Whitworth_Quantified Press Kit

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QUANTIFIED Redefining Conservation for the Next Economy

By Joe S. Whitworth Washington, DC (September 8, 2015) —Freshwater resources are in trouble: California’s drought has been going on for more than a year, the Mississippi River has become so choked by fertilizers that it creates an enormous dead zone, and the Colorado River rarely reaches the ocean. These problems are daunting. But to Freshwater Trust President Joe Whitworth, they’re also solvable. The tools are at our fingertips—all we need to do is use them. Whitworth argues that we have to rethink conservation on a major scale, applying 21st century tools and technologies to ensure positive results for our freshwater resources and accelerate the pace and scale of conservation.

In his new book Quantified: Redefining Conservation for the Next Economy, Whitworth draws lessons from the world’s most tech-savvy, high-impact organizations – Google, Apple, Amazon and others – to show how we can make real gains for the environment. The principles of his quantified conservation approach will be familiar to any thriving entrepreneur: situational awareness, bold outcomes, innovation and technology, data and analytics, and gain-focused investment. This no-nonsense strategy builds on the inspirational environmental work begun in the 1970s, while recognizing that the economy of today demands new solutions.

With Quantified, Whitworth offers stories of successful innovation ranging from the restoration of individual stretches of rivers in Oregon to the new management of entire river basins like Australia’s Murray–Darling. He showcases prosperous partnerships like one between California’s Sonoma County Water Agency and IBM that has resulted in using realtime data to quickly fix defective pipes and allocate water more efficiently. These stories and ISLAND PRESS | PRESS RELEASE | 1

others demonstrate how technology, data and analytics can offer real solutions to environmental problems where the environment and the economy both benefit.

In the book, Whitworth highlights stories of the most precious of resources—water—but contends that a quantified conservation approach could apply to any environmental effort, whether in the realm of policy, agriculture, business, or philanthropy. He argues that if we are to maintain our economy and the environment, we need to stop seeing conservation as a losing battle waged by well-meaning environmentalists and start seeing the potential of quantified conservation. With Quantified, he charts that course.

Joe Whitworth has been responsible for the strategic direction of The Freshwater Trust, a nonprofit river restoration organization, for more than a decade. A sought-after speaker, he hosts the podcast freshwater Talk, has been interviewed by Forbes and Scientific American, spoken at Social Capital Markets, and done a TEDx talk. Whitworth also blogs for Huffington Post, has authored op-eds and columns from Iowa to Oregon, and has been published in both popular and technical journals. He is a patented inventor and an advisor to B Corps, foundations, and governments.

Quantified

By Joe S. Whitworth Hardcover and E-book Publication Date: September 8, 2015 232 pages | Price: $30.00 ISBN: 978-1-61091-614-1 www.islandpress.org/quantified Founded in 1984, Island Press works to stimulate, shape, and communicate the information that is essential for solving environmental problems. Today, with more than 800 titles in print and some 40 new releases each year, it is the nation’s leading publisher of books on environmental issues. Through these efforts, Island Press is driving change by moving ideas from the printed page to public discourse and practice. Island Press’s emphasis is, and will continue to be, on transforming objective information into understanding and action. For more information and further updates be sure to visit www.islandpress.org. ###

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT EMAIL CONTACT EMAIL

Jaime Jennings, 202-232-7933 x44 jjennings@islandpress.org Katharine Sucher, 202-232-7933 x43 ksucher@islandpress.org

QUESTION AND ANSWER Quantified: Redefining Conservation for the Next Economy

By Joe Whitworth Q

Why will your vision of quantified conservation work better than current models?

A

Modern environmentalism right now is whole lot more like a blackberry than the iPhone. It wasn’t that long ago that many people would have absolutely had a Blackberry in their pocket. But Blackberry lost nearly all its ground and success due to its inability to keep up with market trends.

Something very similar has happened with the environmental movement. With this strong focus on advocacy and litigation, environmentalism initially had some major wins. But even the best laws eventually become outmoded when the world shifts. Today we have to ask ourselves: Are the traditional conservation solutions of the 20th century enough to move the bar in the 21st?

The short answer is no. We’ve got no choice but to get 21st century on this problem.

The fact is that new technologies, efficiencies, and analytics are available to us. There are solutions that would unleash the environmental gain we desperately need. Moving beyond a procedure-based past to an outcome-based future is an approach I call quantified conservation. It’s about leveraging the best practices used by today’s successful business and social sector organizations to overhaul the state of our natural resources. It’s about both doing the work to improve our environment and measuring the outcomes.

It’s the only way to see what kind of difference we are making.

Q

The California drought is a key example of an environmental challenge that needs fresh ideas. How can the quantified conservation approach help tackle this problem?

A

All the ingredients for success are present in California, we just need to reformulate some and put others to work. The principles within the Quantified framework point us in the

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direction of a water budget that is tied to the actual water available, and innovates how that water is put to use.

Situational awareness tells us that by 2040 agriculture must produce more food than it has in all of human history. We are not on track for this production; in fact, current water laws allow us to take more water out of our streams and aquifers than can naturally recharge.

The outcome needed is to get productive agriculture within the physical envelope of what the land and water can provide. At first blush this sounds impossible. But it is attainable— though not with more of the same.

With that outcome in mind, we can turn to innovation. Using current technology, we can x-ray each basin in California to identify the water budget and model the optimized social, economic, and environmental costs of a series of actions. That knowledge will allow us to allocate water more efficiently—with proper compensation to water rights holders—to ensure that the environment recharges and that agriculture remains profitable.

From there, we make sure to get the progress we want using data & analytics. Satellite and remote sensing help us monitor environmental results, while capturing social trends and economic responses in real time.

Integrating the environment and economy in this way will allow us to secure gain. When we see water as an asset, we can reorganize capital thoughtfully—in a way that ensures land health and aquifer recharge over time, helping water go to its highest use.

Q

Why are the economy and the environment often at odds? How could they benefit each other?

A

There is no lingua franca between the economy and the environment, and thus they’ve had a hard time doing business together. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The Freshwater Trust has been working with farmers and ranchers in its home region to heal grasslands and restore rivers while helping them increase profits. For example, some landowners have agreed to lease their water rights during the summer in order to increase stream flows for salmon runs. Others have agreed to implement water-saving technologies while keeping the same acreage in production. They’ve then leased their rights to the excess water, making a profit while allowing more water to remain in-stream. Innovations like motivate existing farmers and ranchers to change their land management practices, while encouraging future generations to implement the right methods from the start—all while turning a profit. It may not look exactly like traditional agriculture, but it works.

Q

What advantages do the business and tech worlds have over the advocacy world? What can environmentalists learn from the success of business and tech?

A

Back in the 1970s, business was always the bad guy and the environmentalists were the innovators. But that has shifted. Today, we can take a page or two from some key entrepreneurial playbooks to build the five principles of quantified conservation: situational awareness, outcomes, innovation and technology, data and analytics, and gain.

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The internet gave us permission to dream big, actionable dreams. Here’s an example: In 2004, Amazon decided that they wanted to make every book ever written available anywhere on earth in 60 seconds. This was before we really even had e-books. In 2007, it happened.

In the very same way, environmentalists must now set our sights high. We need 1000% improvements in our water quality. We need to restore entire river corridors—not just pieces here or pieces there—if we want fishable, swimmable, drinkable waters to be part of the next decade. One river mile at a time won’t cut it.

Yet the only job description we as environmentalists have ever received is to simply hold the line. That is a 0% improvement target. The environmental movement hasn’t dreamed in an actionable way for a long time, and it’s time for us to join the era of big dreams, crazy tools, and unprecedented outcomes.

Q

What are some success stories of quantified conservation? Why were they successful?

A

A few years ago, we completed our first test project with the City of Medford in southern Oregon. City officials needed to find a way to cool the clean, but hot water discharged from their wastewater treatment facility into the Rogue River in a way that didn’t interfere with the recovery of salmon. Rather than installing a concrete holding tank for $16-20 million, the city applied the principles of quantified conservation, electing to buy “water temperature credits” to plant trees that shade and cool the watershed.

By doing so, the city was able to offset its warm water discharge without installing an expensive cooling tower—meeting its Clean Water Act obligations for less than half the cost.

The credits were developed using vigorous environmental accounting standards that translated restoration actions into quantified watershed cooling benefits, measured in kilocalories.

The City of Medford project demonstrated that water temperature trading programs can result in a win–win for the economy and the environment. By participating in our water temperature credit trading program, the City of Medford saved city ratepayers at least $8 million. The environment has benefited too. Over the coming years we will restore miles and miles of high-potential riparian area within the Rogue River Basin, securing a cooler watershed overall with direct benefits to the river. Water quality trading programs like this one are a pathway to the next frontier of conservation.

Q

What do you think people working on water issues can learn from projects focusing on other environmental and social issues and vice versa?

A

If you look across history at any successful social movement, it starts when somebody notices a wrong, raises their hand, and says, “that’s wrong. We should fix that.” And everybody else looks up from what they were doing and agrees, “yeah, we should.” That’s when change happens. But we don’t have to wait for great wrongs to happen to make changes—we need to do it every single day, and we can.

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When I sat down to write this book, I really set out to see whether what we’ve done at the Freshwater Trust is replicable. And it is. The elements that I distilled into the quantified conservation framework clearly translate at the individual, organizational, initiative, and movement levels, and there is evidence that it can spin up into the level of the economy itself. This exercise left me convinced that a better future is ahead—if we have the guts to chase after it.

Q

If readers take one thing from the book, what do you hope it is?

A

I want this book to send up a flare for all those who understand that the way we approach conservation today is not working. I’m interested in reaching those who also believe technology, analytics, and innovation will catalyze the next generation of environmental action. I hope that folks will read this and agree that we have to start thinking about and acting on conservation in a new way if we are going to fix our freshwater issues and really many of the other environmental problems we face today.

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