Green to Gold

1. Green to Gold Chapter 8 – Redesigning Your World Green to Gold

2. The Importance of Design • So much of a product’s environmental impact is firmly established in the design phase • Once you spec out a product, 90% of the footprint is set • After-the-fact corrective actions are just “nibbles at the margin” Green to Gold

3. Green to Gold

4. The Next Industrial Revolution • William McDonough & Michael Braungart • Our modern infrastructure resembles a steamship (Titanic) that is about to have an encounter with the natural world • Powered by fossil fuels & chemicals • Pouring waste into the air & water • Attempting to run by its own rules, contrary to that of nature • Seems invincible but it fundamental design flaws presage disaster • Yet many still believe that with a few minor alterations, this infrastructure can take us safely and prosperously into the future Green to Gold

5. The Next Industrial Revolution • Industrial Revolution assumptions: • Resources are inexhaustible, boundless • Nature is something to be tamed and civilized • By the 1990’s, business leaders saw that what was thought to be boundless had limits (and we were starting to hit them) Green to Gold

6. The Next Industrial Revolution • 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro • Eco-efficiency is the answer to environmental decline • Machines of industry would be refitted with cleaner, faster, quieter engines • Prosperity would remain unobstructed • Economic & organizational structures would remain intact • Human industry transformed from a system that “takes, makes, and wastes into one that integrates economic, environmental, and ethical concerns” Green to Gold

7. The Next Industrial Revolution • Eco-efficiency is transforming business • Green to Gold • Doing more with less • Cutting costs • Differentiation • Long-term focus • Culture changing • (also diminishes guilt and fear) Green to Gold

8. The Next Industrial Revolution • Eco-efficiency is admirable & well-intended but it is NOT a long-term strategy • Doesn’t reach deep enough • Works within the same system that caused the problems in the 1st place • Presents an illusion of change • Will let industry finish off the environment quietly, persistently, and completely • Being less bad isn’t the same as being good Green to Gold

9. The Next Revolution • If someone were to present the Industrial Revolution as a retroactive design assignment, it might sound like this: Design a system of production that • Puts billions of pounds of toxic material into the air, water, and soil every year • Measures prosperity by activity, not legacy • Requires thousands of complex regulations to keep people and natural systems from being poisoned too quickly • Produces materials so dangerous that they will require constant vigilance from future generations • Results in gigantic amounts of waste • Puts valuable materials in holes all over the planet, where they can never be retrieved • Erodes the diversity of biological species and cultural practices Green to Gold

10. The Next Industrial Revolution • Eco-efficiency instead: • Releases fewer pounds of toxic material into the air, water, and soil every year • Measures prosperity by less activity • Meets or exceeds the stipulations of thousands of complex regulations that aim to keep people and natural systems from being poisoned too quickly • Produces fewer dangerous materials that will require constant vigilance from future generations • Results in smaller amounts of waste • Puts fewer valuable materials in holes all over the planet, where they can never be retrieved • Standardizes and homogenizes biological species and cultural practices Green to Gold

11. The Next Industrial Revolution • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle • Slows down the process of contamination • Slows down depletion • But does NOT stop these processes • Most recycling is nothing more than downcycling • Very few items were ever designed to be recycled • Melted down, combined with other plastics to produce a lower-grade hybrid -value lost • Creative use of hybrids can be misguided • Endocrine disruptors • Clothing • 90% ultimately ends up in landfills or incinerated • Particulates & microscopic particles - 100,000 premature deaths per year Green to Gold

12. The Next Industrial Revolution • Basic ecological operating instructions • There is NO such thing as waste (waste=food) • Bio-diversity • Current solar energy Green to Gold

13. The Next Industrial Revolution • Waste = food • All the products and materials manufactured by industry must after each useful life provide nourishment for something new • Biological nutrients return to the organic cycle • Technical nutrients (things made by man) designed to continually recycle within closed-loop cycles - technical metabolism • Great care must be taken to avoid cross-contamination • Customers buy the service not the item Green to Gold

14. The Next Industrial Revolution • Respect diversity • Designs will respect the regional, cultural, and material uniqueness of a place. • Wastes and emissions will regenerate rather than deplete • Design will be flexible, to allow for changes in the needs of people and communities Green to Gold

15. The Next Industrial Revolution • Use Solar Energy • Currently living unsustainably • Living on finite, stored, ancient solar energy • Fossil fuels are a death-based energy source • The only input to our closed system is solar energy Green to Gold

16. The Next Industrial Revolution • Design an industrial system for the next century that • Introduces no hazardous materials into the air, water, or soil • Measures prosperity by how much natural capital we can accrue in productive ways • Measures productivity by how many people are gainfully and meaningfully employed • Measures progress by how many buildings have no smokestacks or dangerous effluents • Does not require regulations whose purpose is to stop us from killing ourselves too quickly • Produces nothing that will require future generations to maintain vigilance • Celebrates the abundance of biological and cultural diversity and solar income Green to Gold

17. Cradle to Cradle • Bill McDonough presentation Green to Gold

18. Further Reading • The Ecology of Commerce • Paul Hawken • Natural Capitalism • Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins • Cradle to Cradle • William McDonough & Michael Braungart • Midcourse Correction • Ray Anderson • Hot, Flat, and Crowded • Thomas Friedman • Earth in Mind • David Orr Green to Gold