What if human beings were a positive contribution to the ecosystems in which they live? |
It was over twenty-two years ago that Hummingbird Energy founder David Butterfield first began to ponder that question. It was an idea that came to him after a meeting with four of the day’s leading thinkers in sustainability; Green Peace founder Jim Bohlen, Earth Day International president Patrick Deacon, real estate guru and environmental philosopher Roger Colwill, and environmental author and activist Guy Dauncey. Below is David’s story about what brought about the creation of Hummingbird Energy. |
How we began
The meeting had been called by an organization I co-founded, the South Island Development Co-Operative. We were planning the creation of a town; nearly five thousand people on twenty six hundred acres of east coast Vancouver Island waterfront. Together with the labor sponsored pension plans (members of the Co-operative) we intended to develop the most socially responsible and sustainable project ever undertaken. Unlike so many of the thousand plus stakeholders that we had interviewed or met with, these four gentleman spoke purely for the environment without private or personal agendas.
It was a conversion experience for me and I found myself in complete agreement with the intentions they expressed. Since then, virtually everything I have done in business has been informed by the question; What if human beings were a positive contribution to the ecosystems in which they live? This conversation became the foundation for the new town plan. The ideas discussed became the building blocks for The Trust For Sustainable Development, a not-for-profit corporation we created to further these sustainable objectives.
An idea whose time had come
Since that day, The Trust For Sustainable Development has been active in sustainable development. Projects include the inner city redevelopment of a contaminated site in Victoria, British Columbia, the creation and implementation of a new town, Civano at the request of the City of Tucson, Arizona, and the initiation of the Villages of Loreto Bay, a project co-authored by the Federal Government of Mexico to alleviate poverty in the Central Baja. My family, together with the Trust, has continued to be an angel investor in several start up companies with related objectives, among them Flickr, Zaio, and ICC Group.
Expanding the vision
The ICC Group started life as International Composting Corporation. It is a business I love for the same reason I love Hummingbird Energy; it helps solve a number of problems with one action, a common hall mark of sustainability. Where ICC has turned waste into life giving soil, Hummingbird turns waste into energy, a more comprehensive solution to the vast issue of organic waste, the largest and most harmful component of the stuff we all throw away. In support of ICC, I briefly became ICC’s Executive Chairman.
Every day in North America there are hundreds of thousands of tons of organic material thrown into landfills and left to break down into methane gas. This methane is twenty times more deleterious to the atmosphere than CO2, and approximately one third of all methane gas comes from landfills. It is a national disgrace and people all over the world have taken notice.
Traditional biomass plants using wood have sprung up all over the country to produce clean renewable electric energy and heat. Working at ICC gave me the background in organic material processing to make the connection between Urban Biomass, that which we throw away in our cities, and wood based biomass from our forests. Fundamentally, they are very similar materials which only require different handling processes for them both to produce abundant energy.
Meaningful partnerships are forged
To demonstrate the viability of the process I set out to build our first facility at Arizona State University (ASU). I recruited Brad Forst, a professor of practice at ASU and former NYSE company CEO, to run Hummingbird Energy LLC. As a member of the University’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) Board of Directors, I have access to, and understanding of, the University’s commitment to become a leader in sustainability, including the reduction of waste and carbon neutrality. ASU, with its access to research resources was a natural partner.
I hired Kris Obrigewitsch, formerly ICC’s vice president, and made a deal with ICC for the exclusive use of their technology in the U.S. I continued to recruit my team and rallied the support of ASU professor of practice and mechanical engineer, Steve Trimble, as well as Aristides Cota, formally the chief engineer at Loreto Bay. We were amazingly fortunate to have two of Arizona’s top development personalities, John Benton and Ted Ferris, come on board to provide regional expertise and manage the development, construction, and financing of Hummingbird’s facilities in Arizona.
Early on, for a variety of reasons, we decided to locate a company in Canada, Hummingbird Urban Biomass Ltd., where the technology originated, to continue research and development and manage facility design and engineering. At the same time, the U.S. is a key strategic market for us primarily due to the availability of stimulus and other funding opportunities for facility financing. To take advantage of the U.S. opportunity it was best to have a separate American facilities development company (Hummingbird Energy LLC), headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
My desire to make a positive contribution has led me to create what is now Hummingbird Energy. I am proud to say that our team is well immersed in the process of developing the first facility and we are at a point where we are ready to expand into communities throughout the U.S.
