SUSTAINABILITY

POLI 294Class 9: Commerce P. Brian Fisher

Agenda

Finish Education = sustainability Review Ecology of Commerce

Sustainability as Learning

Sustainability: First and Foremost

It is a “complex social learning process”

Multi-layered, multi-scaled, and multiplicity of issues

To address requires: Deep Learning Within and amongst the community Is a process no easy answers Process > results

Divergent Thinking and Development

3 Orders to Learning/Education

1st Order: Learning “about” Education about sustainability Theoretical and Conceptual framing of subject

2nd Order: Learning “for” Education for sustainability Applied experiential learning

3rd Order: Learning “is” Education is sustainability Embedded in the paradigm as “deep learning”

Sachs, Common Wealth, pp. 17-31

6. Environmental Challenges: Rapid econ growth (in a linear system) means unprecedented enviro destruction; climate change will intensify many of the challenges

I = P*A*T (IPAT equation) By 2050:

P = increase 40% (1.4 fold increase) A = increase 4 fold P * A = 6 fold increase I (env harm) = 6 times more destruction, if T is constant Technology works both ways: can protect or destroy

If world is already unsustainable, what will a 6 fold increase in the

destruction do? ** Based on this equation, two things must happen if we agree A

is necessary, reduce P (population) and make technology sustainable

Environmental Challenges in the 21st Century

Hawken, Ecology of Commerce

Review A Step Back…moments of transition in our lives End of Nature; Collapse – Civilizations from enviro reasons State of Earth Historical Drivers of Env Degradation: Pop growth, econ

growth, technology IPAT, Projections of our future (Sachs) American’s Perceptions – Paradox Environmental Movement – Death?! Ecological Analysis – Testing your connections “The Lorax Problem”: Individualization Fulfillment and Happiness = Sustainability Education = Sustainability (deep learning)

NOW: Systemic problems of businesses and capitalism and the myths of “progress” that support them

Hawken, Ecology of Commerce (1993)

Thesis: Biosphere is being destroyed by our industrial society and economic system, but same elements that destroy the biosphere—markets and gov’ts, are the solution (if can replace “greed”)

“I have come to believe that we in America and in the rest of the industrialized West do not know what business really is, or, therefore, what it can become.” (p1)

"The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy. Making money is, on its own terms, totally meaningless, an insufficient pursuit for the complex and decaying world we live in. We have reached an unsettling and portentous turning pt in industrial civilization.” (p1)

The current economic system is not "the inherent nature of business, nor the inevitable outcome of a free-market system. It is merely the result of the present commercial system's design and use."

Ecology vs Commerce “there is no polite way to say that business is destroying the

world.” (p3)

An oxymoron that speaks to the gap between how earth lives and how we now conduct our commercial lives.

“We don’t think of ecology and commerce as compatible subjects. While much of our current environmental policy seek a ‘balance’ between the needs of business and the needs of environment, common sense says there is only one critical balance and one set of needs: the dynamic, ever-changing interplay of the forces of life” (p3)

** Ecology of commerce is the unity of them into “one sustainable act of production and distribution that mimics and enhances natural processes” (p3)

A Teasing Irony

Gap between environment and business, ecology and economics

Industry suppresses our immune system Free market capitalism? Restorative economy Waste, income and capital, diversity

The Death of Birth

Transforming ecology is unavoidable. American culture to invasive weeds

What are we taking? Usurpation of planetary production Carrying capacity Species loss Self interest and the myth of overabundance

Death of Birth

Biodiversity loss is massive and widespread “Every natural system in the world today is in decline.” (p22)

Human systems exceeding carrying capacity (p24-6)

Econ System = “immature” system

“immature system” = aggressive & invasive weeds take over space…wasting energy, undermining diversity, with plants of lower quality and usefulness (p19)

Mature system = evolution from “growth” to high efficiency and resource-conserving “climax systems comprise an assoc of organisms that reach a state of equilibrium which leaves the habitat largely unchanged…they are more diverse, stable and complex communities, and are thus more resilient.”

David Wann: “the present American culture is still the bare field full of colonizing weeds, struggling toward something more sophisticated, interwoven and permanent. Until now, we’ve consistently chose the resource-hungry path of least resistance. (p20-1).

“Because richer northern countries do not see or experience the impact they have on their poorer southern nations, we do not realize what a powerful and destructive impact our demand on carrying capacity is having.” (p26)

The Creation of Waste

End-of-pipe cleanup Creation of waste is the root, Disposal is a

symptom Molecular waste. Bioaccumulation.

Biomagnification. Economic growth as a prerequisite for

environmental health? Redesign, Robèrt’s “Natural Step”, succession Natural Step: evolution of “sustainable” cellular

biology—self sustaining cycles where waste is cycled back see naturalstep.org

What we Need to Do

“having expropriated resources from the natural world in order to fuel a rather transient period of materialistic freedom, we must now restore no small measure of those resources and accept the limits and discipline inherent in that relationship. Until business does that, it will continue to be maladaptive and predatory.” (p6)

Today, the liner process of industrialization creates massive amts of waste and its grossly inefficient, resulting a decayed earth.

“the economics of restoration is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial economics separated production processes from the land, the land from people, and, ultimately, economic values from personal values…in a restorative economy, viability is determined by the ability to integrate with or replicate cyclical systems, in its means of production and distribution (p11).

Parking Lots and Potato Heads

Restoration, rejuvenation, innovation Interface modular carpeting Industrial Ecology Degradable products, reclaimable products of

service, parking lots of unsalables Responsibility

Hawken’s 8 Elements to Solve Enviro Crisis

1. Reduce energy/resource consumption by 80% in next half century

2. Secure, productive employment for all3. "Be self-organizing as opposed to regulated or

morally mandated.”4. Honor market principles5. Be more rewarding (than our present way of life)6. Exceed sustainability by restoring degraded

habitats and ecosystems to their fullest biological capacity.”

7. Rely on current income8. “Be fun and engaging, and strive for an aesthetic

outcome."

Story of Stuff

Annie Leonard, Story

Ecology of Commerce

Paul Hawken

Chapter by Chapter

A Teasing Irony

Gap between environment and business, ecology and economics

Industry suppresses our immune system Free market capitalism? Restorative economy Waste, income and capital, diversity

The Death of Birth

Transforming ecology is unavoidable. American culture to invasive weeds

What are we taking? Usurpation of planetary production Carrying capacity Species loss Self interest and the myth of

overabundance

The Creation of Waste

End-of-pipe cleanup Creation of waste is the root, Disposal is a

symptom Molecular waste. Bioaccumulation.

Biomagnification. Economic growth as a prerequisite for

environmental health? Redesign, Robèrt’s “Natural Step”,

succession Natural Step: evolution of “sustainable” cellular

biology—self sustaining cycles where waste is cycled back see naturalstep.org

Parking Lots and Potato Heads

Restoration, rejuvenation, innovation Interface modular carpeting Industrial Ecology Degradable products, reclaimable products of

service, parking lots of unsalables Responsibility

Pigou’s Solution

Prices, costs, market economy? The primary freedom is growth Industrialization Pigouvian taxes Higher costs to consumers? Cheapness threatens our integrity

The Size Thing

Multinational corporations, politics, money, power

Globalization GATT, WTO, environmental regs Enormity Corporations are the opposite of nature.

When an Ethic is not an Ethic

Growth addiction, indebtedness, stress Propaganda What is for sale in America is our welfare. Time Values, creating meaningful employment

Restoring the Guardian

A systemic problem Governance and commerce Reward those that internalize costs most Set standards for planning/developing new

business Green taxes. A shift from goods to bads Creativity

Pink Salmon and Green Fees

Efficiency Green fees: energy, farming, traffic, war Public utilities: publicly regulated, privately

managed, market-based Salmon utility? Low or no tariffs to most sustainable

nations

The Inestimable Gift of a Future

Resilience Carrying capacity, exemptionalist thinking,

Malthusianism The 29th day, exponential growth Q of life, increasing stratification Waste, shift to income not capital, diversity Favelas Democracy