Kere Kere Coffee: A Social Enterprise which gives gives jobs to young people in trouble

Kere Kere Coffee is a social enterprise located on campus at Melbourne University. It is a small cafe which serves coffees and muffins to students and staff on campus. The social aspect? Kere Kere employs troubled youth, giving them 12 months of experience and professional training. Also the cafe allows customers to choose where the profits from their cup of coffee goes; they can be contributed to a bunch of charities (enviro, social etc.) or given to the owner for his troubles.

Kere Kere has been a huge success, much thanks to the hard work of founder and owner James Murphy. James, a mate of mine, is passionate about social enterprise and giving people opportunities through a sustainable business.

James is planning to launch more cafes in the near future, possibly at other university campuses and around Melbourne.

Eco Towns are a distraction from the real task of a sustainable society

There has been a considerable amount of press over the last few years regarding "Eco Towns". These are complete new residential developments that are build to be super-green.

Examples exist in the UK (See BBC News, or the Wikipedia page on UK Eco Towns), the UAE (Masdar City) and of course the US (Sonoma Village).

I agree that these Eco Towns are a positive thing - they mean that new greenfield developments have the lowest possible environmental impact. Their incredible media profile however has a dark side in that they create a false sense of positivity when the bigger tasks are being ignored. These new Eco Towns confuse and distract from the urgent need to transform our existing cities and towns into sustainable places to live. Climate change will not be averted by a few small toy towns. We can only meet the challenges of this impending environmental disaster by transforming our current cities, towns and villages into environmentally sustainable habitats.

I think that more attention, energy (no pun intended) and government money needs to flow into projects that green our existing cities. These include greater use of sustainable base-load power, more energy efficient appliances in all homes and better access to public transport for all. Unfortunately these things arnt as sexy or newsworthy as Eco Towns...but the real solutions very rarely are.

Where is the "pro-jobs" climate change lobby in Australia?

It occurred to me recently that one of the things that Australia's climate change debate really lacks is the critical "pro-jobs" or "economics" based lobby groups.

Our domestic climate change debate has largely been one focused on morality and values rather than business. While climate change has a huge moral component (after all my carbon pollution harms all other people all over the world) this isn't the only aspect for why carbon reduction should be considered.

It is important to recognise the positive market implications for Australian business and enterprise of early adoption of low carbon laws and incentives. Early introduction of carbon taxes/cap and trade systems etc. create huge incentives for investment in carbon reduction R&D. Inherent in this investment is the development and refinement of efficiency improving technologies. There is little doubt that efficiency is a good (and profitable) thing: doing more with less inherently saves money. efficiency improving tech increasing the productivity of everything from transport to manufacturing.

In the US the positive economic benefits of low carbon incentive systems are being toted by a number of climate change lobby groups. Slogans like "Carbon Caps = Hard Hats"(www.thecapsolution.org) and "Less Carbon, More Jobs" (www.lesscarbonmorejobs.org) are on the lips of many a climate change activist. Al Gore's message has firmly focused on the positive economic benefits of early climate change legistlation, as can be seen in the range of new TV ads he has launched on the issue (check them out at the end of his latest TED talk: www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/al_gore_warns_on_latest_climate_trends.html). Websites like Repower America (www.repoweramerica.org) provide very detailed accounts of how green tax concessions and cap & trade programs can create millions of new American jobs.

In Australia we simply arnt getting this message. Aussies need to get the message that carbon taxes/green concessions, if implemented effectively, can be a hugely positive thing for our workers and economy. I hope that our politicians, industry and green lobby soon realise that the tired "green means poor but moral, pollution means wealth but immoral" discussion is just so out dated and oversimplified.