It started out as notes for a designer, turned into a page with 100K hits, and now (drumroll..)… “Sustainable Lens: A visual guide”.

Published late 2011 and available via NewSplash Studio. (Get it now from Amazon).

Samuel Mann (2011) Sustainable Lens: A visual guide. NewSplash Studio, Dunedin. 206p. ISBN 13: 978-1468112771

They ask

“what if externalised costs could be quantified and assigned? What if we could get to the point where the lowest-priced T-shirt was also the one doing the least harm to the planet and society?

They identify trends in business’ relationship with sustainability: Sustainability 1.0 is compliance, 2.0 is strategic focus on value chains, 3.0 (now) is seeing a wholesale “considerations of impact pervade all decision making”.   Sustainability 4.0 won’t be required because, they say,  ”sustainability will simply be how business is done”.  (I’m not so convinced by this latter argument, my upcoming book describes a 300+ plus year evolution of the concept, not just a couple of business fad-cycles.  But I digress).

Chouinard and co place great importance on the quantification of ecosystem services: how much would it cost to achieve the same benefits by other means?  They give the example of mangroves in providing erosion control and pest control, fresh water, clean air, and carbon sequestration.

Of course, the bounty of nature is priceless. But the unfortunate effect of our seeing these inputs to well-being as incalculable has been that they are treated as free.

They describe concerted efforts to internalise costs even “values of many aspects of our world traditionally considered priceless are being quantified so that they can be factored into economic equations”.   “Serious progress is being made” they say.

In the second part of the article “funding the high road” they describe the increasing role of sustainable investing:

Socially responsible investing has matured beyond negative screening to become a value-seeking discipline and positive impetus for change.

They talk about how the use of standardised protocols such as the Global Reporting Initiative allows investors to evaluate performance. Despite evidence such as the performance of the MSCI KLD Social 400 index (outperforming S&P 500 over 20 years), “to vote with your dollars has seemed an act of altruism”. Chouinard argues “the tide is turning” – largely due to the risks of exposure through social media and lawsuits.

The third trend is the value chain index – providing an “apples-to-apples comparisons of products on the basis of the impacts that accrue to them at each phase of their journey”. This goes beyond relying on certification of component products that address only a single impact category. Rather they talk of the impact of whole industry developments such the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. This will, the authors argue “usher in a new era of sustainability”.

I applaud these efforts.  Unfortunately I’m not convinced. And the reason I’m not convinced is a nagging thought that this doesn’t play nicely with Deep Ecology.

Arne Næss (1973) described the “Deep Ecology Movement”. Næss argued that ecology should not be concerned with man’s place in nature but rather with every part of nature on an equal basis because the natural order has intrinsic value that transcends human values. Thus we should “not only protect the planet for the sake of humans, but also, for the sake of the planet itself, to keep ecosystems healthy for their own sake”. The “Deep” comes from the deeper and holistic engagement the approach entails – asking why?

This “Deep Ecology” Næss contrasted with “Shallow Ecology movement” that has a focus on a “fight against pollution and resource depletion” and has the central objective of “the health and affluence of people in the developed countries” .

Deep Ecology has eight principles (three general and five derived). The eight principles are:

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantially small human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires a smaller human population.
5. Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change will be mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between bigness and greatness.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

Deep ecology’s core principle is the claim that, like humanity, the living environment as a whole has the same right to live and flourish. Thus valuing everything in terms of the cost benefit of human services isn’t just difficult, it’s wrong.

Back to Chouinard and colleagues. They conclude that progress in the three areas – valuing ecosystem services, sustainable investing and a focus on value chains – will result in “the long-sought alignment of a firm’s prosperity with the best interests of the planet (this) seems not only possible but inevitable”. I truly hope so. But I’m left waving a little flag “what about intrinsic value?”.

Our local MP (and neighbour) Pete Hodgson is retiring from politics. Here’s some of his valedictory:

Valedictories are supposed to be about the past, but my head lives mostly in the future. So let me give one portfolio, climate change, a bit more attention, because the world’s response has barely begun. There are 3 key problems. The first is the global addiction to cheap oil. It is an astonishing fuel but they are not making it any more. The second is that climate change is the only area of politics where, when the proof of the need to act finally arrives, the ability to act will have long since gone. The third is that we do not have governance structures that are equal to the task. Disturbingly we may even have discovered the limits of nation state democracies as an idea.

In New Zealand we have an opportunity and obligation to contribute to agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation because we can, and because success increases agricultural productivity. I commend the current government’s commitment to continuing and expanding that science and I wish all involved success and patience in equal measure.

Of course one way to reduce CO2 emissions is to run out of cheap oil. Inevitably we will. That requires a public policy response. Sure, the market will play its part – when a tank of petrol costs $300 not $100, behaviour will change.

But the market alone cannot deliver. Governments need to help. Most governments have started. We have stopped. Fuel efficiency standards scrapped, the biofuels sales obligation scrapped, curtailed sustainability measures in general – indeed the very word has been scrubbed off documents in a frenzied cleansing of the lexicon. This is unfortunate expensive behaviour. I spoke with a New Zealand biofuels company recently which is pulling out of here and investing instead in Thailand and the US. We need to be smarter than that.

Which leads me to sustainable development in general. I view it as a uniting idea, capable of creating wealth, creating ecological room, creating economic diversification and resonating strongly with the Kiwi ethos.

Certainly cows and tourism, alone, are not a future, precisely because those activities are not scaleable. There are now three dairy cows for every one that existed when I was in rural practice. If three cows are not a limit, four will be, or eight or some such number. Tourism is similarly not scaleable in New Zealand; the Galapagos effect will see to that at some point.

I define sustainability very simply. If we can’t do it forever then sooner than later we can’t do it at all.

Mining national parks is a case in point. So is an energy strategy based on offshore oil and gas production. So is getting rid of public debt by selling public assets. These are all things that can be done but once. They are unsustainable by definition.

Sustainable development is very strongly associated with technology. But also with design, with intellectual property, and sometimes with new business models.

Whether it is applied to a further advance in some primary product, or whether it is headed in the direction of clean energy, or the creative sector, or weightless exports or whatever, sustainable development demands high skills.

So it is a hi-tech, hi-skill future.

Here is another observation. There is a strong association between private sector R & D investment, and exporting. An association is not a cause, and not all exporters research. But nearly all research intensive companies export. Look more closely and those same companies are likely to be developing sustainably. And usually very quickly.

So, policies such as cancelling the R & D tax credit make no sense to me. The government said they couldn’t afford it. Fair enough. But the very next year they lowered company tax from 30c to 28c, which cost even more.

We must pay more attention to those firms that owe their existence, not to local domestic demand, but to some technology or some clever entrepreneur or both. Their sand pit is global not local. They usually export, they usually grow quickly, they usually pay high wages. They are the game changers. Not all firms are equal.

But sustainable development does not address the rich-poor gap. It is growing inexorably around the developed world, for many reasons. One is the tension between global salaries and local wages. More than one labour market is at play.

I think our approach to poverty has just started to change. It has always been a social justice issue – poverty is unfair on the poor. I think it is now being viewed also as an issue of social dysfunction – poverty is bad for everyone. There are strong links between the rich-poor gap and many social ills – teenage pregnancy, obesity, violence – you name it. Research, including New Zealand research, is beginning to unravel the detail.

Addressing poverty matters. I think we have underused the minimum wage as a tool. We were the first nation in the world to regulate a minimum wage, back in 1894. Since then it has variously risen above two-thirds the average wage and fallen below the depths of irrelevancy. Currently it is a bit below half the average wage.

If we are to reap the benefits of a relatively flexible labour market, we should also provide a bunch of civilised minima that endure. In New Zealand the debate is usually framed around the idea that raising the minimum wage will throw the low paid out of work altogether. Many crocodile tears are shed at that altar.

But research suggests the opposite – that raising the minimum wage can stimulate local economies and reduce unemployment, though only slightly. The current chair of the Council of Economic Advisors to the US Presidency, Professor Alan Krueger, is one such researcher. He is a mainstream empirical researcher, dealing in the practical, not the theoretical.

I appreciate this House is some distance away from doing for the low paid what we have already done for superannuitants – establishing an agreed floor But I will leave folk with the idea anyway.

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Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

This definition of sustainability has both current and future generations at its core.   These are described as intragenerational equity and intergenerational equity.   The combination of the intra - the “needs of the present” -  with intergenerational “without compromising the ability of future generations” is very deep-seated.  It is the basis of much legal, religious and cultural tradition. It underpins the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  (Note some have argued that the definition would benefit from an addition of the implied “all”, as in “needs of all of the present”, “all of future generations”).

Intergenerational equity is usually applied to our relationship with natural resources – you can’t despoil land – even if you own it – without reference to some consenting process that considers the wider picture.

The concept was first systematically explored by John Rawls’ concept of “just savings”  (more) and developed by economist Robert Solow in 1973 “an obligation to conduct ourselves so that we leave to the future the option or the capacity to be as well off as we are”.   We can use exhaustible resources but only to invest in productive capacity (strong sustainability later rejected this substitutability argument – but the core concern remains).    In 1974  economist James Tobin applied the concept to endowed funds:

The trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present. Their task in managing the endowment is to preserve equity among generations

Crucial here is the phrase “guardians of the future against the claims of the present“.  Intergenerational equity is about protecting the future from the claims of the present.  It means not running down resources – be it it fishing stocks, river quality, or, indeed money.  In financial terms the proceeds of an endowed fund should not be spent a rate that exceeds the after inflation return on its investments. This ensures that the proceeds are spent equally on current and future constituents of the endowed assets.

The opposite of Intergenerational Equity is running down resources, this means reducing options, quality and access. This reduces the choices available to future generations. To do so is borrowing against the future.

Unfortunately,  there is a perverse but increasingly common interpretation of intergenerational equity that promotes intentionally  borrowing against the future.    A report in the Otago Daily Times this week  (ODT 3/9/11)

Council financial planner Carolyn Howard… said the use of loan financing “supports the principle of intergenerational equity” and was appropriate for long-lived assets.

Howard is referring to the debt repayment for a stadium built by Dunedin and funded by the city.    The application of intergenerational equity was  described by former Councillor Richard Walls (ODT 17/12/2008, also ODT 29/7/2010)

“Once confirmed, loans were used to spread the cost over each generation of users, known as “inter-generational equity”, he said.”

Somewhat bizarrely Council (acting) Chief Executive acknowledges that the loan repayment will result in a restriction of choices: (ODT 3/9/11)

Acting chief executive Athol Stephens yesterday said the extension of the loan period would mean the city could find itself “constrained” in future if it wanted to develop “love to do” projects like cycleways.

A council that is rightly concerned about intergenerational equity needs to avoid running down resources – of any form of capital, and indeed look for areas to improve the resource stocks. We can’t wait for climate change induced sea-level rise to wash away suburbs or have future generations wishing we had taken cycleways seriously.

While we’re not paying our own way in not fully funding investment, deferred maintainance, and we’re running down resources, I think is morally repugnant to selectivity argue that future generations must pay their way.

We the city wanted this stadium (the collective ‘we’ whereby two previous city councils voted for it).  In the interests of intergenerational equity we must pay for it as quickly as possible.  How to do this, without creating perverse inequities within our current generation is indeed a sorry challenge that the current council must face.

(Update: DCC still getting it wrong. Cr Syd Brown “”That’s what intergenerational equity is all about … now it’s her generation’s turn,” Cr Brown said.  ODT 25/1/12 ).

Background:

Howard and Walls are not entirely wrong.   Intergenerational equity is sometimes used to refer to future generations paying off our loans, particularly for long term infrastructure projects.   They should recognise though, that this view is counter to the overwhelming number of publications that use intergenerational equity to mean not degrading resources:

Why debt? It is the principle of intergenerational equity. Fairness over times. Water and sweer mains last from 50 to 100 years. This means that two to four generations of citizens will benefit from their presence. Why should they not pay for their share of the benefit? …paying for a project over its service life is good public policy.

Boland et al.  (NATO, 1995) Environmental infrastructure management p163

Recent policies to enable policies to raise market based finance have been justified on several grounds, including…intergenerational equity, where the ‘lumpy’ costs of infrastructure investments should be spread over the useful life of the asset, and serviced through a regular stream of municipal income and project revenues resulting from the investment…however has numerous challenges. (note the book doesn’t argue the validity of this point – just that it is sometimes raised).

Alam (2010) Municipal Infrastructure Financing: Innovative Practices from Developing Countries p90

There are very few books that take this  ”they’ll benefit, they should pay” approach.  Most take a not reducing choices approach:

Excessive use of local government bonds hinders intergenerational equity in the long run.

Yun-Hwan Kim (2003) Local government finance and bond markets p209

Short term operational assets (eg keeping money as cash)…loss of intergenerational equity.

Russell (2006) Trustee investment strategy for endowments and foundations p87

Intergenerational equity is a seriously nonmeasureable (and therefore shouldn’t be used as a basis for depleting resources).

(good luck reading this one). Corbae et al. (2009) An introduction to mathematical analysis for economic theory and econometrics p428

Inequality in birth cohorts in paying for social security with an ageing population. Transfer schemes (ie savings) fairer than ‘pay as you go’ but increases temptation to spend windfall.

Johnson et al (1989) Workers versus pensioners: intergenerational justice in an ageing world p73 (see also Cheal 2002 Ageing and demographic change in Canadian context).

Apparent conflict between sustainability and efficiency resolved by thinking of sustainability as a matter of intergenerational equity p16 (note assumes substitution, but questions GNP as primary goal).

Economists can participate more effectively in the diverse social decision making areas in which intergenerational equity decisions are being made if they use economic analysis to complement other types of analysis rather than assume economic reasoning is a sieve through which all other forms of reasoning must pass

Norgaard R.B. (World Bank) (1992) Sustainability and The Economics of Assuring Assets for Future Generations

Two typologies of intergenerational independence: in Japan the older generation takes its turn to claim dependence, and the United States the younger generation takes its turn to claim independence.

Akiko Hashimoto (1996) The gift of generations: Japanese and American perspectives on aging and the social contract ,p153

Intergenerational equity as basis for managing freshwater resources in the middle east.

National Academy of Sciences (1999) Water for the future: the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan p16

“The failure to incorporate intergenerational equity is a major limitation of aggregated standard national accounts”.

Clarke and Islam (2004) Economic growth and social welfare: operationalising normative social choice theory p64

“Will governments that systematically neglect the welfare of the vast majority of the current population…consider the interests of those not yet born”

Roman Lopez (2005) Intergenerational versus intergenerational equity: views from the South. In Simpson et al. (2005) Scarcity and growth revisited: natural resources and the environment in the new millennium, p262

Focus on intergenerational equity differs from now everyday use for sustainability to mean environmentally desirable, this makes no distinction between momentary environmental problems such as foul smells that cause no long lasting health effects and permanent or cumulative problems (such as species loss or climate change).

Pezzey and Toman (2005) Sustainability and its economic interpretations In Simpson et al. (2005) Scarcity and growth revisited: natural resources and the environment in the new millennium, p124

Intergenerational Equity defined on a family (fortune) basis – how will these decisions affect my families ability to replicate my lifestyle? With a personal survey and an example “Bob”.
“we have assumed that he will never spend any more money than his current spend rate”

Morris et al. (2010) Kids, Wealth, and Consequences: Ensuring a Responsible Financial Future for the Next Generation

The furture is a common that we exploit at net cost to its other potential users. Market economics, if left unconstrained, would sadly lead us to maximise pofit for today: hang the consequences for tomorrow!

Intergenerational equity is a value-based concept addressing the rights of future generations.
It therefore extends the scope of social justice into the future, and also of the wise stewardship of biodiversity and other natural resources. According to the moral of intergenerational equity, each generation has the right to inherit the same diversity in natural and cultural resources enjoyed by previous generations. p27
Any other conception of delivering intergenerational equity – for example by maximising profit today to hand them a strong economy tomorrow – risks missing the most fundamental point of sustainability and ignores the resource base that sustains it p28

Everard (2009) The Business of Biodiversity, p28

Thomas Jefferson on debt to satisfy short term interests in terms of loss of soil (www.conlaw.org)

If a debt justification focus is taken, then intergenerational equity is a “misleading focus” as it worsens intragenerational equity (redistribution from taxpayers to bond-holders). Public debt is a “deadweight loss” since everyone’s labour supply decisions are distorted by taxation necessary to pay the debt.

Lars Osberg (2004) What is the real issue in debt? in Ragan and Watson (2004) Is the debt war over?: dispatches from Canada’s fiscal frontline p339

However much wealth our generation has created, in public policy we have not fully paid our own way. Furthermore we have grossly understated our governmental debt and overstated our assets.

Lamm and Blank (2007) Condition critical: a new moral vision for health care, p36

We have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy the consumption of goods, public and private, at the expense of future generations.

Sheffrin (1993) Markets and majorities: the political economy of public policy p232

One of the great issues of the future will be “intergenerational equity” when the younger generations start to recognise what we have done to them.
Robert Loius Stevenson said, “Sooner or later, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences”. True except my generation of politicians will not be sitting there when the bills become due. We have been good neighbours but bad ancestors”

Lamm (2003) The brave new world of health care p13

I really did try to get a balanced view here.  The fact is, the view reported by Howard and Walls is counter to the vast majority of books.  Try it yourself on Google Books or Google Scholar, I’d be interested to know if you come up with a different summary.

Impact on the Planet = Population  X  Affluence  X  Technology (IPAT) or I = P * A * T

or in words:

Environmental degradation = population × consumption per person × damage per unit of consumption

Ray Anderson argued that equation is not immutable.   If we could move technology to a demoninator – ie  renewable, recyclable materials or renewable energy – the impact is reduced.    Then Anderson argued that if we converted “A” to “a”, signifying affluence to be a means to an end, and not the end in itself.  This he described as a “revised impact equation”:  More happiness with less stuff, all made sustainably.

The lowest impact technologies, those that are beneficial, (belong in the denominator), should grow.  The abusive “numerator technologies” should shrink and eventually disappear.  The sale of services should grow.  The sale of products should shrink.  Applied brainpower should grow.  Applied brute force should shrink.  Market shares for the sustainable companies should grow.  For the unsustainable companies, market shares should shrink—to zero.

Useful things in passing:

http://www.population-growth-migration.info/essays/IPAT.html

http://www.4thtransition.ws/index.php/reflection/models/i-pat/ (ecological footprint is analogous concept)

http://dieoff.org/page111.htm Dietz and Rosa examine historical context and reformulation of each of the IPAT elements  (T technology in particular needs elucidation). . Argues that IPAT a useful starting point as a  theoretical framework to conceptualize human-environment interactions.

http://www.tellme747.com/?p=162

http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPAT_equation

http://www.ipat-s.org/IPAT_and_ImPACT.html IPAT-S scenario  model-building language scripting language takes the IPAT formula as a starting point.

Waggoner and Ausubel(2002) renovate IPAT to ImPACT:

Population, income, consumers’ behavior, and producers’ efficiency jointly force impact. Here, we renovate the ‘‘IPAT Identity’’ to identify actors with the forces. Population, income, consumers’ behavior, and producers’ efficiency jointly force impact. Here, we renovate the ‘‘IPAT Identity’’ to identify actors with the forces. Forcing impact I are P for population, A for income as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, C for intensity of use as a good per GDP, and T for efficiency ratios as impact per good.

C and c. Intensity of use, such as energy per GDP. Consumers lever C as they decide to employ more or less of their economic muscle on the product that will eventually impact the environment. We define dematerialization, or resource sparing by consumer behavior, as a declining C and so negative c.

These definitions assembled into the framework called ImPACT can organize the accretion of definitions and dimensions that IPAT has collected since it emerged a generation ago. A goal is finding which actor has leverage for lessening environmental impact

ImPACT simply shows changing environmental impact means changing four multiplying forces: the number of people, the economic muscle of each, the fraction of economic activity devoted to a good, and the impact of making the good. Consumers can lessen impact by using lever C, and producers can lessen impact by innovating with lever T. Dematerialization is declining C, and efficiency is declining T

Stern (1997) consumption as a problem for environmental science; environmental impacts of consumption

On more happiness and less stuff: 

More happiness with less stuff, all made sustainably.

(via Environmental Leader)

On waste:

The industrial system takes too much, extracting and frittering away Earth’s natural capital on wants, not needs,” he wrote.  “It wastes too much.  It abuses too much.  It takes stuff and makes stuff that very quickly ends up in landfills or incinerators—more waste, more abuse, more pollution…

(via Environmental Leader obituary)

On what counts as waste:

We began to tackle the face of mountain we identified as waste. We defined waste, by the way, as any cost that we incurred that does not add value to our customer and that translates to doing everything right the first time, every time.  It’s not just waste material, scrapped and low quality and so forth. If you send something to the wrong destination and have to get it back and reship it — that’s waste.  If you incur a bad debt — that’s waste.  So we defined waste very broadly and over time we actually said that any energy that comes from fossil fuel by our definition is waste and we need to eliminate it.  We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up.

(via Sustainable Living Magazine)

On green products:

We don’t believe anybody (ourselves included) can make a green product in a brown company

(via Tree Hugger)

On quality:

Well, we’re climbing the mountain. You can picture in your mind a mountain. The point, the top, symbolizes zero footprint. And we studied that mountain very, very carefully. And we’ve finally determined there’s at least seven faces of that mountain. And when you define those seven faces of the mountain, we found ourselves defining a process for climbing the mountain that’s very much like nature.

Nature runs on sunlight. Okay, we want to run our factories on sunlight. But we first have to reduce energy to that reducible minimum if we can even hope to afford renewable energy. Nature is cyclical and nature does not waste. One organism’s waste is another’s food. So we are getting our products back at the end of their useful life and converting them, reincarnating them life after life.

We’re closing the loop nature’s way. We’re recycling other people’s products, too, into our own products. So that’s emulating nature again. And nature’s beautiful, too. And our designers are not sacrificing anything in beauty to achieve the reduced footprint. See, designing for sustainability is a very interesting lens in which to approach the design process. And there is no need to compromise beauty. There’s no need to compromise performance. There’s no need to compromise either aesthetics or functionality for the sake of sustainability.

In fact, we have pledged to our customer never to knowingly force an inferior product on them in the name of sustainability. Now, how is that like nature? I have a little trouble making that connection but nevertheless it’s our commitment not to be guilty of greenwashing. Nature is not guilty of greenwashing. I guess there’s the connection.

(via Tree Hugger)

On questions from customers:

 In 1994, in our twenty-second year, we began to hear a question from our customers: What’s your company doing for the environment? And we had no good answers.

(via Tree Hugger)

On one mind at a time:

I have asked myself over and over for nearly 11 years, and I ask you, how would a living planet—the rarest and most precious thing in the universe—lose its biosphere, i.e., its essential livability? We take it for granted and don’t want to believe losing it is even possible. But, think about it, and you know, if Earth, someday in the distant future, has lost its livability—its biosphere—it will have happened insidiously:

One silted or polluted stream at a time;

One polluted river at a time;

One collapsing fish stock at a time;

One dying coral reef at a time;

One acidified or entrophied lake at a time;

One over-fertilized farm at a time, leading to one algae bloom at a time.

One eroded ton of topsoil at a time;

One developed wetland at a time;

One mansion built on a fragile marsh hammock at a time;

One disrupted animal migration corridor at a time;

One butchered tree at a time;

One corrupt politician at a time;

One new open-pit coal mine in a pristine valley at a time;

One decimated old growth forest at a time;

One lost habitat at a time;

One disappearing acre of rain forest at a time;

One political pay-off at a time, resulting in one regulatory roll-back at a time;

One leaching landfill at a time;

One belching smokestack or exhaust pipe at a time;

One depleted or polluted aquifer at a time;

One desertified farm at a time;

One over-grazed field at a time;

One toxic release at a time;

One oil spill at a time;

One breath of fouled air at a time;

One-tenth of a degree of global warming at a time;

One exotic disease vector at a time;

One new disease at a time;

One invasive species at a time;

One perchlorate contaminated head of lettuce at a time. (Perchlorate is rocket fuel, and it is in the ground water of the San Joaquin Valley, of California thanks to Aerojet General.)

One chloro-fluorinated or methyl-brominated molecule of ozone at a time, creating a deadly hole in the ozone ultra-violet radiation shield;

One poorly designed carpet at a time;

One thoughtlessly designed building or building interior at a time;

One misplaced kilogram of plutonium at a time;

One more ton of spent nuclear fuel at a time, looking for a safe and secure home for 240,000 (!) years;

One advance of urban sprawl at a time;

One insensitive or uninformed architect or interior designer or facility manager or manufacturer at a time;

One songbird at a time;

One PCB-laced orca, one whale, one dolphin, one trumpeter swan, one mountain gorilla, one polar bear, one leatherneck turtle at a time;

One entire wild species at a time; and

One poverty-stricken, starving, diseased, or exploited human being at a time;

That is how it would have happened, and we know that it is happening already just that way—so many ways! You could make your own list, just as long without any duplication. It is a long, long slippery slope, and we are on it. That is the first trend. We are losing one strand of the web of life at a time, inexorably, and it will not stop until either we homo sapiens come to our senses, or we, too, are gone and can do no more damage. If we do come to our senses in time, that will happen one changed mind at a time.

(from Keynote to Second International Conference on Gross Happiness)

Do you see, it is all a design problem? For you designers here, here’s the crux of my message: It is very important to the future of humankind that any of you in design form a very clear understanding of “ethical design”—design for sustainability and commit to it for a lifetime. Truly, though, are we all designers.

A sustainable society into the indefinite future…depends totally and absolutely on a vast re-design triggered by an equally vast mind-shift—one mind at a time, one organization at a time, one technology at a time, one building, one company, one university curriculum, one community, one region, one industry at a time, until the entire system of which we are each a part has been transformed into a sustainable system, existing ethically in balance with Earth’s natural systems, upon which every living thing utterly depends—even civilization itself.

(from Keynote to Second International Conference on Gross Happiness)

On profit:

There is no more strategic issue for a company, or any organization, than its ultimate purpose. For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.

(from Keynote to Second International Conference on Gross Happiness)

On why:

I used to think that my job didn’t have anything to do with the environment. Then I realized that my job, as well as everyone else’s job, impacts the environment in some way. And now advocating for sustainability has become my No. 1 responsibility.

(via Grist)

On the business case:

There is no question in my mind, based on our experience at Interface, that there is a clear, compelling, and irrefutable case—business case—for sustainability; yet the skeptics remain. So, given the skeptics’ reluctance, even disdain, and unwillingness to accept my case, I have begun to challenge the skeptics to make their case. More precisely, I would like to hear the business case for:
Double glazing the planet with greenhouse gases; and while talking about the cost of preventing global warming, please address the cost of not preventing it.

• Destroying habitat for countless species, about whose connection to humankind, in many, even most cases, we haven’t a clue; ecological ignorance abounds in our culture. Paul Hawken says the average American can name 1,000 commercial brands and maybe 10 plants.
• Poisoning air, water and land;
• Disrupting pollination and photosynthesis (that ought to be a good one!);
• Over-fishing the oceans to the point of collapse;
• Destroying coral reefs, forests, and wetlands (the beginning of the food chain that leads to us at the other end !);
• Depleting or polluting aquifers upon which food production is so dependent;
• Destroying the life support systems of Earth.

As Paul asks, what is the business case for an economic system that says it is cheaper to destroy the earth than to take care of it? How did such a fantasy system that defies common sense even come to be? How did we—all of us—get swept up in its siren’s song.

What is the business case for destroying the basic infrastructure of civilization itself, the natural systems upon which everything depends, including the economy? For what economy can even exist without air, water, materials, energy, food, plus climate regulation, an ultra-violet radiation shield, pollination, seed dispersal, waste processing, nutrient cycling, water purification and distribution (natural filtration and the hydrologic cycle), soil creation and maintenance, flood and insect control – all supplied by nature and her natural systems. The economist would say, all these are externalities and do not count in the financial system? Talk about a flawed view of reality! Without any of them, there would be no economy in the first place? How can it be good business to externalize them and assume license to destroy them by arbitrarily saying they don’t count.

I am waiting with baited breath for the answers, so I can correct my errant ways. Of course, there are no answers, and therein lies the inevitability of sustainability. It’s only a question of how much pain before a growing sense of ethics gets us off the slippery slope and we opt for survival.

We’re keen to get the students to up their critical thinking so the last 20% is an “essay”.   Last semester I took the essay out on the grounds that a traditional essay doesn’t really fit the Web2.0 paradigm.  But I was disappointed in the level of critical analysis in the written work they did do – in their personal reflections and so on.   So the essay is back.  Sort of.

Here’s the brief:

You will complete a formal work in the area of the social implications of an aspect of communications technology.

Both the question and the form of this work will be individually negotiated between the student and Sam. Eg formal essay, research article, Wikipedia contribution, a radio feature (yes really, see sustainablelens.org).

You will write a short proposal that includes 200 words on your thoughts on each of four peer reviewed papers related to your topic area. The proposal must finish with an outline of your “essay”.

Students can present the work in any format that:

1. Supports the development of an argument with justification and evidence based examples.   In the proposal, students have to justify how this form provides a vehicle for creative and evidence based development of an argument.

2. Supports citation of at least four peer reviewed articles. APA6th referencing must be used (although appropriate to the form should be used, deviations from APA must be agreed beforehand).

3. Can be submitted via your wiki, webpage or blog. (ie if you perform a song, you’ll need to video it).

To give the students some guidance in the question, we worked up in class a set of question ideas:

How might Web2 principles promote democracy?

The marking schedule is also negotiable, although I don’t expect many to stray far from the default:

• Development of argument, justified 12 marks
• Content and style appropriate for agreed format (includes language, clarity, spelling). 5 marks
• Appropriated referenced 3 marks (APA6th unless otherwise agreed).

There is also a bonus 5 marks available for innovation in approach – I want to give credit for people pushing the boundaries.   Not entirely sure how to define this  (memo to self: “define x factor”).    I’ve fudged it at the moment by saying this component will be peer assessed.

Might work.  Or I might get 40 essays.  But at least I gave them the choice. Will keep you posted.

In this paper we propose a Sustainable Lens as the basis for a research agenda.  This Sustainable Lens could be an actual augmented reality headset, or it might be a way of describing how we see the world.  Between these two extremes is all the work being done in computing – whether or not explicitly “sustainable” computing, the same perspective is needed – the same questions need to be asked.

Sustainability requires a systems approach. People need to have awareness that their actions will have impacts. These impacts may be intended and unintended, across scales: temporal, spatial, social, and have positive and negative effects. They need to understand forms of relationships (hierarchies, partnerships, feedback) and that humans form part of a complex web. Systemic thinking emphasizes patterns, trends and feedback loops.

Scale is a recurring theme in sustainability – multiple scales of time and space nest around local contexts. A goal is to make the future seem more real, recouple costs of mitigation borne by current generation and benefit of avoided harm accruing to future generations.

In an earlier paper we described some initial requirements for a Sustainable Lens:

• See opportunities for sustainable practice skills
• Recognition of unseen elements
• Identify un/sustainabilityness of actions – that is recognise if something is unsustainable, or distinguish degrees of sustainability
• Present options and ways of framing alternatives

So, what else do we need to know? Here’s some questions to get us started:

1. How can our Sustainable Lens be able to operate on multiple scales of space and time simultaneously?
2. How can we develop systems explicitly account for both our ancestors and future generations?
3. How can a collaborative approach based on motivational interviewing be used to overcome barriers in behaviour change?
4. To what extent will solutions need to be tailored to individual situations?
5. How can we to communicate across these divides of understanding form an opportunity for collaboration?
6. How can support for the sustainable practitioner adapt to changing understandings?
7. How might we begin to describe sustainability in terms of patterns?
8. How can Sustainable Lens provide engaging, accessible and understandable interactions?
9. What would be the consequence of considering an basis of interaction that is a collaboration with the environment (rather than on, or about the environment)?
10. How can Sustainable Lens position human as actors rather than stressors?
11. How can Sustainable Lens combine human and biophysical information into a single coherent narrative?
12. describes coupled social-ecological space with social-ecological hotspots where multiple and diverse values are co-located with a biophysical resource).
13. How can Sustainable Lens allow people to ‘‘drill down’’ past the charisma (of the surface) and access the back stories – the researchers, management?
14. How can Sustainable Lens represent uncertainty?
15. How can Sustainable Lens support situational awareness – directing attention, integrating elements to understand meaning of critical elements, and considering understanding of possible future scenarios?
16. What is the nature of the complexity of models and engagement with degree of participation?
17. How can Sustainable Lens encourage and actively support sharing solutions and understandings?
18. How can we integrate and visualise data from multiple sources across multiple scales of space and time? What are the implications of doing this in real time and in participatory situations?
19. To what extent should we expose the models used?
20. What are the requirements for a code of ethics for such visualisations?
21. How can we make use of existing frameworks related sustainability fields: environmental management; decision making; behaviour change? (and so on).
22. Do emerging models such as social ontology provide a basis for ongoing development?
23. How can open modelling frameworks encourage an effective and efficient structure for collaborative sharing, reusing and critiquing of elements in a Sustainable Lens worldview?
24. How can Sustainable Lens support situations where there is no single right answer?
25. How can Sustainable Lens use make use of multiple understandings to improve understanding?
26. Should we move to a position where we accept that all technology development is inherently a value proposition?