Source: Leasing: A Step Toward Producer Responsibility
By: Bette K. Fishbein; Lorraine S. McGarry; Patricia S. Dillon; INFORM 2000
Synopsis: Leasing, if executed properly, has the potential to close the materials loop of production. Leasing explores how and offers case studies of companies with leasing programs already in place.
Reflection:
I had every intention of treating this resource much like I have previous ones, by applying it to that context with which I have the most experience, bikes. See, bikes are something of a paradox in the consideration of sustainability. On the one hand, they are a solution to so many of the problems with which we’re faced. Riding a bike to work addresses all of the following: physical and emotional health, traffic congestion, fossil fuel use, GHG emissions… I’m sure there are others, but those are the biggies. No question, riding bikes is a good thing.
On the other hand, bikes are a technology-driven industry, and we are as guilty as any of perpetrating planned obsolescence. Many, many years ago, bikes had one speed and you couldn’t coast. Then, you could coast. Then you could select from a few gears, then five, then ten. Now, you can ride a bike that has 30 different gears, or via a different mechanism, one that has a CVT, allowing you to select an INFINITE number of gears! Whoa! Life is good. Well, every time the bike industry added a gear, it made one of the previous generations obsolete, and a product doesn’t have to be obsolete for very long before the manufacturer stops supporting it. There are parts of a bike that wear out. On a timeline long enough, there will come a day when the parts required to keep an old bike working are simply no longer available. It is then a pretty wall-hanging. Or a boat anchor. Or garbage. It is no longer a usable bike. There is a class of cyclists, affectionately referred to as retro-grouches, for whom this seemingly inevitable progression is a continual source of aggravation. Why can’t we just make a bike that’ll last forever?
It was at this point I was going to construct Reality B, in which The Bike Company wasn’t in the business of producing and selling bikes, but in the business of leasing bikes as a service to those desiring to ride. I really struggled with this seemingly simple mental exercise, and a brief explanation will illustrate why and hopefully get me to a deeper understanding of how leasing fits into sustainability. In this reality, the variables that would make The Bike Company competitive would be durability, reliability, choice, and yes, performance, although it’s hard to say in which order those would be valued. It’s probably safe to assume that in Reality B that people will still value the things they valued before. The cyclist with buckets of disposable income is still going to look for the bike that performs best regardless of cost, and the cyclist who looks for the most durable and reliable product will use the service that can provide her with that. So the market doesn’t necessarily change. What changes?
The first thing that pops to mind is the bikes themselves. As a mechanic, I can personally attest that less expensive, lower performing bikes are harder to work on and require more attention. So, it stands to reason that the bikes available for lease will be of higher quality, creating a win-win situation for dealer and cyclist alike. My next question was, would it slow the pace of innovation? With current market incentives, planned obsolescence means bike companies are completely revamping their lines every three or four years (that’s an estimate based on anecdotal, personal evidence). As mentioned above, some of these changes involve adding gears, to which most cyclist reply, “whattya need all them gears for?” Non-bike examples would be things like increased horsepower in autos, steam cycles in washing machines, more memory in computers, etc. What do these have in common? I’d say they’re all examples of technological innovation we didn’t know we wanted until the companies showed it to us and told us we needed it. So is this innovation for the sake of innovation (and sales), or is it really adding to our quality of life? Good question, but I don’t want to wander too far astray.
Where were we? Yes, the effect of leasing on innovation. If I understood the resource correctly, this is where the difference between an operating vs. capital lease becomes important. As Leasing points out, only operating leases create the kind of market pressure/monetary incentives, by ensuring that the manufacturer retains ownership of the item after use, that can potentially close the loop on the production of goods. So going back to the bike example, from The Bike Company’s perspective, they want to be producing a product that retains value (as the proud owner of no less than six bikes, I can attest that they do not retain value; it never pays to sell). This could mean a bike that might be refurbished and re-leased, dismantled so the parts can be reused or recycled, etc. Again, the question of innovation pops up, but I think the point Dr. K made regarding one of my previous points is starting to sink in. Innovation isn’t entirely dependent on raw materials. If we want a high performance bike made out of the parts from older bikes, and people are willing to pay for it, we’ll make it happen.
And that’s kind of where I’ve left it. I still have a lot of questions about the philosophy of leasing. As a renter, one of my biggest worries is that I’m left with nothing tangible when I’ve fulfilled a lease and moved out. I’ve paid for the service of being sheltered, but I want something that’s mine. How does leasing other objects in our lives relate to that? Can leasing offer us the choice we’ve come to expect? If not, does it have a chance at success? I encourage any and all (not just the prof) to weigh in on this if you’d like.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Extended Product Responsibility
Source: Extended Product Responsibility
By: Beverley Thorpe, Iza Kruszewska and Alexandra McPherson of Clean Production Action. 2004
Synopsis: Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) is a transfer of responsibility from the consumer to the manufacturer regarding the disposal of goods when they (the products, not the producers) have outlived their useful lives.
Reflection:
Note: for the purpose of this post, I will be using the term “disposal” to refer to any process that happens to a product after it has outlived its useful life, from landfilling to recycling. I know, disposal has a lot of connotations. Tell me if you have a better term.
This is an odd subject for me. When EPR first came to my attention, I had two reactions. First, I thought it was a great idea. It is logical. It creates pressure to make products that perform well for a long time, which in turn decreases the overall amount of waste produced. It creates a more reliable supply of materials for recycling or re-purposing. As this resource so clearly states, “it puts the party with the greatest ability to impact the design of the product in charge of its disposal.” All of these are unquestionably good, yet in the back of my mind, there was some nagging, niggling detail upon which I could not quite put my finger. I was missing something, but what?
In order to answer that, we need to go all the way back to our discussion of planned obsolescence. This morning, I rode my bike to work. Riding to work is one of the most positive aspects of my life, made better by a variety of bikes, all of which rely on technology to make them lighter in weight and higher in performance. I am typing this on a three year old MacBook. It is not inaccurate to say my education would not be possible without it, and education holds a major stake in my future and my satisfaction or lack thereof. My point is, technology has made my life better, and I don’t know that my bikes would perform as well or my computer as reliably (sort of a laugh since I’m just recovering from a hard drive crash) if Cannondale and Apple were designing their products not to perform as well as possible, but to be easily and inexpensively disposed of. Hrmmmm.
In a recent conversation with a friend, we were talking about the relationship between morals and science. Without falling too deeply into that fascinating rabbit-hole, I was trying to make the case that moral and immoral have no subjective definitions, and that we need to start looking at systems and whether or not they work or don’t, i.e. are they sustainable, a question about which science has a lot to say. My point in this rambling is that, as much as it pains me to say it, nice bikes and fast computers may not be part of a system that works. Maybe we can have our cake and eat it too, but the sooner we wrap our heads around the possibility that that ain’t so, the better.
The flip side of that coin is acknowledging the benefits of a future in which we don’t need to worry about the problems associated with waste disposal, which are too numerous to list here (although our resource does a pretty good job) and which we’ve lived with for so long that to consider a future without them strains the imagination. In a good way.
All that being said, I am going to make a prediction. Right now, the world revolves around money and market forces. All things being equal, I believe people would purchase products designed specifically for ease of disposal. But all things are rarely equal. If Apple can’t make a fast computer that is also easily disposed of, they will not make ease of disposal a priority. Same goes for everything from cars to dishwashers. The upside to this seemingly pessimistic prediction is something I’ve mentioned before: we’re really good at innovation. I absolutely believe the eggheads at Apple are capable of making a computer that is both high-performing and easily disposed of. We just need to be careful to not fall into the trap of thinking we can purchase sustainability.
By: Beverley Thorpe, Iza Kruszewska and Alexandra McPherson of Clean Production Action. 2004
Synopsis: Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) is a transfer of responsibility from the consumer to the manufacturer regarding the disposal of goods when they (the products, not the producers) have outlived their useful lives.
Reflection:
Note: for the purpose of this post, I will be using the term “disposal” to refer to any process that happens to a product after it has outlived its useful life, from landfilling to recycling. I know, disposal has a lot of connotations. Tell me if you have a better term.
This is an odd subject for me. When EPR first came to my attention, I had two reactions. First, I thought it was a great idea. It is logical. It creates pressure to make products that perform well for a long time, which in turn decreases the overall amount of waste produced. It creates a more reliable supply of materials for recycling or re-purposing. As this resource so clearly states, “it puts the party with the greatest ability to impact the design of the product in charge of its disposal.” All of these are unquestionably good, yet in the back of my mind, there was some nagging, niggling detail upon which I could not quite put my finger. I was missing something, but what?
In order to answer that, we need to go all the way back to our discussion of planned obsolescence. This morning, I rode my bike to work. Riding to work is one of the most positive aspects of my life, made better by a variety of bikes, all of which rely on technology to make them lighter in weight and higher in performance. I am typing this on a three year old MacBook. It is not inaccurate to say my education would not be possible without it, and education holds a major stake in my future and my satisfaction or lack thereof. My point is, technology has made my life better, and I don’t know that my bikes would perform as well or my computer as reliably (sort of a laugh since I’m just recovering from a hard drive crash) if Cannondale and Apple were designing their products not to perform as well as possible, but to be easily and inexpensively disposed of. Hrmmmm.
In a recent conversation with a friend, we were talking about the relationship between morals and science. Without falling too deeply into that fascinating rabbit-hole, I was trying to make the case that moral and immoral have no subjective definitions, and that we need to start looking at systems and whether or not they work or don’t, i.e. are they sustainable, a question about which science has a lot to say. My point in this rambling is that, as much as it pains me to say it, nice bikes and fast computers may not be part of a system that works. Maybe we can have our cake and eat it too, but the sooner we wrap our heads around the possibility that that ain’t so, the better.
The flip side of that coin is acknowledging the benefits of a future in which we don’t need to worry about the problems associated with waste disposal, which are too numerous to list here (although our resource does a pretty good job) and which we’ve lived with for so long that to consider a future without them strains the imagination. In a good way.
All that being said, I am going to make a prediction. Right now, the world revolves around money and market forces. All things being equal, I believe people would purchase products designed specifically for ease of disposal. But all things are rarely equal. If Apple can’t make a fast computer that is also easily disposed of, they will not make ease of disposal a priority. Same goes for everything from cars to dishwashers. The upside to this seemingly pessimistic prediction is something I’ve mentioned before: we’re really good at innovation. I absolutely believe the eggheads at Apple are capable of making a computer that is both high-performing and easily disposed of. We just need to be careful to not fall into the trap of thinking we can purchase sustainability.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ecolabelling
Source: INTRODUCTION TO ECOLABELLING
By: GLOBAL ECOLABELLING NETWORK
Synopsis: Ecolabelling is the process of identifying goods and services according to their environmental impact assessed using (predominantly) life cycle analysis.
Reflection:
Recently, The Health Care Bill was passed. Contained therein was a provision that fast food purveyors must display calorie counts alongside menu items. The theory is that, with the obesity epidemic contributing considerably to health care costs, something must be done to empower people to lose weight. If they have all the information necessary to make healthy decisions, like calorie content, they’ll be less likely to select that Chipotle burrito with 1000 calories.
I’m skeptical.
I’m not sure how to say this tactfully, but here goes. Such attempts are based on the assumption that people will understand the information, will have the capacity to process it, and a value system that will lead them to make a sustainable decision. These assumptions simply are not true for a great number of people. For some, being obese is a happy tradeoff for a delicious and convenient meal. I fear the same will be true of ecolabels. For some, 500 horsepower is more important than fuel efficiency. For others, strawberries in January are more important than local and organic. There are thousands of these decisions to be made, and the assumption that what’s lead us astray is lack of information is shaky.
That said, the above isn’t a compelling reason not to try, and for the proportion of people out there for whom those assumptions are true, real change can be made, and it’s entirely plausible that such behavior could inspire and inform others to make sustainable decisions.
That is my greatest concern with this document, but it has many strong points, and a couple of other, smaller weaknesses. I like that the authors acknowledge the constraints of life cycle analysis. It is an involved process that takes time, and even when carried out with rigor, you are left with these six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other situations, e.g. in the bathroom I’m confronted with paper towels and electric hand dryers. Pulpwood is a sustainable resource. Cheap electricity is not. One needs to be disposed of, the other doesn’t. One has a relatively complicated mechanism that required raw materials and energy for manufacture, and it will wear out and need to be disposed of. The other has a simpler mechanism that will also wear out and require disposal. I could go on, but you get the point. These are not simple considerations, and this is just one example of thousands. So, we do the best with the best information we have, and we adapt to new information, a process discussed in the docoument.
The final strength of Intro to Ecolabelling is its acknowledgement of market forces. The argument can still be made that sustainable decisions are more expensive, the effect of which ranges from making a product less desirable to putting a product out of reach. If ecolabelling is to be part of the solution, it needs to acknowledge and account for this
By: GLOBAL ECOLABELLING NETWORK
Synopsis: Ecolabelling is the process of identifying goods and services according to their environmental impact assessed using (predominantly) life cycle analysis.
Reflection:
Recently, The Health Care Bill was passed. Contained therein was a provision that fast food purveyors must display calorie counts alongside menu items. The theory is that, with the obesity epidemic contributing considerably to health care costs, something must be done to empower people to lose weight. If they have all the information necessary to make healthy decisions, like calorie content, they’ll be less likely to select that Chipotle burrito with 1000 calories.
I’m skeptical.
I’m not sure how to say this tactfully, but here goes. Such attempts are based on the assumption that people will understand the information, will have the capacity to process it, and a value system that will lead them to make a sustainable decision. These assumptions simply are not true for a great number of people. For some, being obese is a happy tradeoff for a delicious and convenient meal. I fear the same will be true of ecolabels. For some, 500 horsepower is more important than fuel efficiency. For others, strawberries in January are more important than local and organic. There are thousands of these decisions to be made, and the assumption that what’s lead us astray is lack of information is shaky.
That said, the above isn’t a compelling reason not to try, and for the proportion of people out there for whom those assumptions are true, real change can be made, and it’s entirely plausible that such behavior could inspire and inform others to make sustainable decisions.
That is my greatest concern with this document, but it has many strong points, and a couple of other, smaller weaknesses. I like that the authors acknowledge the constraints of life cycle analysis. It is an involved process that takes time, and even when carried out with rigor, you are left with these six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other situations, e.g. in the bathroom I’m confronted with paper towels and electric hand dryers. Pulpwood is a sustainable resource. Cheap electricity is not. One needs to be disposed of, the other doesn’t. One has a relatively complicated mechanism that required raw materials and energy for manufacture, and it will wear out and need to be disposed of. The other has a simpler mechanism that will also wear out and require disposal. I could go on, but you get the point. These are not simple considerations, and this is just one example of thousands. So, we do the best with the best information we have, and we adapt to new information, a process discussed in the docoument.
The final strength of Intro to Ecolabelling is its acknowledgement of market forces. The argument can still be made that sustainable decisions are more expensive, the effect of which ranges from making a product less desirable to putting a product out of reach. If ecolabelling is to be part of the solution, it needs to acknowledge and account for this
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
A Citizen's Guide to Zero Waste
Source: A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO ZERO WASTE A UNITED STATES / CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE
By Paul Connett and Bill Sheehan October 2001
Synopsis: Outlines the concepts of zero waste, steps to get there, and case studies of success stories.
Reflecton:
Not long ago, when I was hired on as the service manager of the local bike shop, I was concomitantly considering a thesis project for this degree. I had the idea that turning The Route into a zero-waste bike shop would make for a great project. I was stymied by three items: tires, innertubes, and non-recyclable plastic packaging. I had ideas for every other source of waste, from scrap metal to the lunches left so long in the fridge that they snapped at you if you got too close. Some of those solutions were more creative than others, and only time would have shown them to be sustainable or not. Well, things change, and the zero waste bike shop didn’t happen, but it was a great thought experiment, forcing me to contemplate waste differently than ever before. Mostly, my conclusion was that waste management would be most effective if it was happening way, way up the stream. I’ll try to get back to that thought before I leave this post.
Today, while rehearsing the route I’m hoping to ride to work tomorrow, I was struck by a minor epiphany. It would have hurt if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet. HA! No, the thought I had regarding waste management was that we are trammeled by lethargy and/or momentum (potential PhD thesis and/or good conversation for over a beer: are these different ways of stating the same phenomenon? Why or why not?). Despite a great desire to do so, I did not make the time to look up recycling statistics, but I know participation drops off the more complicated the system of sorting, i.e. single-sort systems experience greater participation than two and three stream systems. People don’t want to have to think about their waste, where it goes, or what happens to it once there. Furthermore, and related to momentum, we have been dealing with a system that has enabled this mindset for long enough that to change it can seem impossible. Zero waste?! Double ha!
Sorry, it’s getting late, and I get a little punchy when I’m tired. I have a point. If we are going to achieve zero waste (another question: Is zero waste necessary for sustainability?) it is my informed opinion that lethargy and momentum are the greatest hurdles which need to be overcome. How do we do that? The Citizen’s Guide actually addresses this very question.
What was the stimulus that precipitated the decline in popularity of SUVs? For increased interest in alternative energy initiatives? For keeping organic produce from overtaking the market? Money. In each of these cases, a sound argument could be made that the most important (though not the only important) variable is money. It is the variable around which the developed world revolves. I don’t see any reason why waste management would be any different from the above examples.
There are a couple of initiative mentioned in the Citizen’s Guide that use money as a motivator. I loved the idea of the garbage lottery. It’s novel, it’s marketable, it’s relatively easy to enforce, and in the case mentioned, it’s been proven effective. Let’s do it. I also like the pay-as-you-throw initiative. It’s intuitive and logical, and the infrastructure for implementation could be pretty simple (charging different prices for different sized waste containers). Again, let’s do it. Everywhere.
And, I would be remiss if I didn’t address some of the philosophical implications herein. “Nature makes no waste; waste is a human invention.” What a beautiful (and accurate, I might add) sentiment. As I get older, I reflect more and more on the things I’ve learned while pursuing outdoor activities. One of the things you learn on a backpacking trip is to waste as little as possible, because waste is more weight resting squarely on your back. It forces you to reconsider the very concept of waste. You start figuring out ways of turning ordinary objects into multitaskers. You rinse your dishes and drink the water, because if I packed that calorie in, you can bet I’m not dumping it out on the ground. Backpacking is also a great way of making you consider the issue of waste from an upstream perspective, because if you make waste, you’re packing it out. After dinner on night one is not the time to realize that polycarbonate egg holder wasn’t such a great idea. In the bike shop, I quickly realized that, once the product was in my shop, there was very little I could do about the packaging if it wasn't recyclable. If that waste is to be eliminated, it needs to happen before it gets to me. My point is that we (the developed world) have a unique perspective on waste, and that perspective needs to be addressed at some point in this discussion. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Sustainability lies in changed minds.
By Paul Connett and Bill Sheehan October 2001
Synopsis: Outlines the concepts of zero waste, steps to get there, and case studies of success stories.
Reflecton:
Not long ago, when I was hired on as the service manager of the local bike shop, I was concomitantly considering a thesis project for this degree. I had the idea that turning The Route into a zero-waste bike shop would make for a great project. I was stymied by three items: tires, innertubes, and non-recyclable plastic packaging. I had ideas for every other source of waste, from scrap metal to the lunches left so long in the fridge that they snapped at you if you got too close. Some of those solutions were more creative than others, and only time would have shown them to be sustainable or not. Well, things change, and the zero waste bike shop didn’t happen, but it was a great thought experiment, forcing me to contemplate waste differently than ever before. Mostly, my conclusion was that waste management would be most effective if it was happening way, way up the stream. I’ll try to get back to that thought before I leave this post.
Today, while rehearsing the route I’m hoping to ride to work tomorrow, I was struck by a minor epiphany. It would have hurt if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet. HA! No, the thought I had regarding waste management was that we are trammeled by lethargy and/or momentum (potential PhD thesis and/or good conversation for over a beer: are these different ways of stating the same phenomenon? Why or why not?). Despite a great desire to do so, I did not make the time to look up recycling statistics, but I know participation drops off the more complicated the system of sorting, i.e. single-sort systems experience greater participation than two and three stream systems. People don’t want to have to think about their waste, where it goes, or what happens to it once there. Furthermore, and related to momentum, we have been dealing with a system that has enabled this mindset for long enough that to change it can seem impossible. Zero waste?! Double ha!
Sorry, it’s getting late, and I get a little punchy when I’m tired. I have a point. If we are going to achieve zero waste (another question: Is zero waste necessary for sustainability?) it is my informed opinion that lethargy and momentum are the greatest hurdles which need to be overcome. How do we do that? The Citizen’s Guide actually addresses this very question.
What was the stimulus that precipitated the decline in popularity of SUVs? For increased interest in alternative energy initiatives? For keeping organic produce from overtaking the market? Money. In each of these cases, a sound argument could be made that the most important (though not the only important) variable is money. It is the variable around which the developed world revolves. I don’t see any reason why waste management would be any different from the above examples.
There are a couple of initiative mentioned in the Citizen’s Guide that use money as a motivator. I loved the idea of the garbage lottery. It’s novel, it’s marketable, it’s relatively easy to enforce, and in the case mentioned, it’s been proven effective. Let’s do it. I also like the pay-as-you-throw initiative. It’s intuitive and logical, and the infrastructure for implementation could be pretty simple (charging different prices for different sized waste containers). Again, let’s do it. Everywhere.
And, I would be remiss if I didn’t address some of the philosophical implications herein. “Nature makes no waste; waste is a human invention.” What a beautiful (and accurate, I might add) sentiment. As I get older, I reflect more and more on the things I’ve learned while pursuing outdoor activities. One of the things you learn on a backpacking trip is to waste as little as possible, because waste is more weight resting squarely on your back. It forces you to reconsider the very concept of waste. You start figuring out ways of turning ordinary objects into multitaskers. You rinse your dishes and drink the water, because if I packed that calorie in, you can bet I’m not dumping it out on the ground. Backpacking is also a great way of making you consider the issue of waste from an upstream perspective, because if you make waste, you’re packing it out. After dinner on night one is not the time to realize that polycarbonate egg holder wasn’t such a great idea. In the bike shop, I quickly realized that, once the product was in my shop, there was very little I could do about the packaging if it wasn't recyclable. If that waste is to be eliminated, it needs to happen before it gets to me. My point is that we (the developed world) have a unique perspective on waste, and that perspective needs to be addressed at some point in this discussion. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. Sustainability lies in changed minds.
The Biggest of Questions?
No, "What is the meaning of life?" is probably the biggest question, but the question posed in the below link is pretty big. And the answer just might be a whole lot more important.
A Gun To Our Head: Are Technological Societies Suicidal?
A Gun To Our Head: Are Technological Societies Suicidal?
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Sustainable Development Reporting
Source: Sustainable Development Reporting, Striking the Balance
By Bert Heemskerk, Pasquale Pistorio, Martin Scicluna; World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Synopsis: “The main purpose of this report is to help companies to understand the added value that reporting can bring them. We also provide guidance, both to the initiated and the uninitiated, on how to report, thus complementing other initiatives which guide companies on what to report.” (foreword)
Reflection:
My apologies for the dearth of posts recently. Allow me an explanation (I promise it’s related to sustainability). I started a new job this week. I’m not going to advertise for whom, as I don’t know the ethics of disclosing business practices, and it is this company’s business practices that have me all excited (I’ll also say this: nothing disclosed herein will be a secret. In fact, I think it’s all on our website). A few examples: They are profitable. In fact, in these difficult economic times, they have been busy enough and profitable enough to expand. It may be obvious that a sustainable business must also be profitable, but it is so important it bears repeating. They are concerned about the environment. I don’t think much harm can come of telling you they are in the bike industry (given my interests, you might’ve guessed that anyway). Bikes are not guilt free. I own six or seven of them, the production of which consumed raw materials and a lot of energy. I justify this excessive consumption by riding one of them to work as often as possible. But there are few products out there that can be considered solutions on the scale of bikes. Related to both expansion and the environment, their newest buildings are LEED Gold certified. They own the largest solar array in the upper Midwest. They take care of their people, offering competitive wages and benefits and a dog-of-the-day program, in which employees can sign up to bring their pets to work. Anyway, my point is not to brag but to… No, my point is to brag. My new company is awesome, and I am proud to be a part of it. On to reporting!
I promised a connection, and here it is: my new company is clearly on the right path. I don’t yet know where the drive towards sustainable business comes from, and I don’t know who we’re telling about it. So, when reading resources such as Sustainable Development Reporting, I’m applying it to my new place of business. I can’t help it; it’s where my brain wants to go, and I’m taking that as a good sign. Because the fact is, we’re not going to single-handedly revolutionize the bike industry, or the business world, or the world-world. Problems are too big and we’re too small. And that, I suppose, is the impetus behind Sustainable Development Reporting. Our issues and solutions need to be qualified, quantified, scrutinized, and communicated. Furthermore, since these are global issues and we’re moving increasingly toward a globalized economy, there must exist standards so we can all get on the same page.
Regarding the last sentence. What do we mean by standards? Who is we? What is the same page? I’m not sure we have the best answers to these questions yet, although I think people would increasingly agree we’re all in this together, so we is everybody, all people, and by extension the systems upon which we depend. “Standards” and “same page” are a lot more controversial, and books, papers, and PhD theses have been written studying those concepts. But, like so many of the concepts and processes we’ve talked about, reporting is going to be evolutionary. Best practices will emerge, and those will be modified to get better.
Regarding Sustainable Development Reporting specifically, I found the document to be complete and I could certainly envision its utility in my future world-saving endeavors. Heck, maybe my new job and this document will lead to some kind of project to get me a little closer to those additional letters after my name.
By Bert Heemskerk, Pasquale Pistorio, Martin Scicluna; World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Synopsis: “The main purpose of this report is to help companies to understand the added value that reporting can bring them. We also provide guidance, both to the initiated and the uninitiated, on how to report, thus complementing other initiatives which guide companies on what to report.” (foreword)
Reflection:
My apologies for the dearth of posts recently. Allow me an explanation (I promise it’s related to sustainability). I started a new job this week. I’m not going to advertise for whom, as I don’t know the ethics of disclosing business practices, and it is this company’s business practices that have me all excited (I’ll also say this: nothing disclosed herein will be a secret. In fact, I think it’s all on our website). A few examples: They are profitable. In fact, in these difficult economic times, they have been busy enough and profitable enough to expand. It may be obvious that a sustainable business must also be profitable, but it is so important it bears repeating. They are concerned about the environment. I don’t think much harm can come of telling you they are in the bike industry (given my interests, you might’ve guessed that anyway). Bikes are not guilt free. I own six or seven of them, the production of which consumed raw materials and a lot of energy. I justify this excessive consumption by riding one of them to work as often as possible. But there are few products out there that can be considered solutions on the scale of bikes. Related to both expansion and the environment, their newest buildings are LEED Gold certified. They own the largest solar array in the upper Midwest. They take care of their people, offering competitive wages and benefits and a dog-of-the-day program, in which employees can sign up to bring their pets to work. Anyway, my point is not to brag but to… No, my point is to brag. My new company is awesome, and I am proud to be a part of it. On to reporting!
I promised a connection, and here it is: my new company is clearly on the right path. I don’t yet know where the drive towards sustainable business comes from, and I don’t know who we’re telling about it. So, when reading resources such as Sustainable Development Reporting, I’m applying it to my new place of business. I can’t help it; it’s where my brain wants to go, and I’m taking that as a good sign. Because the fact is, we’re not going to single-handedly revolutionize the bike industry, or the business world, or the world-world. Problems are too big and we’re too small. And that, I suppose, is the impetus behind Sustainable Development Reporting. Our issues and solutions need to be qualified, quantified, scrutinized, and communicated. Furthermore, since these are global issues and we’re moving increasingly toward a globalized economy, there must exist standards so we can all get on the same page.
Regarding the last sentence. What do we mean by standards? Who is we? What is the same page? I’m not sure we have the best answers to these questions yet, although I think people would increasingly agree we’re all in this together, so we is everybody, all people, and by extension the systems upon which we depend. “Standards” and “same page” are a lot more controversial, and books, papers, and PhD theses have been written studying those concepts. But, like so many of the concepts and processes we’ve talked about, reporting is going to be evolutionary. Best practices will emerge, and those will be modified to get better.
Regarding Sustainable Development Reporting specifically, I found the document to be complete and I could certainly envision its utility in my future world-saving endeavors. Heck, maybe my new job and this document will lead to some kind of project to get me a little closer to those additional letters after my name.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Planning For Sustainability
Source: Planning for Sustainability, A Starter Guide
By: Alaya Boisvert, Pong Leung, Kim Mackrael, Chad Park and Mike Purcell; The Natural Step Canada; 2009
Reflection:
Those in the Sustainable Community Development program here at UWRF are familiar with The Natural Step (TNS). It’s a system/paradigm introduced in the first class we take. I don’t think it’s the only approach to sustainability, but it’s as good a place to start as any. Since I’m far more familiar with the concepts in this document, I’ll take this opportunity go give you what I see as the highlights of TNS.
The first is the four conditions a system must meet in order to be sustainable. I’ve hinted at and alluded to them in other posts, but it’s worth it to lay them out here:
In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing...
...concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust,
...concentrations of substances produced by society,
...degradation by physical means,
and, in that society...
...people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs
When considering these, I like to think of domestic analogies to put them in perspective. The first two state basically, if we make a mess of our house, we still have to live in it. If we make a big enough mess, it’s going to be toxic and kill us. The third is related. If we don’t take care of our house, it’s going to stop protecting us and, eventually, it will fall down. The last is perhaps the most oft-overlooked aspect of sustainability. We all have a survival instinct. It’s a lot stronger than we suspect. If it comes down to surviving today or worrying about sustainability tomorrow, we’re going to survive today, even if that means chopping down rainforests and dumping raw sewage into rivers.
The rest of the document lays out how you’d apply that to a given organization. The highlight of this is TNS’s ABCD Planning Process: Awareness, Baseline analysis, Compelling vision, Down to action. What I like about this is their emphasis on developing a vision and then working toward that vision. It seems this is backward from how changes normally occur and would prevent a lot of unintended consequences.
Perhaps the greatest strength of TNS is a combination of the above. You could pick apart the system conditions for sustainability, although they are so simple, and rooted so firmly in laws of nature that it would not be easy, and there are certainly other ways of implementing change than the ABCD approach, but taken an a system, from Business As Usual to a sustainable business, TNS is a straightforward path that does an excellent job of adapting to different situations. Now, if you’re a forward thinking organization with the foresight to hire a sustainability savant such as myself, that may not be such a big deal. But, if you’re new to the sustainability thing and want a relatively simple way to get there, TNS makes it about as straightforward as possible.
By: Alaya Boisvert, Pong Leung, Kim Mackrael, Chad Park and Mike Purcell; The Natural Step Canada; 2009
Reflection:
Those in the Sustainable Community Development program here at UWRF are familiar with The Natural Step (TNS). It’s a system/paradigm introduced in the first class we take. I don’t think it’s the only approach to sustainability, but it’s as good a place to start as any. Since I’m far more familiar with the concepts in this document, I’ll take this opportunity go give you what I see as the highlights of TNS.
The first is the four conditions a system must meet in order to be sustainable. I’ve hinted at and alluded to them in other posts, but it’s worth it to lay them out here:
In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing...
...concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust,
...concentrations of substances produced by society,
...degradation by physical means,
and, in that society...
...people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs
When considering these, I like to think of domestic analogies to put them in perspective. The first two state basically, if we make a mess of our house, we still have to live in it. If we make a big enough mess, it’s going to be toxic and kill us. The third is related. If we don’t take care of our house, it’s going to stop protecting us and, eventually, it will fall down. The last is perhaps the most oft-overlooked aspect of sustainability. We all have a survival instinct. It’s a lot stronger than we suspect. If it comes down to surviving today or worrying about sustainability tomorrow, we’re going to survive today, even if that means chopping down rainforests and dumping raw sewage into rivers.
The rest of the document lays out how you’d apply that to a given organization. The highlight of this is TNS’s ABCD Planning Process: Awareness, Baseline analysis, Compelling vision, Down to action. What I like about this is their emphasis on developing a vision and then working toward that vision. It seems this is backward from how changes normally occur and would prevent a lot of unintended consequences.
Perhaps the greatest strength of TNS is a combination of the above. You could pick apart the system conditions for sustainability, although they are so simple, and rooted so firmly in laws of nature that it would not be easy, and there are certainly other ways of implementing change than the ABCD approach, but taken an a system, from Business As Usual to a sustainable business, TNS is a straightforward path that does an excellent job of adapting to different situations. Now, if you’re a forward thinking organization with the foresight to hire a sustainability savant such as myself, that may not be such a big deal. But, if you’re new to the sustainability thing and want a relatively simple way to get there, TNS makes it about as straightforward as possible.
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