Looking back over the last decade…
As I review my work at the Zero Waste Alliance on implementing sustainable practices in businesses, I have to acknowledge that the term “sustainability” has gone from being an exotic specialty linked to resource conservation practices to becoming absolutely business critical. The word shows up everywhere and everybody, from the cook to the CEO, has “sustainability” as part of their job description.
Semantic satiation and cognitive fatigue, associated with overuse of the word “sustainable”, has made it sound hollow. We are looking for a new shibboleth to move us out of complacency. Perhaps it is a portent of what is coming – a period of intense and unpredictable environmental changes and rapid transitions.
21st century Feng Shui
A few years ago, it was still fashionable to think that climate change was just a hypothesis and that other explanations were possible for the unpredictability and intensity of severe weather events around the Earth. To many, “Global Warming” was just another hoax to scare people.
However, we have now been battered enough by the wind and lashed by the rain to recognize that we are all in for a roller coaster ride, with regard to climate drift, for the coming century. And with it come the increasing risks that this uncertainty poses to the biosphere at large, and to the health of sensitive populations around the world. Needless to say, impacts on the Gross World Product (GWP) can also be expected to be significant.
Perhaps it is time to shift our thinking from avoiding the crises caused by climate change to developing the means to adapt to it. To roll with it, in a manner of speaking. Perhaps it is time for a new vision to guide us in the decades to come. And so we have begun to consider the need for resilience. And we have borrowed a term from ecology and added aspects of relevance to human existence.
Introducing Resilience
Resilience, in the words of the ecologist C.S. Holling, is “a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables”. Additional ideas along these lines can be found in his landmark paper – Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems (1973). In adding a societal component to Holling’s reference to transitions in ecosystems, we may say that resilience is the capacity of social and ecological systems to undergo shocks and perturbations and maintain a state of integrity. Resilience offers the capacity to maintain identity in the face of continuous transformation.
Facing repeated large-scale challenges to society, like those caused by droughts, floods, and tornadoes, will force us to think about avoiding repeat scenarios. And that will require all of us to work together, in ways we have not yet realized.
It is anticipated that the need for increased engagement at the community level will force government to initiate proactive and anticipatory programs, known as adaptive management practices, to implement resilience into social and ecological systems at large. “Management” will become a tool more to learn about systems of engagement than to simply change them at regular intervals using “best guess” approaches. The work of the Resilience Alliance is a great starting point to learn about these ideas.
The impacts of climate change on life around the planet will disturb current supply chains of goods and services that keep the engines of commerce running smoothly. Unpredictability and “surprises” in weather will lead to uncertainties in access to the resources most needed for stable commerce, primarily food and water. Downstream impacts and instabilities, associated with these “surprises” may also be anticipated in the political sphere.
One anticipated impact of climate change is the loss of ecosystem services. These are the services provided by plants (e.g., food, herbs, natural products, moisture retention and shade, pollution control, etc.) and animals (e.g., bees for pollination, frogs for insect control, etc.) in our shared environment that contribute to human well being. The Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services Initiative (MESI) at the World Resources Institute is developing guidelines to assess and to reduce these impacts. One such outcome is the Ecosystem Services Review for Impact Assessment.
Resilient Enterprises– Combining Resource Conservation & Continuous Innovation
One of the more obvious requirements of implementing resilience practices is to avoid the waste of limited resources. In a capitalist economy, lack of access to capital is the first constraint. We need to think about the resources we use and depend upon as “capital”.
Resource conservation efforts and continuous innovations to extend product life will be needed to achieve a zero waste economy. It is likely that different organizations will choose different paths, based on the maturity of their product portfolios and their innovation profiles, to achieve these objectives. Both businesses and communities will need to work together to achieve a zero waste economy.
The resource recovery and reuse practices that have been gaining momentum over the last few decades need to become more integral to the products we use. Product design functions, at all levels within the organization, need continuous management support to develop materials that can be repurposed with minimal effort.
A classic contemporary example is the recovery and reuse of polyester resins (e.g., polyethylene terephthalate, PET) in products ranging from soft drink containers to fabrics to carpets. High density polyethylene is another plastic resin that has a relatively high recovery rate. However, we are still only at ~30% recovery for these plastics.
In a similar manner, food waste in the United States is estimated at ~ 30-40 % of the food supply. In a wealthy nation like the United States, ~15-20% of the population remains hungry. Both the young and the elderly are disproportionately impacted. It really doesn’t take much brilliance to connect the dots. So why are we failing in this important area of relevance to public health?
In two of my sustainability projects with the Zero Waste Alliance, I identified tons of food grade resources that were being underutilized in the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan area. One take-away message from these studies was that metropolitan zero waste systems, like Nature, need stable supply chain relationships to implement sustainable practices and identify the highest possible uses (i.e., up-cycling) for materials that are discarded from industrial/foods manufacturing processes.
Implementing Resilience
There is room for improvement on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant one is on increasing our abilities to work together.
The technical solutions we need are already available and need very little additional effort to implement as standard operating practices. Thermal technologies, anaerobic or aerobic digestion, hydrolytic and electrochemical techniques are all potential technology options for increased recovery and reuse of discarded resources.
As a scientist with significant experience in both the chemical and environmental sectors, I clearly see the unrealized potential of modern technology to improve both human health and the environment. We need to identify diversified solutions that meet the specific needs of the communities and networks we wish to strengthen.
Perhaps that is why I look forward to a resilient society that embraces both sustainability and continuous innovation.