us$60,000 in revenue during the two weeks in oslo. companies like patagonia have been making such products since 1993, and the team still faces criticism that they are contributing to one of the most polluting industries in the world—fashion.

the most successful product is the most easily understood. t-shirts are simple to wear, sell, and advertise. rolling out a brand-new platform or patenting an invention may take more time to gain traction. finding this this sweet spot for innovation means combining simplicity with market need.

systemic changes are difficult to build a product out of, and harder still to sell. a practical lesson is breaking away from the idealism we strive for in silver-bullet solutions, and making impactful products people will use.

our task as the last generation with a shrinking window for action on climate change is not to save the world, but to build the things we really need for a thriving, sustainable planet.

visit the ysi global website and follow these teams’ development into full-fledged start-ups in the months to come. 

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this story was originally published on eco-business and reproduced with permission.

can startups save the world? jimmy stice and his employees think so, and their answer is kalu yala, a startup “eco-city” in the panamanian jungle.

although stice isn’t a silicon valley entrepreneur or a typical venture capitalist, he’s encouraging disruptive models for water conservation, farm to table culinary and housing without walls to build a very different product: an ethical real estate business in panama’s tres brazos valley.

stice’s model, often called social entrepreneurship in the u.s., seeks to harness the free market to do good, letting businesses solve social problems in profitable ways and trying to meet consumer demand in ethical ways. stice, kalu yala and the business program – one of several internship programs in the community – focus on something they call the “triple bottom line.” instead of just aiming to make profit, they say, a business and institute (like kalu yala) must also promote the interests of people and the planet in its work. stice said he tried to find a career that would make value for the world, make him happy and pay his bills. that idea of “making value” for entrepreneurs and the world is fundamental to kalu yala’s mission.

to further this end, kalu yala also founded a business incubator in the first half of 2016. kalu yala’s incubator, which incubator director megan vose claims is the first in panama, seeks to help triple-bottom-line-focused companies get started to provide services for kalu yala, the neighboring town san miguel and even panama city. overall, according to the head of the business incubator megan vose, its job is to help figure out how sustainability can create jobs, both in kalu yala and in the wider world. while the financial benefit package it offers to its clients is still being worked out – “the incubator is still very much being incubated,” vose said – it provides housing, marketing, business advice and a test market (the town of kalu yala) as well as low-interest capital loans to the six businesses it is currently cultivating.

the incubator’s first beneficiary is willie dale, an american with a background in brewing and distilling. dale came to kalu yala from brooklyn at the recommendation of a friend, who was first offered the job dale decided to take. once hired, the community members helped dale construct a living space far from town square where he could experiment with making rum as part of a closed-loop system which recycles wastes, such as methanol. today, dale is preparing to legally sell his miel de caña rum, dale (as in the spanish ¡dale!), in panama.

henry heyman, 21, has also received incubator support for his business tres brazos outfitters. heyman, a former kalu yala business intern from boulder, colo., was inspired to start a sustainable tourism business during his 10-week semester in the valley. heyman, a lifelong lover of the outdoors, noticed many of his fellow interns were not exploring the natural resources around them and sought to turn his experience hiking and guiding hikes into something profitable and sustainable. he started leading kalu yala weekend warriors trips for his fellow students. in late 2016, henry drafted a business plan, secured incubator support and returned to kalu yala, seeking to promote “adventure tourism” for travelers who want low impact, educational vacations.

of course, kalu yala’s directors of culinary, biology and farm systems are still learning how to work out the kinks in the model. for one, the triple bottom line isn’t incentivized by anything in the free market except for a business owner’s personal integrity.

authors such as gus speth and naomi klein have written extensively about how industrial capitalism has no motive for long-term environmental preservation. some interns come in ready to fundamentally disrupt the systems they grew up with, believing fully that “business as usual is suicide” for the planet, and are frustrated with the familiar systems that remain in place at kalu yala, said sustainability coordinator clare bassi.

esteban gast, dean of the kalu yala educational institute, said he’s often asked if kalu yala is a community or a company. he responds “we’re a company that builds communities, right, we’re a community-building company. communities don’t have payroll, so we have to operate as a company, but our focus when we operate as a company is how can we build really strong community.”

like any company, its community building services aren’t free. for the summer 2017 session, kalu yala will charge its interns $6,495, and tuition will increase to $7,495 by spring 2018. this tuition covers room and board, and scholarships are available to panamanians and other latin americans. as the town and program grow, their costs grow as well, posing barriers for some.

those who can manage to come, though, spend 10 weeks working on a project and final presentation in the town. the kalu yala institute’s business and entrepreneurship interns learn “startup tactics,” “financial modeling” and other techniques so they can “redesign traditional business models,” according to their website. under the leadership of entrepreneurship director zouheir al ghreiwati, interns create a product and business model that focus on the “triple bottom line.”

sometimes the sustainability of their ventures comes into question. heyman’s adventure trips cater mostly to wealthy westerners, not native panamanians, who must travel thousands of miles, mostly by plane, to experience the nature he hopes to preserve. air travel is extremely carbon-intensive, producing more co2 and carbon equivalents per mile than any other method of transportation.

heyman still sees his business as sustainable, however, because he focuses on teaching his clients about environmental concerns and living a less wasteful lifestyle while guiding them. “if you want to see central america, at least you’re coming on my trip,” he said, pointing out the excessive and wasteful resource usage in this demographic’s typical tourist destinations, like resorts. sustainability, he stresses, isn’t a straightforward goal. it is most often a series of trade-offs.

the goal of scaling up these business ideas also poses challenges. scaling a business model to serve a much wider market is a shared goal of tech companies in california and the entrepreneurs of kalu yala, but it’s hard to do in ways that are good for the people and planet. kalu yala is seeking to grow in the valley – stice has already sold residential real estate in the town – but it uses its media and marketing teams as a lower-footprint form of scaling. gast said the point of kalu yala’s “start up-y messaging” is to reach people outside of the valley. “we have this global mission because we believe we’re doing all these small changes that have a really big impact. so if we figure out a really interesting way to deal with compost, then that’s something that we want to tell the world,” he said. “so we think very startup-y in the way that we say ‘can this scale? can we have more people living like this?’”

manufacturing is an especially tricky field, where environmental concerns can often be a roadblock for new companies hoping to produce goods quickly and cheaply. shipping is another issue entirely. “i don’t think a lot of social entrepreneurship is scaled,” said al ghreiwati. “you can definitely set an industry standard and replicate it.” but he argues that effective, sustainable development, by definition, must be locally sourced and locally focused. for example, one of his spring interns, gwen michaux, spent her semester developing a business to make “koozies,” – drink holders, usually for soda or beer – fashioned out of bamboo and crocheted plastic bags.

“she’s able to tell people ‘hey, here’s a product that could be useful in your day to day life, and this is how it’s made,’ versus a koozie company in the states explaining ‘hey, here’s all the stuff we dumped into the water to make your koozie, these are all the ink dyes that are being buried and this is how much co2 emerged. it’s tracking not only your profit but also your waste,” said al ghreiwati, her supervisor.

sometimes what consumers demand and what the planet (or a society) really needs are two different things. the kalu yala staff aren’t worried about this, though. al ghreiwati believes that eco-consciousness is more than a market trend and educated consumers will continue gravitating towards products and businesses that are good for the earth. “you vote with your dollar,” he said.

stice echoed this, calling kalu yala’s mission “seducing people who might not care into caring,” then educating them about climate change, environmental issues and sustainable living. according to stice and al ghreiwati, once people know about the issues and fundamentally understand the challenges the planet faces, they will be inspired to take action – one dollar at a time.

sustainability: a scientist’s perspective. since there are interactions between all the life and all the finite natural resources on our planet the sustainability of human lives
and human activities depends upon the effects of human actions upon life as well

as how humans manage the finite natural resources upon which life depends. the

natural resources of our planet which sustain all animal life on our world include the fresh air to breath, the fresh water to drink, the fertile soil to grow food, the forests on land and the algae in the waters to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide, and the natural filtration and recycling systems that clean waste products from our environment. the sustainability of trees and vegetation on land depend upon many species of animals, birds, and insects to help propagate the next generation of plant life on land. similarly the sustainability of algae and plant life in the waters of our planet depends upon many species of fish life to help propagate plant life in the oceans, lakes and rivers. for people to sustain their existence they need to plan their actions so that they do not compromise the sustainability of

the biodiversity and natural resources of our planet.

sustainability: a capitalist’s perspective. until today the prevailing goal of capitalism was constant economic growth regardless of the degradation
of our planet’s life support systems including a) interacting ecosystems, b)

limited natural resources, and c) our cooperative human societies. however,

constant economic growth is obviously not sustainable without further degradation

of our planet’s life support systems. the impossibility of constant economic

growth is confirmed by today’s conditions including i) the current economic

crisis, ii) the fossil fuel crisis, iii) housing and clothing shortages, iv)

predicted food shortages, v) predicted fresh drinking water shortages, and vi)

social unrest like terrorism. from this day forward the goal of capitalism should

be to a) sustain all the life on our planet, b) sustain the lives of people and

society on our planet, and c) sustain the economies and businesses on our

planet, since the sustainability of each is related to the sustainability of

the other. people must recognize that the negative impacts of ecological

degradation and social degradation are real costs to our economy and our businesses since they both negatively impact sustainability. on the other hand,

a profit should be recognized for the successful nurturing of our ecology and successful improvements to developing cooperative societies. the nurturing of ecosystems, the wise management of finite natural resources, and assistance and education given to developing cooperative societies should be considered wise investments toward improving sustainability. once sustainability becomes the main goal of capitalism, the demand should increase dramatically for inventions which

improve the ability of people to positively impact the sustainability of all i)

ecosystems, ii) natural resources, iii) people, and iv) human societies. furthermore, with sustainability as the main goal of capitalism, the wealthiest entrepreneurs will be those with the best products to help people nurture sustainability.

sustainability: an entrepreneur’s perspective.
pragmatically, all people everywhere basically require fresh air, fresh water, food, clothing and housing, fuel, sanitation, and healthcare to survive. these basic

human needs are fast becoming limited, if not unavailable, throughout our

planet. pragmatically, our economic growth driven by consumerism and unlimited

development regardless of impact on our planet’s life support systems is unsustainable. instead, i envision a new sustainable industrial global economy created by the application of discoveries in biotechnology and nanotechnology that will provide the tools needed to both sustainably satisfy basic human needs and sustain the ecosystem, including reducing or eliminating our carbon

footprint. discoveries in biotechnology will be employed to more efficiently generate agricultural products, biosynthetic materials, and renewable biofuels to replace fossil fuels, and waste reprocessing services, as well as health care products.

this new industrial global economy will be sustainable because conventional
agriculture will be replaced by industrial agriculture which will efficiently employ people to operate facilities where the food is grown under controlled conditions. furthermore, recombinant photosynthesis will be harnessed to capture solar energy for renewable biofuels, and, the industrial agriculture waste products will be recycled or used to produce renewable fuels.

also, ever increasing production efficiency is assured by applying the latest
discoveries resulting from biotechnology explorations published in leading

scientific journals by research groups located throughout the entire globe.

companies will compete with one another to prepare products to sustainably satisfy the huge market for basic human needs globally and locally. this competition will
be driven and will continue indefinitely because these new companies will always be seeking to manufacture products more and more cost effectively by utilizing even more recent knowledge purchased in an ever expanding knowledge exchange economy.

ever increasing efficiency in the management of natural resources throughout the
globe will contribute to sustainably satisfying the demand for basic human

needs everywhere. to produce, store, distribute, and sell company products the

most successful entrepreneurs will exploit cutting end technology to most

efficiently manage natural resources, and, to utilize only the most efficient

methods, where the definition of efficiency includes having zero or positive

impact on our plant’s life support systems.