By Putt Del Pino, Levinson and Larsen; World Resources Institute; 2006
Synopsis: Accepting that anthropogenic climate change is real and is a problem that can be addressed, controlling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is the very first and possibly most important step in assuaging the potentially catastrophic consequences. This document lays out the process of doing that, from background on ACC to planning and developing your GHG inventory to tools for managing emissions.
Reflection:
Preface: I’ve been experiencing a great deal of cognitive dissonance re: ACC lately. That experience doesn’t really pertain to this document at the tree level, but it does on a forest level, so I’m bringing it up. Also, it’s been grinding on me and I feel like venting.
As stated in my intro, anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is a foregone conclusion for me. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion for everybody, including some of my family members. I normally don’t have the patience to discuss this issue, but for family, I’ve made an exception, and I find myself paying attention to and investigating some things I normally wouldn’t. This leaves me deeply troubled.
I’m not troubled because it’s possible we’re wrong about ACC. Could there be better news than to hear our current way of life doesn’t have the disastrous consequences some of us think it does? What troubles me is how this attacks my empirical worldview, deeply rooted in the scientific method. In my worldview, we don’t know anything until it’s experimentally verified and replicated. Well, it turns out there is scientific data out there that directly refutes many of the claims made by pro-ACC scientists. Without going to the trouble of reading all the source documents myself, it seems we (superficially?) have equally valid and totally contradictory data; data generated by the rock of my worldview, the scientific method. So we have two or more claims, all based on the scientific method, and not all of them can be right. Any way you cut it, it calls into question the scientific method. So, if the scientific method is fallible, how do I know anything? (Note: In my experience, questions of epistemology are best discussed over a pint of stout. Any takers?)
Coincidentally enough, this morning I listened to a reassuring Science Friday podcast. It seems it is possible the above cognitive dissonance is caused not by a flawed scientific method, but by a flawed system of reporting and/or dissemination of information (admittedly, dissemination of info is part of the scientific method, but not at the level talked about in this podcast). This was reassuring but in little way does it help me find cognitive consonance; as much as I wish otherwise, I don’t have the resources to study the scientific journals myself. So where am I left? I am not religious, but there is wisdom in Pascal’s Wager. We have everything to gain and little to lose if we take action to mitigate ACC. On the other hand, if we choose to not accept ACC, do nothing, and it turns out we were wrong…
On to GHG emission inventory and management. Rather than sharply criticize or glowingly praise this particular resource (it’s not a resource that lends itself to either), I’m going to attempt to inventory my personal GHG emissions in the same way a business or organization might. My reason for doing this is manifold. First, in my daydreams about corporate salvation, I’m often using tools like this. The depth of knowledge gained from reading and taking notes pales in comparison to the depth of knowledge gained by using and doing. Second, as well as I think I live my life, I am not so arrogant as to believe I couldn’t do better. Seems like inventorying my GHG emissions would be a nice step in that direction. Note: I won’t be taking this to the same level as a business would, simply because accuracy takes time I don’t have. This means many steps will be easier and some will be harder. Last, you reading about me managing my GHG emissions is more interesting than reading my notes. You’re welcome.
Step one is easy: assign resources. For a business, that would mean selecting personnel and allotting a budget; for me, it means me. Two, we begin the inventory by establishing its boundaries i.e. what are we going to include in the inventory? For a business, that would mean selecting business units, their activities, and the portion of those activities/emissions for which the business is going to consider itself responsible. For me, it’s me, doing what I do. Next, we categorize our emission-causing activities to decide which will be included in the inventory. This means looking at direct emissions, indirect emissions, and the concept of “scope,” and it’s at this point the process becomes similar for the business and me, so I’ll stop pointing out the differences unless they’re particularly important. The most important of these important differences concerns ownership of the facilities responsible for emissions, and I won’t get into this because it’s boring and I’m not sure I fully understand it.
Personally, Scope 1, direct emissions are simple because I live in a rented apartment in a building that uses centralized, hot water heat. Thus, my only Scope 1 emission is from vehicular travel. Scope 2 would include indirect emissions from the heat and electricity I purchase and consume. There are also Scope 3, indirect emissions that are complicated by leases. I can’t quite decide if the electricity and heat I’m consuming are Scope 2 or Scope 3, but it doesn’t matter as this guide requires me to include both. Last are Scope 3, indirect emissions from sources not owned or controlled by me, third-party production or manufacture of materials and resources used by me, outsourced activities, etc. This guide doesn’t require these emissions be accounted for, but since they’re a large portion of my personal emissions, I will, and you could really go deep here if you wanted. As the guide states, “Scope 3 is a very broad category of emission-causing activities that can cover just about every business or product to which your company is connected, however tangentially.” For my food and daily consumables, do I include the fuel used to transport it from field to market? I eat beef. Do I include bovine flatus? I purchase and ride bikes. Do I include emissions from their production? How about the CO2 I exhale while riding? There is an interesting distinction made in the guide. For some of these categories, whether or not you report them depends on how easily the source of emissions can be quantified and how large its proportion of overall emissions. This isn’t as simplistic as it sounds. It’s a logical assumption that the more difficult a source of emissions is to quantify, and the less obvious it is as a source, the less responsible I am for it.
OK, so in my personal inventory, I’m going to include emissions from personal vehicular transportation and the electricity and heat I purchase and use. On a theoretical level, I think it’s valuable to consider emissions from transport of goods used and waste produced, more so for a business that is consuming many times what I do personally, but these emissions are also going to be relatively less and much more difficult to quantify. I’ll continue to eat local and organic whenever possible, but I’m not going to figure out how much emissions are saved by doing so.
For vehicular travel, quantifying is as simple as looking at receipts for gas purchases for a given length of time. I don’t have my receipts, but I drive two, sometimes three days a week and I estimate I fill my tank twice a month. Ol’ Cleo (that’s my ’97 VW Golf) has, I think, a 13 gallon tank. To be conservative, I’ll estimate I use 30 gallons of gasoline a month, and since I rarely have passengers, all of that is on me. I also estimate I travel by plane once per year, and it would be a simple matter to calculate an average distance per year traveled by plane. To be accurate, I would have to know the make, model, and efficiency of the planes on which I’d traveled, but it could be done.
Heat is more difficult, as my building uses central hot water heat, but a call to the super or management company could probably get me the volume of fuel used and the building’s occupancy, so it’s simple arithmetic to figure out my portion of emissions from heat. Electricity is easy, as I live alone and get a monthly statement that records kilowatt/hours (kWh) used.
OK, we know what we’re paying attention to and how we’re going to measure it. Now we need something to which we can compare, our base year. Some of this selection will depend on availability of data. Since I’ve move around a lot and don’t keep receipts and statements, if I was serious about this, I would probably have to collect data for a year and use that as my base year. Businesses would be better about hanging on to documents, and things have gotten easier with access to online statements and such.
Now we have our data, but it’s not in units that are usable for calculating emissions. I know how much gas I use, but I don’t know how many pounds of CO2 I produced. For that conversion, we use an emission factor and we end up with the following equation: activity data * emission factor = GHG emission. Emission factors are complicated beyond the scope of this little exercise, so I’m not going to go further with them. Suffice it to say they “are published by various entities such as local, state, or national government entities and intergovernmental organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and are frequently updated, so it is important to use the most up-to-date and relevant” (page 38). Armed with activity data and the appropriate emission factors, you can calculate your GHG emissions. Note: there are several calculation tools based on the power of the Excel spreadsheet, and in many cases, will be faster and more convenient to use, but their use should not be mindless. Also, looking at the equations themselves can be a powerful tool in altering behavior. We can directly control only one of those variables: activity data. We can travel fewer miles. We can indirectly control the emission factor by selecting a mode of transportation that has a smaller factor. Those are the only ways to reduce emissions.
The last step is the actual management of emissions, and we start with goal setting, and those goals will depend on the base year. Since I selected what I feel is an “average” year for myself, and since my intent is to decrease my emissions, my goal will be emissions less than my base year. How much less depends on several factors. For a business, it could be dictated by legislation, feasibility, or other reasons I can’t think of right now because I’m completely hopped up on caffeine and low blood sugar. For me personally, I would follow an experimental approach. Let’s say I arbitrarily select 10% reduction. I then find out a 10% reduction is feasible or not, and I can alter future goals to be more realistic. This approach is probably not realistic for a business.
Actual reductions on a personal level are the realm of Oprah and Real Simple magazine: install compact fluorescent lightbulbs, turn down the thermostat, take alternative transportation to work one day a week, etc. There are business analogs to these, and the guide does a good job of covering them. Often this is where we hear talk of “low-hanging fruit.” Reduce emissions through the easiest paths possible to start.
For a business, the final step will likely be reporting all of the above, especially if its goals were set because of regulatory legislation, but also because stakeholders should be interested in efforts like this. My reporting consists of making my friends feel bad by broadcasting at the slightest provocation that I ride my bike to work. I’m a hit at parties.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Codes, Standards, and Frameworks
Synopsis: A compilation of codes, standards, and frameworks directly and indirectly related to sustainable business practices including:
Global Compact
UN Human Rights Norms for Business
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines
AA1000 Assurance Standard
SA8000
IS014001
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Reflction: Like my post on Environmental Management Systems, this isn’t really a document for the layperson, and since I cleverly avoided both scathing criticism and deep reflection of that document by escaping into a daydream (albeit a daydream that stayed on point), and since I’m assuming that post used up my Get Out of Jail Free card re: posts lacking deep criticism or reflection, this post will be both harshly critical and deeply reflective. As such, it’s going to be boring.
OK then, for those stalwart readers sticking around, this is how it’s gonna go down. My first plan was to go through the list of codes, standards, and frameworks in the order in which they appear in the synopsis. For each, I would highlight issues and questions I found most important. After finishing the document, I’ve come up with a different plan. Each of these standards, codes, and/or frameworks is a tool, and as with any tool, there is an appropriate one for the job at hand. Without knowing the job at hand, it’s impossible to say which tool is the right one. As I read, I could envision application of some and not of others. Part of this is that this resource doesn’t contain details on the highlighted documents e.g. for ISO14001, it doesn’t explain how a business would create and implement an EMS in compliance with ISO14001, but explains why the ISO14001 was created, how it is operationalized, examples of who is in compliance, etc. Another reason is that many of these affect behavior and policy at a level I don’t understand, like legal requirements.
So, what am I taking from this resource? There were several things that stood out to me, including the Dow Jones Sustainable Indexes (DJSI). What I like about the DJSI is that it is a stepping stone from Big Business-as-usual to sustainable business practices. The fact is, if sustainable business practices or businesses using sustainable practices cannot be proven profitable to stakeholders, we’re sunk. As the resource states, the DJSI is an attempt at “mainstreaming sustainability concepts into investor decision making.”
The ISO14001 was interesting if for no other reason that it has been widely adopted and is well-recognized. Even I had heard of it before this resource (although it turns out I knew little about it). Like it or not, that kind of recognition makes it a powerful tool for marketing to the masses. If your company is ISO14001 certified and you don’t make that a selling point for your products or services, you’re doing yourself a disservice. For that matter, compliance with and/or membership to any of these should be viewed as a marketable business trait.
I see the GRI Guidelines as a powerful tool for businesses, especially in light of the global economy. Accountability, reporting, and transparency are all important parts of the movement toward sustainable business, and having a set of standards recognized worldwide makes direct comparisons that much easier.
Conclusion: This document will best be used as a starting point, since as I mentioned earlier, the actual content of these documents isn’t discussed in detail. In that respect, it will be useful. As my brother, who is an engineer once said, education isn’t so much about knowing stuff, as it is knowing where to look stuff up. I see myself working with other staff members of an organization to determine which of these guidelines we’re already following, which fit with our current mission, and which are particularly pertinent in whatever field we find ourselves. Once we’ve figured that out, we can go to those documents to work out the details.
Global Compact
UN Human Rights Norms for Business
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines
AA1000 Assurance Standard
SA8000
IS014001
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Reflction: Like my post on Environmental Management Systems, this isn’t really a document for the layperson, and since I cleverly avoided both scathing criticism and deep reflection of that document by escaping into a daydream (albeit a daydream that stayed on point), and since I’m assuming that post used up my Get Out of Jail Free card re: posts lacking deep criticism or reflection, this post will be both harshly critical and deeply reflective. As such, it’s going to be boring.
OK then, for those stalwart readers sticking around, this is how it’s gonna go down. My first plan was to go through the list of codes, standards, and frameworks in the order in which they appear in the synopsis. For each, I would highlight issues and questions I found most important. After finishing the document, I’ve come up with a different plan. Each of these standards, codes, and/or frameworks is a tool, and as with any tool, there is an appropriate one for the job at hand. Without knowing the job at hand, it’s impossible to say which tool is the right one. As I read, I could envision application of some and not of others. Part of this is that this resource doesn’t contain details on the highlighted documents e.g. for ISO14001, it doesn’t explain how a business would create and implement an EMS in compliance with ISO14001, but explains why the ISO14001 was created, how it is operationalized, examples of who is in compliance, etc. Another reason is that many of these affect behavior and policy at a level I don’t understand, like legal requirements.
So, what am I taking from this resource? There were several things that stood out to me, including the Dow Jones Sustainable Indexes (DJSI). What I like about the DJSI is that it is a stepping stone from Big Business-as-usual to sustainable business practices. The fact is, if sustainable business practices or businesses using sustainable practices cannot be proven profitable to stakeholders, we’re sunk. As the resource states, the DJSI is an attempt at “mainstreaming sustainability concepts into investor decision making.”
The ISO14001 was interesting if for no other reason that it has been widely adopted and is well-recognized. Even I had heard of it before this resource (although it turns out I knew little about it). Like it or not, that kind of recognition makes it a powerful tool for marketing to the masses. If your company is ISO14001 certified and you don’t make that a selling point for your products or services, you’re doing yourself a disservice. For that matter, compliance with and/or membership to any of these should be viewed as a marketable business trait.
I see the GRI Guidelines as a powerful tool for businesses, especially in light of the global economy. Accountability, reporting, and transparency are all important parts of the movement toward sustainable business, and having a set of standards recognized worldwide makes direct comparisons that much easier.
Conclusion: This document will best be used as a starting point, since as I mentioned earlier, the actual content of these documents isn’t discussed in detail. In that respect, it will be useful. As my brother, who is an engineer once said, education isn’t so much about knowing stuff, as it is knowing where to look stuff up. I see myself working with other staff members of an organization to determine which of these guidelines we’re already following, which fit with our current mission, and which are particularly pertinent in whatever field we find ourselves. Once we’ve figured that out, we can go to those documents to work out the details.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Dollars for Dishwashers
I saw on the news this evening that, in the spirit of the Cash for Clunkers auto program, the state of Minnesota will be offering a rebate to replace old, inefficient appliances with new Energy Star units. (Dollars for Dishwashers) Sounds great, but, like the auto program, it’s representative of an unsustainable way of thinking. It’s wasteful and shortsighted. Here’s my justification of that statement.
First, it falls prey to the dangers of consumption due to planned obsolescence. I know, the new appliances are better. I get that, but how are they better and at what cost? Let’s consider refrigerators, the hungriest appliance in the home. Of course, they’re more efficient. Their marketing says as much. What does that mean? Better insulation? Better motors? Great, we throw out an old appliance that literally leaks energy and replace it with one that does so at a slower rate. Superficially, this sounds good. How much energy was required to manufacture the new appliance? Did anybody attempt that calculation? Is there any way of upgrading the insulation and mechanicals on an old appliance to make it more efficient? What if, rather than subsidizing the disposal of hundreds of functional appliances, we subsidized the upgrade of old appliances? Pay an amount to appliance repair services (do those even exist anymore?) to learn the upgrade procedure, offer the parts at a reduced price to the consumer, and figure out a way of splitting the labor to the repair company. Money in the pockets of hundreds of service professionals and an appliance NOT in a landfill. That sounds like a better option to me.
First, it falls prey to the dangers of consumption due to planned obsolescence. I know, the new appliances are better. I get that, but how are they better and at what cost? Let’s consider refrigerators, the hungriest appliance in the home. Of course, they’re more efficient. Their marketing says as much. What does that mean? Better insulation? Better motors? Great, we throw out an old appliance that literally leaks energy and replace it with one that does so at a slower rate. Superficially, this sounds good. How much energy was required to manufacture the new appliance? Did anybody attempt that calculation? Is there any way of upgrading the insulation and mechanicals on an old appliance to make it more efficient? What if, rather than subsidizing the disposal of hundreds of functional appliances, we subsidized the upgrade of old appliances? Pay an amount to appliance repair services (do those even exist anymore?) to learn the upgrade procedure, offer the parts at a reduced price to the consumer, and figure out a way of splitting the labor to the repair company. Money in the pockets of hundreds of service professionals and an appliance NOT in a landfill. That sounds like a better option to me.
The Happy Planet Index
Source: The Happy Planet Index
By Abdallah, Saamah et. al. of the New Economics Foundation, 2009
Synopsis: The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an attempt to measure our well-being in terms of long, happy and meaningful lives relative to our rate of resource consumption.
Reflection:
What a noble thought. In fact, the thought that we can measure our well-being in terms of happy life years (life satisfaction x life expectancy) relative to resource consumption was so noble as to be laughable. The authors even used one of my hated terms, “good.” At least, that was my first impression.
The reality is, this document is more social science than it is Kumbaya-around-the-campfire, and at its heart is representative of what I view as the greatest change in mindset necessary for sustainable development (at least here in the developed world): debunking the myth that life satisfaction is dependent on material wealth.
And…that’s where I hit some kind of conceptual wall. I feel like I get that, although I’m haunted by the knowledge that my way of life is probably not sustainable either, meaning that, even if everybody on earth consumed exactly as much as I do, we would still exceed the carrying capacity of the planet, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The social science.
The NEF actually based this paper on sound research, based on survey data taken from 143 countries representing 99% of the world’s population (I know, which 1% got left out?). The question is simple: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” Despite its simplicity, it has been shown to be both valid and reliable and has been correlated to other measures. Life expectancy was taken from the Human Development Index report, which contains data from 2005. The resource consumption variable was taken from the WWF’s Living Planet Report from 2008. Potential PhD thesis: tear this entire equation apart. For the sake of this blog, we’re going to accept their findings as accurate.
I left this document with two enduring understandings. One, non-material aspirations and social relations are at the heart of sustainable living, and two, I’m not convinced that any solutions which rely on altruism are feasible.
I’ll start with the former, and it’s very, very simple. Our culture of consumption is not sustainable. What’s underneath that culture is not so simple (which is just fine with somebody in possession of such a deep understanding of socioanthropology). Considering this just left me with Big Questions. How and why did our culture of consumption arise? What does it indicate about our culture? How do we adequately deal with that issue, i.e. how do we change people?
No matter the answers to these questions, this is another resource citing a lack of correlation between material wealth and life satisfaction. Note: life satisfaction is correlated to material wealth below a certain point. That point is far lower than Americans would be comfortable acknowledging. I don’t doubt most Americans would sacrifice some material wealth in exchange for greater life satisfaction, but how much? Would we go without our TVs? Cars? Our 8,000 square foot homes? This source makes reference to our educational system as an avenue of change. Fat chance. Our educators have no hope of leading their students to lead more sustainable lives when all of our students’ idols are, literally, the poster-children for excessive lifestyles. I cite the HBO series Entourage. What we really need is a celebrity who vaunts his/her sustainable lifestyle. How about a multi-millionaire who lives in a small but comfortable home with, dare I say it, only one automobile? Wow. That came out a little snarkier than intended, but I won’t retract it.
Regarding my latter understanding about solutions based on altruism. Allow me to explain. This resource states, “This [decoupling of development from environmental impact and well-being] requires technical solutions, but also requires tough leadership from government and a fundamental shift in the aspirations of normal people.” Of these statements, the latter is more important, but governments cannot mandate this. From The Story of B, by the every-quotable Daniel Quinn, “If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.” Governments CANNOT mandate this, and if we sit around waiting for these changes via government programs, we do so at our own peril. Maybe this is the Ayn Rand influence at work, or maybe it’s the aforementioned conceptual wall, being raised in this culture of consumption, but I do not see those with the financial wealth necessary to take care of the sick and starving doing so because they recognize it as the right thing to do. How many millionaires, most of whom worked hard for their money, would sacrifice enough of that to take care of the needy?
It is this train of thinking that has lead me into a kind of dark place. I don’t believe in the power of mandates to bring us to sustainability. I can’t conceive of a way to change enough minds to bring us to sustainability. Oh, we’ll get it, eventually, but with what quality of life will we be left?
By Abdallah, Saamah et. al. of the New Economics Foundation, 2009
Synopsis: The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an attempt to measure our well-being in terms of long, happy and meaningful lives relative to our rate of resource consumption.
Reflection:
What a noble thought. In fact, the thought that we can measure our well-being in terms of happy life years (life satisfaction x life expectancy) relative to resource consumption was so noble as to be laughable. The authors even used one of my hated terms, “good.” At least, that was my first impression.
The reality is, this document is more social science than it is Kumbaya-around-the-campfire, and at its heart is representative of what I view as the greatest change in mindset necessary for sustainable development (at least here in the developed world): debunking the myth that life satisfaction is dependent on material wealth.
And…that’s where I hit some kind of conceptual wall. I feel like I get that, although I’m haunted by the knowledge that my way of life is probably not sustainable either, meaning that, even if everybody on earth consumed exactly as much as I do, we would still exceed the carrying capacity of the planet, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The social science.
The NEF actually based this paper on sound research, based on survey data taken from 143 countries representing 99% of the world’s population (I know, which 1% got left out?). The question is simple: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” Despite its simplicity, it has been shown to be both valid and reliable and has been correlated to other measures. Life expectancy was taken from the Human Development Index report, which contains data from 2005. The resource consumption variable was taken from the WWF’s Living Planet Report from 2008. Potential PhD thesis: tear this entire equation apart. For the sake of this blog, we’re going to accept their findings as accurate.
I left this document with two enduring understandings. One, non-material aspirations and social relations are at the heart of sustainable living, and two, I’m not convinced that any solutions which rely on altruism are feasible.
I’ll start with the former, and it’s very, very simple. Our culture of consumption is not sustainable. What’s underneath that culture is not so simple (which is just fine with somebody in possession of such a deep understanding of socioanthropology). Considering this just left me with Big Questions. How and why did our culture of consumption arise? What does it indicate about our culture? How do we adequately deal with that issue, i.e. how do we change people?
No matter the answers to these questions, this is another resource citing a lack of correlation between material wealth and life satisfaction. Note: life satisfaction is correlated to material wealth below a certain point. That point is far lower than Americans would be comfortable acknowledging. I don’t doubt most Americans would sacrifice some material wealth in exchange for greater life satisfaction, but how much? Would we go without our TVs? Cars? Our 8,000 square foot homes? This source makes reference to our educational system as an avenue of change. Fat chance. Our educators have no hope of leading their students to lead more sustainable lives when all of our students’ idols are, literally, the poster-children for excessive lifestyles. I cite the HBO series Entourage. What we really need is a celebrity who vaunts his/her sustainable lifestyle. How about a multi-millionaire who lives in a small but comfortable home with, dare I say it, only one automobile? Wow. That came out a little snarkier than intended, but I won’t retract it.
Regarding my latter understanding about solutions based on altruism. Allow me to explain. This resource states, “This [decoupling of development from environmental impact and well-being] requires technical solutions, but also requires tough leadership from government and a fundamental shift in the aspirations of normal people.” Of these statements, the latter is more important, but governments cannot mandate this. From The Story of B, by the every-quotable Daniel Quinn, “If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.” Governments CANNOT mandate this, and if we sit around waiting for these changes via government programs, we do so at our own peril. Maybe this is the Ayn Rand influence at work, or maybe it’s the aforementioned conceptual wall, being raised in this culture of consumption, but I do not see those with the financial wealth necessary to take care of the sick and starving doing so because they recognize it as the right thing to do. How many millionaires, most of whom worked hard for their money, would sacrifice enough of that to take care of the needy?
It is this train of thinking that has lead me into a kind of dark place. I don’t believe in the power of mandates to bring us to sustainability. I can’t conceive of a way to change enough minds to bring us to sustainability. Oh, we’ll get it, eventually, but with what quality of life will we be left?
Belief and Climate Change
I stumbled across this article on NPR. It's timing in my life is uncanny, as I am in the throes of a good discussion with my father about anthropogenic climate change. This doesn't really shed any light on our discussion, but it confirms exactly what I have long suspected. I will try to come back to this, because it gets to the heart of the issue of sustainability. Sustainability is all in our heads.
Belief in Climate Change Hinges on Worldview
Belief in Climate Change Hinges on Worldview
Monday, February 22, 2010
Environmental Management Systems
Source: Environmental Management Systems: An Implementation Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Organizations (2nd Ed.)
By Philip J. Stapleton et. al.
Synopsis: As the titles suggest, this lays out the foundation for an EMS, including why an organization should have one, i.e. benefits; the key concepts or components; and the planning that goes into it to increase odds of success.
Reflection: This is where the sustainably-harvested, organically-grown latex becomes acquainted with the durable yet permeable recycled road surface. It’s the nuts and bolts of moving an organization towards sustainability. It’s also a big document, 200 pages, so I thought critically about what would be relevant to you, my loyal readers. It has become clear that all our resources are excellent. Maybe it’s because our professor diligently combed the collective of human knowledge to pick out, from the mountains of chaff, only the choicest grains of wheat, or maybe it’s that we’ve got so far to go, even the simplest documents pertaining to the lowest of the low hanging fruit seem like revelations. Ah, I’m sure it’s a little bit of both.
In any case, I have yet to read anything for this class that wasn’t accompanied by at least one Aha Moment and several minutes of daydreaming about how I would wow the CEO and board with a simple yet sophisticated PowerPoint presentation that explained how leveraging our influence over vendors could simultaneously pad our bottom line, halt the swing of the club mere inches from the brow of the adorable baby seal, and convince McDonalds to become the most powerful advocate for local and sustainable food, thus launching me, personally, onto the cover of this month’s “Savior Magazine.” A guy’s gotta dream, right? But again, I digress…
My point in all that self-aggrandizing rambling is that I thought I would give you the highlights from all our materials, so that you might experience some of those same Aha Moments for yourselves. This has turned out to be difficult because, more often than not, the whole document we’re reading is a highlight. Accepting that, I then thought I would offer astute, sometimes scathing criticism of our documents, demonstrating both my deep processing of the material and an intellect superior to that of the authors. Well, it turns out the people writing this stuff are pretty smart, with considerably more knowledge of and experience with sustainable business practices than I. My magazine cover is fading… Again with the digressing.
So I’m still left staring at my keyboard, wondering what to tell you about 200 pages of pretty thorough, often dry, how-to on implementing an EMS. I guess the first is to acknowledge that sustainability is not just about environmental impact, although you could make the argument that it’s never more than a few degrees of separation from it. The second is to recognize how daunting a task this is. There are no less than seventeen sections identified as key elements of an EMS, from taking stock of where you are to goal setting to legal obligations to documentation to management review. Somehow my daydream isn’t as thorough. That thought lead me to the following idea: I’m going to take you into my daydream, so I can share with you how I see this, or something like this, being implemented. You’re happy about this because, let’s face it, you don’t really want to know the details of all those 17 sections. You want to know what a company does with something like this, and how it ultimately benefits you or your family. It’s good for me because talking out my thought processes often reveals questions and inconsistencies that need some more work.
My dream in life, career-wise, is to work for a company in the bicycle industry as a sustainability manager. There are several that are already on the right track and many stops ahead of other businesses on that path to sustainability. One of them is a large parts distributor. I won’t use their name, because they’re considering an application from me at this very moment, and I would rather they discovered my writing talents some time after I’ve signed a contract. This company is fabulous. A few years ago, they expanded and their new building is LEED Gold certified. They used as many recycled and repurposed materials as possible. Their landscaping is sustainable. They have a great bike-to-work incentive program. They pay a livable wage and offer competitive benefits, and they’re making enough money that, in these economic times, they’re expanding again. They get it.
Our resource provides us with a handy flowchart, outlining important elements and the logical order in which they might be addressed. We start with legal requirements, because let’s face it, a young idealist, straight out of grad school, isn’t going to start by changing the laws, and those laws are the rules by which we need to play. In our hypothetical company, there is a lawyer or a team of lawyers. I go to them with this, because as I’ve stated before, my knowledge of the law is exactly as deep as my knowledge of socioanthropology. I find out that, low and behold, we’re already playing by the rules. We just need to keep playing and hope the rules don’t change.
The next step is assessing how our company interacts with the environment. Easy, right? This is one of those intimidating steps if taken as a whole. In reality, we’d break it down and start with the low-hanging fruit. Pick out a product or service that’s pretty close to being where we want it, something that wouldn’t cost a lot of money or require a lot of training to get it to where we want it, and we concentrate on that. Maybe we decide to investigate changing to a soy-based cutting oil in our machine tools.
Our next step is to consider the views of interested stakeholders. We ask the machinists what they think. We talk to the supplier to determine the cost and then we talk to our accountants to find out how that cost will affect our bottom line. This won’t be straightforward. The machinists tell us they’re fine with soy cutting oil, except it doesn’t cool and lubricate as well, which will increase wear on tooling, which again is fine, as long as we promise to sharpen their tools more often so quality doesn’t suffer. Another cost, so it’s back to the accountants, and so on.
At this point, my analogy breaks down, because we wouldn’t just be looking at such a specific issue as cutting oil. Consider that one issue as representative of all the issues you might be considering. Considering all the views, of all the stakeholders, we proceed to the next step, which is the construction of a new environmental policy, or the amendment of an existing one. This is a somewhat vague step, and will be different for every organization, but it will result in a document that is relevant to the organization, the issues it faces, and how both of those things relate to its interactions with the environment.
The next step is to define key roles and responsibilities. Our resources says to start at the top, with senior management and such, but it would again depend on the organization and is closely linked to the next step, which is establishing objectives and targets. How do we measure the impact of switching to soy-based cutting fluid? Do we account for it by calculating its effect on our carbon footprint, on our financial bottom line, some other measure, or a combination of all measures? The process in which we’re engaged will not be effective if we don’t know where we’re headed or how to judge our progress toward that destination, which is a nice segue into the next step, which is to develop a system to take care of the documentation we’re now generating, and to establish some kind of system of corrective actions. As we’ve mentioned previously, this process is not necessarily straightforward, we’re going to make mistakes or unsatisfactory progress, and we need to know how we’re going to react to those outcomes.
Next, we establish operational controls and monitoring processes. In our example, this is pretty straightforward: we’re going to be buying and using different cutting fluid. All we need to do to control that is ensure our buyers are buying it and our machinists are using it, which again leads us to the next steps, define job-specific roles, plan and conduct initial employee awareness, and establish other system-level procedures. All of these are pretty self-explanatory. Make sure the cutting fluid is being used, make sure employees understand why we’ve made the change, and try to figure out other ways the change will affect the business and what action on our part that might require.
The last steps are to train employees, conduct EMS audits, and conduct management reviews. Our example makes employee training something we’ve already dealt with, but in a larger organization, or with more extensive changes, it may need to be something more formalized and structured. Processes and progress are less effective if you’re not trying to measure them, and that’s what the audits and management review are about.
That’s it! We’re saving the world one 55 gallon drum of soy-based cutting fluid at a time! Who knew salvation would be so simple and straightforward? I realized toward the end of my example that it was a very simplistic choice, which didn’t lend itself well to explaining all of the steps. It’s important I point out that in my example, the switch to soy-based cutting fluid is not the EMS, but a part of it. Obviously, the real scenario would be much more complicated, making some of the steps that I glossed over much more important and involved, but the enduring understandings from this document are actually pretty straightforward: involve everybody who matters, establish goals and ways of measuring progress toward them, and recognize that some areas will have to be revisited.
By Philip J. Stapleton et. al.
Synopsis: As the titles suggest, this lays out the foundation for an EMS, including why an organization should have one, i.e. benefits; the key concepts or components; and the planning that goes into it to increase odds of success.
Reflection: This is where the sustainably-harvested, organically-grown latex becomes acquainted with the durable yet permeable recycled road surface. It’s the nuts and bolts of moving an organization towards sustainability. It’s also a big document, 200 pages, so I thought critically about what would be relevant to you, my loyal readers. It has become clear that all our resources are excellent. Maybe it’s because our professor diligently combed the collective of human knowledge to pick out, from the mountains of chaff, only the choicest grains of wheat, or maybe it’s that we’ve got so far to go, even the simplest documents pertaining to the lowest of the low hanging fruit seem like revelations. Ah, I’m sure it’s a little bit of both.
In any case, I have yet to read anything for this class that wasn’t accompanied by at least one Aha Moment and several minutes of daydreaming about how I would wow the CEO and board with a simple yet sophisticated PowerPoint presentation that explained how leveraging our influence over vendors could simultaneously pad our bottom line, halt the swing of the club mere inches from the brow of the adorable baby seal, and convince McDonalds to become the most powerful advocate for local and sustainable food, thus launching me, personally, onto the cover of this month’s “Savior Magazine.” A guy’s gotta dream, right? But again, I digress…
My point in all that self-aggrandizing rambling is that I thought I would give you the highlights from all our materials, so that you might experience some of those same Aha Moments for yourselves. This has turned out to be difficult because, more often than not, the whole document we’re reading is a highlight. Accepting that, I then thought I would offer astute, sometimes scathing criticism of our documents, demonstrating both my deep processing of the material and an intellect superior to that of the authors. Well, it turns out the people writing this stuff are pretty smart, with considerably more knowledge of and experience with sustainable business practices than I. My magazine cover is fading… Again with the digressing.
So I’m still left staring at my keyboard, wondering what to tell you about 200 pages of pretty thorough, often dry, how-to on implementing an EMS. I guess the first is to acknowledge that sustainability is not just about environmental impact, although you could make the argument that it’s never more than a few degrees of separation from it. The second is to recognize how daunting a task this is. There are no less than seventeen sections identified as key elements of an EMS, from taking stock of where you are to goal setting to legal obligations to documentation to management review. Somehow my daydream isn’t as thorough. That thought lead me to the following idea: I’m going to take you into my daydream, so I can share with you how I see this, or something like this, being implemented. You’re happy about this because, let’s face it, you don’t really want to know the details of all those 17 sections. You want to know what a company does with something like this, and how it ultimately benefits you or your family. It’s good for me because talking out my thought processes often reveals questions and inconsistencies that need some more work.
My dream in life, career-wise, is to work for a company in the bicycle industry as a sustainability manager. There are several that are already on the right track and many stops ahead of other businesses on that path to sustainability. One of them is a large parts distributor. I won’t use their name, because they’re considering an application from me at this very moment, and I would rather they discovered my writing talents some time after I’ve signed a contract. This company is fabulous. A few years ago, they expanded and their new building is LEED Gold certified. They used as many recycled and repurposed materials as possible. Their landscaping is sustainable. They have a great bike-to-work incentive program. They pay a livable wage and offer competitive benefits, and they’re making enough money that, in these economic times, they’re expanding again. They get it.
Our resource provides us with a handy flowchart, outlining important elements and the logical order in which they might be addressed. We start with legal requirements, because let’s face it, a young idealist, straight out of grad school, isn’t going to start by changing the laws, and those laws are the rules by which we need to play. In our hypothetical company, there is a lawyer or a team of lawyers. I go to them with this, because as I’ve stated before, my knowledge of the law is exactly as deep as my knowledge of socioanthropology. I find out that, low and behold, we’re already playing by the rules. We just need to keep playing and hope the rules don’t change.
The next step is assessing how our company interacts with the environment. Easy, right? This is one of those intimidating steps if taken as a whole. In reality, we’d break it down and start with the low-hanging fruit. Pick out a product or service that’s pretty close to being where we want it, something that wouldn’t cost a lot of money or require a lot of training to get it to where we want it, and we concentrate on that. Maybe we decide to investigate changing to a soy-based cutting oil in our machine tools.
Our next step is to consider the views of interested stakeholders. We ask the machinists what they think. We talk to the supplier to determine the cost and then we talk to our accountants to find out how that cost will affect our bottom line. This won’t be straightforward. The machinists tell us they’re fine with soy cutting oil, except it doesn’t cool and lubricate as well, which will increase wear on tooling, which again is fine, as long as we promise to sharpen their tools more often so quality doesn’t suffer. Another cost, so it’s back to the accountants, and so on.
At this point, my analogy breaks down, because we wouldn’t just be looking at such a specific issue as cutting oil. Consider that one issue as representative of all the issues you might be considering. Considering all the views, of all the stakeholders, we proceed to the next step, which is the construction of a new environmental policy, or the amendment of an existing one. This is a somewhat vague step, and will be different for every organization, but it will result in a document that is relevant to the organization, the issues it faces, and how both of those things relate to its interactions with the environment.
The next step is to define key roles and responsibilities. Our resources says to start at the top, with senior management and such, but it would again depend on the organization and is closely linked to the next step, which is establishing objectives and targets. How do we measure the impact of switching to soy-based cutting fluid? Do we account for it by calculating its effect on our carbon footprint, on our financial bottom line, some other measure, or a combination of all measures? The process in which we’re engaged will not be effective if we don’t know where we’re headed or how to judge our progress toward that destination, which is a nice segue into the next step, which is to develop a system to take care of the documentation we’re now generating, and to establish some kind of system of corrective actions. As we’ve mentioned previously, this process is not necessarily straightforward, we’re going to make mistakes or unsatisfactory progress, and we need to know how we’re going to react to those outcomes.
Next, we establish operational controls and monitoring processes. In our example, this is pretty straightforward: we’re going to be buying and using different cutting fluid. All we need to do to control that is ensure our buyers are buying it and our machinists are using it, which again leads us to the next steps, define job-specific roles, plan and conduct initial employee awareness, and establish other system-level procedures. All of these are pretty self-explanatory. Make sure the cutting fluid is being used, make sure employees understand why we’ve made the change, and try to figure out other ways the change will affect the business and what action on our part that might require.
The last steps are to train employees, conduct EMS audits, and conduct management reviews. Our example makes employee training something we’ve already dealt with, but in a larger organization, or with more extensive changes, it may need to be something more formalized and structured. Processes and progress are less effective if you’re not trying to measure them, and that’s what the audits and management review are about.
That’s it! We’re saving the world one 55 gallon drum of soy-based cutting fluid at a time! Who knew salvation would be so simple and straightforward? I realized toward the end of my example that it was a very simplistic choice, which didn’t lend itself well to explaining all of the steps. It’s important I point out that in my example, the switch to soy-based cutting fluid is not the EMS, but a part of it. Obviously, the real scenario would be much more complicated, making some of the steps that I glossed over much more important and involved, but the enduring understandings from this document are actually pretty straightforward: involve everybody who matters, establish goals and ways of measuring progress toward them, and recognize that some areas will have to be revisited.
Monday, February 15, 2010
New Accounting and The Sweet Spot
Sources: Environmental Accounting
By U.S. EPA, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, 1995
The Sustainability Sweet Spot
By Andrew Savitz and Karl Weber
Synopsis (Environmental Accounting): The central purpose of this primer is twofold: (1) to orient readers to key concepts often referred to as environmental accounting, and (2) to explain how the terms that refer to environmental accounting are currently being used, so that confusion about the terms does not impede progress in understanding and applying the core concepts.
EPA prepared this document to be a starting point for readers who have questions about environmental accounting. The intended audience includes business managers and other professionals who wish to understand environmental accounting. In addition, people involved with activity-based costing, total quality management, business re-engineering, or design for the environment should find environmental accounting to be compatible with and potentially helpful to their programs.
EPA’s Environmental Accounting Project has produced this primer at the behest of stakeholders who have suggested that an important step in promoting environmental accounting is to clarify key concepts and terms to facilitate more widespread adoption of environmental accounting practices. 1
This primer focuses on environmental accounting as a management tool for a variety of purposes, such as improving environmental performance, controlling costs, investing in "cleaner" technologies, developing "greener" processes and products, and informing decisions related to product mix, product retention, and product pricing. The primer does not cover all of these potential applications but does summarize how environmental accounting can be applied to cost allocation, capital budgeting, and process/product design. Specific applications of environmental accounting are illustrated in case studies that EPA has prepared documenting companies' programs to implement environmental accounting. For more information on EPA's activities in this area or for copies of the case studies, please contact the EPA's Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse at (202) 260-1023. (Verbatim from document)
Synopsis (Sustainability Sweet Spot): Businesses are recognizing that sustainable business practices are not antithetical to good business practices. Evidence for this includes better-than-average market performance by businesses embracing the so-called triple bottom line. Given this evidence, businesses seeking this sweet spot are maximizing profit and positive social impact.
Reflection: I decided I’ve had it with book learning. See, I’ve got this idea for a new widget that’s going to revolutionize the cycling industry. Best of all, producing it is cheap. It doesn’t take a lot of room – I’m going to rent a garage outside town. Overhead is low, since the raw materials and tooling are cheap and I’m going to be a one-man operation. All of the waste produced is completely compostable, and there’s enough room on-site to set up the composting operation. In fact, it’s not so much an operation as it is me dumping a couple wheelbarrow’s full at the end of the week.
So, I go into business, and my widgets are everything I hoped them to be. I start with regional distribution, but pretty soon the coasts are demanding my widgets. I easily expand – it’s a two-car garage and I’d only been using one stall. Twice as many widgets mean twice as much waste, however. I’m not worried though, because the compost operation can still handle it.
Well, my widgets are a hit on the coasts, and Europe catches on and wants them. I double again. I can now afford to build an additional two stalls for production, along with a couple employees to run things therein. Problem is, my composting operation can’t keep up with four times the waste. The piles are getting too large for my lot.
So, I hop the fence and talk to the guy on the next lot over. His property butts right up against my compost piles. He agrees I’ve got a problem and is amenable to some compost on his land, but he wants to charge me for the space. That’s OK, I can afford it, although it eats a couple points from my profit margin.
Well, Asia and South America have been paying attention, so I double operations again. Raw materials, labor, and production space are no problem. The problem is, I’m now producing waste faster than it can be composted. I read in a trade journal about another young entrepreneur who’s devised a biomechanical digester that could take care of my waste for me, so I give her a call. Sure, she’s got the capacity to take care of me, and it’ll only cost me this much… Hmmm…paying for waste disposal changes a lot of things.
OK, it’s not a terribly sophisticated analogy, but I’m hoping it makes clear my point that to not consider the potential cost of waste disposal was shortsighted. It was easily overlooked because I could take it for granted. Furthermore, the issue was compounded when my operation outstripped the capacity of the natural systems I’d been taking for granted. And of course, my analogy assumes unlimited and cheap raw materials…
Well, we’re finding ourselves in a similar situation now, except our waste is not so easily quantified as are piles of compost. But why should waste that we can’t see or feel be any different? Why is it so ridiculous to hold industry accountable for waste products like greenhouse gases? Because it will cripple our economy? It seems we’ve just been spoiled and we’re now trying to come to terms with evidence that the way we’ve been doing things was destined to be unsustainable because we didn’t/couldn’t/refused to accurately account for ALL costs.
In my analogy, natural systems were taking care of waste disposal for me. This is true for the world economy as well, but the processes aren’t as visible and tangible as watching a pile of garbage turn to humus. Furthermore, we aren’t relying on a single or even multiple natural systems, but all of them. We’re relying on systems we don’t understand and systems we haven’t yet discovered. Then, as if things weren’t complicated enough, it’s those same systems that supply us with raw materials.
Now, let’s take a step backward and say I did have some foresight. From the very beginning, I paid closer attention to how quickly my waste was converted to compost than I did to units of production, recognizing that the two are inextricably linked and that waste disposal, not production capacity, was my limiting factor. So I found out that I could process X units of waste every year which corresponded to Y units of production, and that became my benchmark. Well, I’m still producing outstanding widgets subject to the law of supply and demand. I’m holding true to my benchmark, so demand is outstripping supply, prices are rising, and my profit margin’s growing. I give all my employees raises and better benefits. Morale is high and production increases slightly. Furthermore, I funnel the increased profits into R&D and find a more efficient way of making my widgets that produces less waste per unit of production. Production increases again, and we’re still maximizing profit, and my employees are still happy. I take the padding from my profit margin and install some renewable energy sources. Sure, it’ll take a few years before they’re paid off, but I plan on being here longer than a few years. Plus, remember my neighbor over the fence? Turns out his passion is gardening. I’ve been giving him compost in exchange for food. There, we’re in the sweet spot. We’re making money, living comfortable lives, and we fall asleep at night content in the knowledge that our business will be viable beyond the next quarter.
I know, this is all a childishly simplistic rendering of some complicated processes. But it comes down to some very simple rules. Don’t use raw materials faster than they can be replenished. If you do, you’ll run out. Don’t make waste faster than it can be processed. If you do, you’ll be sitting in it. Take care of the people upon whom your business depends. If you don’t, they’ll stop taking care of you. Turns out it’s pretty simple after all.
By U.S. EPA, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, 1995
The Sustainability Sweet Spot
By Andrew Savitz and Karl Weber
Synopsis (Environmental Accounting): The central purpose of this primer is twofold: (1) to orient readers to key concepts often referred to as environmental accounting, and (2) to explain how the terms that refer to environmental accounting are currently being used, so that confusion about the terms does not impede progress in understanding and applying the core concepts.
EPA prepared this document to be a starting point for readers who have questions about environmental accounting. The intended audience includes business managers and other professionals who wish to understand environmental accounting. In addition, people involved with activity-based costing, total quality management, business re-engineering, or design for the environment should find environmental accounting to be compatible with and potentially helpful to their programs.
EPA’s Environmental Accounting Project has produced this primer at the behest of stakeholders who have suggested that an important step in promoting environmental accounting is to clarify key concepts and terms to facilitate more widespread adoption of environmental accounting practices. 1
This primer focuses on environmental accounting as a management tool for a variety of purposes, such as improving environmental performance, controlling costs, investing in "cleaner" technologies, developing "greener" processes and products, and informing decisions related to product mix, product retention, and product pricing. The primer does not cover all of these potential applications but does summarize how environmental accounting can be applied to cost allocation, capital budgeting, and process/product design. Specific applications of environmental accounting are illustrated in case studies that EPA has prepared documenting companies' programs to implement environmental accounting. For more information on EPA's activities in this area or for copies of the case studies, please contact the EPA's Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse at (202) 260-1023. (Verbatim from document)
Synopsis (Sustainability Sweet Spot): Businesses are recognizing that sustainable business practices are not antithetical to good business practices. Evidence for this includes better-than-average market performance by businesses embracing the so-called triple bottom line. Given this evidence, businesses seeking this sweet spot are maximizing profit and positive social impact.
Reflection: I decided I’ve had it with book learning. See, I’ve got this idea for a new widget that’s going to revolutionize the cycling industry. Best of all, producing it is cheap. It doesn’t take a lot of room – I’m going to rent a garage outside town. Overhead is low, since the raw materials and tooling are cheap and I’m going to be a one-man operation. All of the waste produced is completely compostable, and there’s enough room on-site to set up the composting operation. In fact, it’s not so much an operation as it is me dumping a couple wheelbarrow’s full at the end of the week.
So, I go into business, and my widgets are everything I hoped them to be. I start with regional distribution, but pretty soon the coasts are demanding my widgets. I easily expand – it’s a two-car garage and I’d only been using one stall. Twice as many widgets mean twice as much waste, however. I’m not worried though, because the compost operation can still handle it.
Well, my widgets are a hit on the coasts, and Europe catches on and wants them. I double again. I can now afford to build an additional two stalls for production, along with a couple employees to run things therein. Problem is, my composting operation can’t keep up with four times the waste. The piles are getting too large for my lot.
So, I hop the fence and talk to the guy on the next lot over. His property butts right up against my compost piles. He agrees I’ve got a problem and is amenable to some compost on his land, but he wants to charge me for the space. That’s OK, I can afford it, although it eats a couple points from my profit margin.
Well, Asia and South America have been paying attention, so I double operations again. Raw materials, labor, and production space are no problem. The problem is, I’m now producing waste faster than it can be composted. I read in a trade journal about another young entrepreneur who’s devised a biomechanical digester that could take care of my waste for me, so I give her a call. Sure, she’s got the capacity to take care of me, and it’ll only cost me this much… Hmmm…paying for waste disposal changes a lot of things.
OK, it’s not a terribly sophisticated analogy, but I’m hoping it makes clear my point that to not consider the potential cost of waste disposal was shortsighted. It was easily overlooked because I could take it for granted. Furthermore, the issue was compounded when my operation outstripped the capacity of the natural systems I’d been taking for granted. And of course, my analogy assumes unlimited and cheap raw materials…
Well, we’re finding ourselves in a similar situation now, except our waste is not so easily quantified as are piles of compost. But why should waste that we can’t see or feel be any different? Why is it so ridiculous to hold industry accountable for waste products like greenhouse gases? Because it will cripple our economy? It seems we’ve just been spoiled and we’re now trying to come to terms with evidence that the way we’ve been doing things was destined to be unsustainable because we didn’t/couldn’t/refused to accurately account for ALL costs.
In my analogy, natural systems were taking care of waste disposal for me. This is true for the world economy as well, but the processes aren’t as visible and tangible as watching a pile of garbage turn to humus. Furthermore, we aren’t relying on a single or even multiple natural systems, but all of them. We’re relying on systems we don’t understand and systems we haven’t yet discovered. Then, as if things weren’t complicated enough, it’s those same systems that supply us with raw materials.
Now, let’s take a step backward and say I did have some foresight. From the very beginning, I paid closer attention to how quickly my waste was converted to compost than I did to units of production, recognizing that the two are inextricably linked and that waste disposal, not production capacity, was my limiting factor. So I found out that I could process X units of waste every year which corresponded to Y units of production, and that became my benchmark. Well, I’m still producing outstanding widgets subject to the law of supply and demand. I’m holding true to my benchmark, so demand is outstripping supply, prices are rising, and my profit margin’s growing. I give all my employees raises and better benefits. Morale is high and production increases slightly. Furthermore, I funnel the increased profits into R&D and find a more efficient way of making my widgets that produces less waste per unit of production. Production increases again, and we’re still maximizing profit, and my employees are still happy. I take the padding from my profit margin and install some renewable energy sources. Sure, it’ll take a few years before they’re paid off, but I plan on being here longer than a few years. Plus, remember my neighbor over the fence? Turns out his passion is gardening. I’ve been giving him compost in exchange for food. There, we’re in the sweet spot. We’re making money, living comfortable lives, and we fall asleep at night content in the knowledge that our business will be viable beyond the next quarter.
I know, this is all a childishly simplistic rendering of some complicated processes. But it comes down to some very simple rules. Don’t use raw materials faster than they can be replenished. If you do, you’ll run out. Don’t make waste faster than it can be processed. If you do, you’ll be sitting in it. Take care of the people upon whom your business depends. If you don’t, they’ll stop taking care of you. Turns out it’s pretty simple after all.
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