Think Global, Act Local

Think Global, Act Local

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Special thanks dedicated to all my classmates who made this course so great, to those others in who flew out with us to Philadelphia for the 2016 Net Impact Conference, and to Prof. Scott Boylston for bringing us this amazing program.

Thank You! Savannah College of Art and Design Design for Sustainability Sust 704 - Applied Theories in Sustainability Prof. Scott Boylston Fall 2016 Stephen Langford

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Following the Path that Led Humanity Off-Course and Providing a Framework with which We Can Find Our True North

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Table of Contents Introduction 6 Timeline

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The World is, in fact, a System

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Measuring Progress

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Case Study: Baltimore and the GPI 2.0

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Globalization and the New Economy

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Crossroads

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Leverage Points

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Redesigning the Path

10 Strategies of Ecosystems Farming in a Biomimic World Case Study: Ecopark,

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Kalundborg, Denmark

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Cradle-to-Cradle

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Case Study: Biosphere 2 Experiment

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Finding Our True North

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Case Study: Keep St. Pete Local

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Glossary

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References

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Introduction For 3.8 billion years, planet Earth has been a home to a near infinite range of life, from the first single-celled organism to the most brilliant of men.

In that time, species of all kinds have lived and thrived. However, in the natural world, as Charles Darwin once suggested, species that are not fit for survival and are incapable of adapting to their environment are not permitted to continue living on the planet. There are only so many resources available to Earth’s inhabitants, and if a species does not have a chance at long-term survival, those resources can be better utilized by a species that does. This is simply how the natural system functions and how it maintains stability It was only about 200,000 years ago that Homo Sapiens appeared, which within the grand timeline of life on planet Earth, is miniscule. For most of that time, man was just another species in the harsh reality of nature trying to survive, reproduce, and feed and protect his family. However, we did have one significant advantage: our cognitive function.

Homo Sapiens were not the biggest or the strongest, nor did they have any substantial offensive or protective features, but we did have our ingenuity and adaptability. We were able to build tools, weapons, and shelters.

Eventually, we were even able to discover fire, grow crops, and develop shared language. We were able to self reflect, contemplating what it was that gave us a sense of fulfillment and what it was that we wanted from our time here. It was then these abilities that differentiated man from the rest of nature. They became the source of both our rise and our fall.

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A Timeline of Growth Agricultural Revolution The journey on this path began around ten thousand years ago, when man transitioned from hunter-gatherer societies to ones of agriculture and settlement, marking the end of our nomadic history and the beginning of our estrangement from nature. As populations grew and more food was required, the natural environment was consequently modified through cultivation techniques such as irrigation and deforestation in order for communities to continue growing. This provided the foundation for the development of entire sub-systems of ideologies, religions, cultures, economies, and even governments for millennia to come as populations grew both within communities and across the globe.

Scientific Revolution It wasn’t until the mid-sixteenth to seventeenth centuries that man’s desires to understand the world that we lived in started to overcome the ideologies and religions that we had created to explain what we could not explain. We began to contemplate the hierarchy of nature, and with developments in areas such as physics, mathematics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry, it marked the emergence of modern science. It was, as Francis Bacon

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once said, “when we learned to torture nature for her secrets,” not just transforming science’s views of the natural world, but all of society’s.

British Agricultural Revolution It was just as this Scientific Revolution was coming to an end that Great Britain began to see major developments and innovations be made in agriculture, beginning the Britain’s Agricultural Revolution. New patterns of crop rotation and livestock utilization resulted in greater diversity of crops and greatly increased crop yields overall, as well as a greater ability to support more livestock, all of which allowed for agricultural output to actually grow faster than the population. As the population became healthier and better nourished, the population then too began to see rapid growth.

However, with this increased productivity, as well as the passing of the Enclosure Acts, which granted the wealthy the ability to purchase previously communal agricultural land for exclusive, commercial use, the demand for labor fell drastically. This pushed many in rural areas towards cities in search of wages, adding to the urban workforce of industrialization, and therefore, can be attributed as a direct cause of what some

10,000 B.C.

1343 - 1687

1650 - 1840

Agricultural Revolution

Scientific Revolution

British Agricultural Revolution

refer to as “the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants, perhaps the most important since the invention of language” (“Review of the Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Economic,” 2004).

Industrial Revolution This event, the drastic economic growth that arose out of a movement during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in which machinery transformed almost every aspect of daily life in some way, or more commonly referred to as the Industrial Revolution, represents the birth of Industrial Capitalism. Where mercantilism once reigned as the dominant form of capitalism across the world, with developments in textiles and the invention of the steam engine, this period marked a shift in manufacturing from traditional artisan made goods towards specialized automation within factories and the subsequent mass-production, which still characterizes the economic system today. With average income beginning to display an unprecedented and continuous growth, populations began to grow at a significantly greater rate than they had in the past.

Age of Reflection As this period of mechanization did begin to dissipate in the early nineteenth century, another movement began to take shape just beneath the surface. This movement not only incorporated science, but politics, arts, and humanities as well. It was a movement that arose in response to the Scientific Revolution’s abuses against nature in the name of scientific advancement. The Age of Reflection, as it was called, promoted the ideas of anti-reductionism and epistemological optimism, which suggested that the entirety of nature is far greater than the sum of its parts and that man himself is deeply connected to nature. Even as scientists, they placed a high importance on man’s respect for nature, believing that knowledge of nature should be obtained by observation, not force, and therefore sought to advance science in way that not only benefited man, but nature as well.

Second Industrial Revolution Not long after, however, the Second Industrial Revolution rose from the ashes of its predecessor with substantial momentum.

With the emergence of large-scale iron and steel production, electricity, the internal combustion engine and the use of petro-

1760 - 1840

1800 - 1840

1870 - 1914

Industrial Revolution

Age of Reflection

Second Industrial Revolution 9

Timeline leum, as well as a massive expansion in railroad and telegraph networks, it is no wonder that this period became known as the Technological Revolution. As people and ideas spread further and more rapidly than they had with the emergence of the first Industrial Revolution, technology continued evolving, bringing about a whole new wave of globalization, spreading Industrial Capitalism along with it, and thus creating a more modern, global capitalism.

Under this new dominant global economic system, industrialization, along with utilization of economies of scale, allowed for the economically efficient production of what became regular household items, which when combined with rapid population growth, created a near endless demand for commodities of all shapes, sizes, and functions.

Information Technology Revolution As these commodities continued to advance and spread, eventually leading to the mass production of the personal computer (PC) and widespread access to the Internet, global information and communications networks became so interconnected and so advanced that they ushered in a whole new era: The Information Age. Just as the Agricultural Revolution shifted man towards

1950s - Present

Information Technology Revolution 10

an agricultural society and the Industrial Revolution shifted man towards an industrial society, this Information Technology Revolution (ITR) has shifted man towards an informational, networking society. It was the result of what Fritjof Capra, author of The Hidden Connections (2002), refers to as “a complex dynamic of technological and human interactions, which produced synergistic effects in three major areas of electronics—computers, microelectronics, and telecommunications� (p.132). As these three areas have continued to advance, shrinking in size while increasing in capacity, and even merging together, they have now reached such a widespread adoption that they can be found in virtually every businesses and household throughout most developed nations, as well as many throughout developing nations.

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The World is, in fact, a System

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Leafcutter ants form some of the largest and most complex social systems in the world, second only to humans in the animal kingdom

The world is a large, complex system—a system of systems. As a system, it is made up of various elements and interactions, as well as a specific purpose or function. Take photosynthesis for example: it consists of green plants, algae and bacteria, all of which take in sunlight, water, and the carbon dioxide expelled by animals and transforms them into oxygen and energy rich sugars. Animals then take the oxygen and energy rich sugars, and transform them back into carbon dioxide, water, and energy.

As this cycle continues over time, it sustains life for both the plants and animals.

Furthermore, systems are also made up of stocks and flows. A stock is the foundation of the system. It is the accumulation of a particular element, the systems capital.

A flow, on the other hand, is the dynamic

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flux of an element, the flows in and out of a stock. “Nonrenewable resources,” for example, as Donella Meadows, author of Thinking in Systems (2002) explains, are stock-limited. The entire stock is available at once and can be extracted at any rate (limited mainly by extraction capital). But since the stock is not renewed, the faster the extraction rate, the shorter the lifetime of the resource” (p.

71). “Renewable resources,” on the other hand, “are flow-limited. They can support extraction or harvest indefinitely, but only at a finite flow rate equal to their regeneration rate. If they are extracted faster than they regenerate, they may eventually be driven below a critical threshold and become, for all practical purposes, nonrenewable” (Meadows, 2002, p. 71).

In the case of photosynthesis, say the birthrate of a particular species of animal experiences exponential growth while its mortality rate remains stable. What then happens to the stock? While it may not be apparent at first, as stocks do take time to change, the stock—the population of the species—will continue to grow until it eventually reaches the maximum number of the species that the planet can hold before it begins to overflow and collapse the system.

That being said, as a system, just as those a part of the Age of Reflection advocated, nature is more than the sum of its parts and as a part of the system, man is deeply con-

Systems nected to nature. Unfortunately, however, in our aim to prove that we are superior to nature, that we are not subject to its laws, that we can continue to grow, taking what we want, wasting what we do not, and that there will be no consequences, we have fallen into a number of specific traps that often characterize systems. These include tragedy of the commons, drift-to-low performance, escalation, success to the successful, and seeking the wrong goal, among a few others.

Tragedy of the Commons Tragedy of the commons refers to the overuse and overexploitation of commonly shared resources. As every user of each resource benefits directly from its use, but shares the cost of its abuse with everyone else within the system, there is not enough feedback on the current condition of the specific resource to those who are deciding to continue its use. One of the more common examples for this trap is the overfishing that occurs throughout the world, devastating global fish populations.

Drift-to-Low Performance Drift-to-low performance, on the other hand, represents the tendency of individuals, groups, and societies to allow performance standards and goals to slowly diminish over time from looking at inadequate past performances. As the bar is set lower and lower, the appeared satisfactory performance begins falling into a downward spiral. It could be as small as drinking a soda in the morning or as big as electing the next President as the United States. In many cases, however, it represents the tendency of industrialists to look to competitors’ polluting habits and believe that if the competitor can get away with one thing,

then they can too.

Escalation For escalation, as competing actors continuously try to get ahead of one another, the resulting efforts tend to build exponentially and they can actually get out of hand surprisingly quickly. However, while sometimes this can lead to negative consequences, i.e., pricing out small businesses by multinational corporations or the introduction of slightly refined products for increased consumption, the results of escalation are not always a negative. In some cases, escalation can lead to positive results, such as the advancement of renewable energy technologies.

Success to the Successful With success to the successful, one of the more recognized of systems traps, those who already possess a competitive advantage over the competition are systematically rewarded time after time, allowing those with the competitive advantage to continue winning, getting further and further ahead of the competition, until the entire system eventually collapses. Success to the successful can sometimes be referred to as the competitive exclusion principle, although this is mostly in the context of ecology, under which it suggests that two opposing species cannot compete for the same resources while occupying the same territory.

Seeking the Wrong Goal The most significant, and the most influential, of the systems traps however, is seeking the wrong goal. As Meadows (2002) suggests, “one of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That’s be13

Systems cause the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work� (p. 138). If the goal is not set appropriately, and therefore is not measuring what is truly best for the system, then it is unreasonable to expect it to produce a desirable result. Such an example could be considered the implementation of gross domestic product (GDP) as an aggregate measure of the welfare of a nation.

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“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.�

- Robert F. Kennedy The University of Kansas March 18, 1968

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Measuring Progress

In the case of GDP, the health of an economy is based on the total income earned within a country, or the total expenditures within a country, whereas both should be equal, and are thus, interchangeable.

However, even Simon Kuznets, the economist who developed GDP, warned of the dangers of using economic income as measure for the welfare of a nation. Under GDP, as well as gross national product (GNP), which, as a calculation of the total monetary value of the final goods and services produced within a country, is also used as an aggregate measure of economic wellbeing, there are no distinctions between quantity and quality of growth.

They do not measure social or environmental costs, and nor do they distinguish between the short- and long-term.

As Robert Kennedy so eloquently suggested during an election rally at The Uni16

versity of Kansas on March 18, 1968, “the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile�

(Rogers, 2012). In the eyes of GDP and GNP, costs associated with such events as

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Measuring Progress “For every society there seems to be a period in which economic growth (as conventionally measured) brings about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point—the threshold point—beyond which, if there is more economic growth, quality of life may begin to deteriorate”

car accidents and divorce are positives for the economy. There are legal fees that must be paid, hospital bills, new cars or homes, childcare, etc. It does not account for improvements in efficiency, merely overall production and consumption. In fact, improvements in efficiency would actually cause the GDP to fall since there would be a decrease in production and consumption.

3 Categories and 26 Measurements of the Genuine Progress Indicator (above) https://data.results.wa.gov/api/assets/84445E78D5E5-497F-8FF1-D6321B77313E

According to Manfred Max-Neef, in “Economic Growth and Quality of Life: A Threshold Hypothesis (1995), “for every society there seems to be a period in which economic growth (as conventionally measured) brings about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point—the threshold point—beyond which, if there is more economic growth, quality of life may begin to deteriorate” (p. 117). Around the same time that this was proposed, an ecological economist by the name of Robert Costanza performed an analysis on the then current value of nature’s services, showing that a great deal of environmental degradation was being done in the name of monetary profit. While GDP may have been rising, it was resulting in long-term risk in the form of resource and ozone depletion, air, water, and noise pollution, farmland and wetland destruction, lost species, 17

Measuring Progress

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reduced agricultural yields, mudslides, crime, family breakdown, and so on. This growth, which is clearly in excess of sustainable norms, must then be considered uneconomic.

Therefore, in order to create a better tool for the purpose of evaluating how economies are performing, a public policy think tank organization known as Redefining Progress created the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), a metric to replace, or at least supplement GDP. It was their belief that by incorporating factors that actually mattered to the people, such as healthcare, a clean environment, safety, and other such indicators of social wellbeing, economic policy would then naturally shift towards one of sustainability. Moreover, by doing so, economic activity would not just be able to be maintained in the immediate future, but also in the long-run.

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As explained in “The Genuine Progress Indicator 2006,” by Dr. John Telberth, Clifford Cobb, and Noah Slattery, “the GPI considers households as the basic building block of a nation’s welfare, and thus begins its accounting exercise with personal consumption expenditures. To this the GPI adds benefits associated with welfare enhancing activities such as parenting, housework, volunteering and high education as well as the services, which flow from household capital and public infrastructure. The GPI then deducts costs associated with pollution, loss of leisure time, auto accidents, destruction or degradation of natural capital, international debt and resource depletion. The end result is an index that attempts to measure our collective welfare in terms of sustainable development drawn from the economic, social, and environmental domains” (p. 28). After compiling a report considering such indicators, Redefining Progress determined that our nation’s aggregate welfare appears to have peaked in the 1970’s and, due to the increase in income inequality, loss of leisure time, and environmental degradation, has remained stagnant ever since.

That being said, the primary critique surrounding the calculation of the GPI is the assignment of a monetary value to natural resources. By doing so, the GPI is able to compare topics that cannot, or should not, be compared and such comparisons reflect elements of the natural ecosystem as being part of man’s misguided economic system, of which the GPI is intended to correct.

Baltimore & the GPI 2.0 In 2010, Baltimore, Maryland adopted the GPI 2.0, which had made updates to Redefining Progress’ GPI by incorporating additional datasets that had become available since GPI’s conception in 1995, as well as a significantly greater understanding of how these factors influenced the people’s wellbeing. With such updates, Baltimore claims that the GPI 2.0 can not only be adopted by other municipalities at the local level, but also at the state and national level, allowing policy-makers to monitor economic performance and asses the impact of budget decisions, land use plans, infrastructure investments, and any number of other policy decisions.

Whereas the GPI had 26 indicators across 3 distinct categories, the GPI 2.0 has 50 indicators across 12 categories. As with GDP and the original GPI, household spending on goods and services is a good starting point, but it must be considered that not all spending is beneficial.

In some cases, it would be preferred to reduce these expenses in the future, and therefore, must be considered a cost, not a gain. An example of such expenses could be considered healthcare costs stemming from stress induced medical conditions, which are the result of undesirable economic conditions.

Rather than putting hard-earned income towards various healthcare expenses, we would obviously rather just be healthy, and therefore, these expenses must be considered a cost, not a gain.

Other such costs include pollution abatement (residential air and water filters), food and energy waste, cigarettes, twenty-five percent of alcohol sales, household security devices, child-support, and alimony. As these expenses all represent a deterioration of social, economic, or environmental wellbeing, they represent more harm than good. In addition, investments in the future, such as a retirement fund, and charity donations must be netted

Next, the GPI adjusts household consumption spending to account for costs of income inequality. In reality, contrary to what advocates of the GDP would like us to believe, continued spending past a certain point does not make us better off.

Therefore, spending by the wealthy has less “bang for the buck” and so the GPI applies a discount factor that weighs a growth in consumption of low- and middle-income families as heavier than that of the wealthy. The GPI then adds the benefits associated with publically provided goods and services, such as public food, housing, and energy assistance, primary and secondary education, free public transit, and free recreational services.

are four forms of capital that are regarded as essential for the sustainability of a healthy economy.

These include human capital, social capital, built capital, and natural capital” (p. 4-5). Examples of such capital would be the availability of leisure time (social capital), which results from the ability of others’ ability to take over responsibility at home or work, while natural capital refers to the availability of open spaces, parks, wetlands, etc., which provide clean air, clean water, places to spend leisure time, and increased property values resulting from appreciated scenic views. It was even determined in the report that the benefits received from essential capital greatly outweighed household consumption, which suggests just how important these community and environmental assets are to economic wellbeing.

According to the report “Economic Wellbeing in Baltimore: Results from the GPI” (2014), prepared

by Dr. John Talberth and Michael Weisdorf, “The fourth stage is to add in the wide range of benefits we receive from community and environmental assets. These assets have been described by economists as stocks of “essential” capital that yield corresponding flows of services on an annual basis. There

In the fifth stage, the GPI assigns costs to the loss of natural capital and estimates the costs of pollution imposed on the community.

There are a number of valuation techniques that can be employed, but for Baltimore, the costs for the loss of natural capital are determined by estimating what it would cost at that specific time to replace those resources, and the costs of pollution are based on national and

out or household expenditures, as the goal of the GPI is to measure the value of current consumption.

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Baltimore, MD Skyline (above) regional studies estimating the marginal damage associated with an additional unit of each pollutant, which in the case of carbon dioxide, an additional metric ton is estimated at forty dollars.

Other studies include household willingness to pay to fund programs to clean up polluted water bodies and public spending on pollution clean up or solid waste management programs. Then, for the sixth, and final stage, the GPI subtracts social costs resulting from economic policy decisions, such as homelessness, underemployment, crime, commuting, and vehicle accidents.

In concluding their report, Talberth and Weisdorf suggested a number of findings. First of all, it would seem that economic 20

wellbeing in Baltimore is not so much about daily household consumption of goods and services, but rather about the economic benefits received from such areas as public infrastructure, unpaid labor, leisure time, high quality education systems, available parks and open spaces, and other such attributes indicative of a high standard of living. In fact, household consumption is actually outweighed by these benefits by nearly double: $26k/person vs. $14k/person.

Furthermore, while the economic contribution received from unpaid labor is typically overlooked, it actually added over $5 billion in value to the local economy in 2013. Lastly, while Baltimore’s

economic recovery was reflected in a five percent per capita growth in GPI from 2012 to 2013, it could have been substantially better, as it was hampered by increased inequality, crime, underemployment, and commuting costs.

Globalization & the New Economy

“At the existential human level, the most alarming feature of the new economy may be that it is shaped in very fundamental ways by machines.”

Capra (2002) cautions that, “at the existential human level, the most alarming feature of the new economy may be that it is shaped in very fundamental ways by machines. The so-called ‘global market,’ strictly speaking, is not a market at all but a network of machines programmed according to a single value—money-making for the sake of making money” (p. 141). When Victor Margolin wrote “Expansion or Sustainability: Two Models of Development,” he suggested that we have been operating under what he calls the expansion model of the world. “According to this model,” Margolin (2002) states, “the world consists of markets in which products function first and foremost as tokens of economic exchange. They attract capital which is either recycled back into more production or becomes part of the accumulation of private or corporate wealth” (p. 82). It is, as Margolin (2002) continues, “dominated by a belief in the power of technological innovation to enhance human experience, a relation predicated on the claim that the satisfaction material goods can provide is without limits” (p. 84). Again, for several decades after GDP’s implementation following World War II, the use of GDP as an aggregate measure of economic wellbeing did seem to be working. As consump-

tion increased and more money was spent within the economy, the happier the people became and the healthier the economy appeared.

However, as suggested by the 2006 report compiled by Redefining Progress, when policy makers and governments sought to create economic expansion using this model of product-based wellbeing by increasing the wealth of the already elite social class, in hopes that it would, in turn, trickle down to the those in lower class systems, if in any class at all, who could then contribute to the global economic system through increased consumption, they were seeking to expand a model that was fundamentally flawed. Rather than relieving poverty and increasing the quality of life for those in the lower class, the process of economic globalization actually exacerbated poverty and social inequality, not to mention the virtual elimination of environmental regulation in order to lower costs of industrial production.

As the information and communication networks continued to spread, it was not long before the emerging digital world enveloped the global financial system, giving way to a new global economy—a new 21

Globalization & the New Economy global capitalism. Capra (2002) explains that, “in the new economy, capital works in real time, moving rapidly through global financial networks. From these networks it is invested in all kinds of economic activity, and most of what is extracted as profit is channeled back into the metanetwork of financial flows” (p.137). As investments in financial markets generally yield higher returns than do most direct investments, the money remains in the digital world, where gold and paper currency has been all but replaced by numbers on an electronic screen.

Capra (2002) continues, “the resulting new economy is so complex and turbulent that it defies analysis in conventional economic terms” (p. 139). Investments are not based on actual performance, but rather speculations generated by advanced, automated computer modeling and the perceptions of analysts based on their own tacit knowledge, political events, both foreign and domestic, and, most especially, any unsuspecting turbulences that are the direct result of this highly complex, nonlinear system.

More importantly, it is not as if these investments and turbulences are just in various publicly traded corporations. There is a whole segment of the financial industry based in global currency markets and have become the major determining factors of any national currency. The implications of this are that it is no longer the governments who control their own economic policies; it is the investment bankers and speculators halfway across the world sitting at their computer. Where large economies can typically handle fluctuations in their currency, investments have a much greater effect on emerging markets, which have become very popular with speculators because of their strong potential for economic growth.

Therefore, when these speculators sense even the slightest tremor and pull out, they destabilize the economy, which then causes even more investors to pull their funds, 22

Global Currency Markets (Above)

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often resulting in a full-blown economic crisis within that nation, or even the whole region. In order to appease investors and re-attract capital, global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank will then impose austerity measures on the destabilized economy, resulting in increased interest rates and/or taxes, which just sends the local economy even deeper into a recession.

This has been seen time and time again, from the Mexican Financial Crisis in 1994, the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, or the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-2008, which has also carried on the Greece-Debt Crisis to today.

While traditional economists will often end up blaming various internal factors such as government oversight or weak banking systems, it appears that it is not a local or regional issue at all, but an international, and even systemic issue. It would seem that these new global financial networks are innately unstable. That being said, with the advances of the ITR, effective methods of regulation are technically feasible. The issue is not the availability of the necessary technology, but rather the politics and human values that must implement such regulations. Unfortunately, one of the critical consequences of the new economy’s ex-

Globalization & the New Economy plicit focus of increasing profits, and, in the case of corporations, shareholder value, has been the propensity for corporate mergers and acquisitions. With such a rise in these information and communication networks, there have been considerable changes in the dynamics between capital and labor.

Where as capital has become global, labor has remained local, enriching a global elite and creating wealth gap the magnitude of which has never before been seen by man.

Under this system that these elite few control, any share or stake that can be sold for a profit, will be sold, regardless of its implications. As a result, inequality and polarization, both internationally and domestically, has grown significantly. Those who do not offer any opportunity for financial gain to these elites who control the flows of global capital are simply excluded from the equation. This “Fourth World,” as Capra refers to it, is occupied by millions who suffer from homelessness, poverty, and even illiteracy. Their social exclusion has reached such an extent that they often find themselves getting trapped in a downward spiral of marginality, from which they can rarely escape.

As Capra (2002) states, “it is interesting to

apply the systemic understanding of life to the analysis of this phenomenon. The new economy consists of a global metanetwork of complex technological and human interactions, involving multiple feedback loops operating far from equilibrium, which produce a never-ending variety of emergent phenomena. Its creativity, adaptability, and cognitive capabilities are certainly reminiscent of living networks, but it does not display the stability that is also a key property of life” (p. 140). With the sheer speed and overwhelming amount of information flowing from around the world that is being processed each day, hour, minute, and even second, it is no surprise that a system designed with the wrong goal in mind is spinning out of control.

Not only has it been the tendency of corporate economists to exclude the social costs of economic activity from their models, but they have also been ignoring the environmental costs, which are at least as severe as the social impacts, if not even more so.

As this expansion model has spread, it has both increased global environmental destruction and accelerated it. One the basic principles of this global capitalism is borne in imports and exports, and therefore, it is typically the case that poor countries will concentrate on the production of a few specialized goods for export in order to gain foreign capital and import anything else that is needed. This has then led to the rapid depletion of these nation’s natural resources required to produce such crops, as well as depletion of other resources in order to produce more of the export crop, such as the case of palm oil throughout the tropics.

Moreover, with the rise of imports and exports as a pillar of global capitalism, there is a need for increased transportation and Children scavaging a landfill (left)

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Deforestation in Indonesia (above)

thus, puts substantial strain on the environment. However, for those elites that have the means to facilitate such transportation, this is seen as a benefit, as the pollution, or depending on the form, at least portions of it, generated from production remains in the region of the exporting nation, the goods and resources are moved to the elites clean, safe area.

The ITR has also transformed the overall dynamic of power. In addition to the turbulent financial flows that characterize the global economy, “the state,” according to Capra (2002), “is disintegrating from within through the corruption of the democratic process, as the political actors—especially in the United States—depend more and more on corporations and other lobbying groups, which finance the politicians’ electoral campaigns in exchange for policies that favor their ‘special interests’” (p. 149).

In doing so, the corporations have been quite successful in coercing subsidies and tax breaks out of the nations in which they are operating. However, that is not the entire scope of their influence. They are also

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prone to destroying small businesses by undercutting their prices, regularly withhold potentially harmful information about their products, and are huge advocates of eliminating regulatory constraints.

Furthermore, these communication networks transmit more than just information regarding financial flows. They also provide both formal and informal networks of news, art, science, and entertainment, among others, all of which has been transformed by the ITR. Just as with the financial system, it was not long until these areas of cultural expression were absorbed by the digital world and transformed into the universal computing language, hypertext. That being said, as human culture exists in language, it is logical that our culture transforms with the transition of communication to a new medium, and because of this, there are a number of key implications.

For starters, consumerism has been transformed. With the product-based wellbeing that characterizes the economic system, there are very little, if not no restraints on

Globalization & the New Economy product refinement or standard of quality, there has been an excessive amount of product creation, and, for the most part, the only real differences in these products are how they are packaged and presented through advertisements, such as the overwhelming production of smart phones, all of which have the same capabilities, but with slightly different operating systems.

With such an immediate, and constant, access to the communication networks, targeting generic, mass audiences has become an obsolete practice. In today’s digital world, Capra (2002) explains, “the current trend is clearly toward customized media for segmented audiences… precisely tailored to their tastes” (p. 155). Thus resulting in an abundance of advertising attempting to persuade consumers towards a new product, or simply a new brand at all times.

In these networks, advertisers have even learned to place “cookies” on consumer’s computers so that they can learn the user’s browsing history and advertise directly to what they have looked at on the Internet.

As Capra (2002) goes on, “the culture we create and sustain with our networks of communications includes not only our values, beliefs, and rules of conduct, but also our very perception of reality” (p.156). With the adoption of such an electronic medium of communication, we are beginning to lose the ability to distinguish between the natural and digital world, the real and the virtual. Even in politics, those that do not have a digital media presence will, for all practical purposes, not exist. It does not matter if their positions are either correct or popular. If they are unable to reach the mass audiences of the network society, they will be unable to stand a chance against those that understand how this new, widely interconnected system works. That being said, in many cases, the positions of those that understand this system are often not popular or correct. With said blurring levels of reality, the political system has become

more like theatre, or even a circus, with political figures saying and doing whatever is needed to win the favor of whichever audience they are in front of at that particular time, and it would seem that there is very little conflict by society with this widely accepted fact. The overwhelming nature of the vast information and communication networks has resulted in a drastic decline in society’s attention span, allowing anything of substantial importance to be shrugged off and replaced in the headlines almost immediately.

Coal Mine (below)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Strip_coal_mining.jpg

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Crossroads “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we are in-between stories.

The Old Story—the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it— sustained us for a long time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purpose, energized action, consecrated suffering, integrated knowledge, and guided education. We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children.

But now it is no longer functioning properly, and we have not yet learned the New Story.”

- Wendell Berry According to Capra (2002), “the concept of sustainability was introduced in the early 1980s by Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, who defined a sustainable society as one that is able to satisfy its needs without diminishing the chances of future generations. Several years later, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the “Brundtland Report”) used the same definition to present the notion of sustainable development: ‘Humankind has the ability to achieve sustainable development—to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’” (p. 229). However, this was not the first time that the ideas behind a sustainable society were introduced to the public.

It was actually, according to Margolin (2002), “The Limits to Growth, first published in 1972, which argued vigorously for the need to achieve a global equilibrium based on limits to population growth, the 26

economic development of less developed countries, and a new attentiveness to environmental problems (p. 81). The Limits to Growth, commissioned by the Club of Rome, an organization of people who strive to make a positive difference for the future of humanity through scientific analysis, communication, and advocacy, was intended to analyze the planet as the system that it is and explore the dynamics of current and future population growth, along with man’s natural resource use, to see how it affected economic growth. While the concept of sustainability had yet to be conceived, there were still those that could recognize that man’s patterns of consumption and destruction were not in balance with the system.

A third such warning, this one in 1992, came from the UN publication of “Agenda 21,” a three-hundred page document declaring that we as a species were at a critical moment in history. It went on to explain that never before had we faced a greater

Crossroads risk both between and within nations; That poverty had continued to exacerbate, as well had hunger, poor health, and illiteracy, not to mention the continued deterioration of the world’s ecosystem on which we depend. In order to fulfill the world’s most basic needs, protecting our ecosystems and improving living standards for all, Agenda 21 suggested that we needed to band together in a global partnership for sustainable development—That we must change our consumption patterns and develop new concepts of sustainable economic growth and prosperity. In addition, around the same time, the team behind The Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows, Jordan Randers, and Roger Meadows, re-ran the World3 computer simulation off of which the original Limits to Growth was based, and in agreement with “Agenda 21,” suggested that humanity was no longer within the Earth’s carrying capacity and needed to begin the transition towards global sustainability immediately.

were leading the global system towards collapse, yet very little has changed. In fact, when combining the expansion model with today’s rate of technological innovation, consumption is higher than it ever has been before. In addition, for those that were able to receive at least some of the financial benefits of the spread of global capitalism to their regions, thus allowing them the ability to access the global information and communication networks, consumption has also increased drastically. As they plugged in and became absorbed in the digital world, just as with the rest of us, they too were inundated with mass-marketing campaigns to persuade them to consume more and more and they too became part of this “global market.”

Clearly it is not just a part of this new economy that needs overhaul, it is the entire system. We need to transition to what Margolin (2002) refers to as the sustainability model of the world, which he proposes in opposition to the expansion model, the Ten years later, however, Meadows, Randpremise of which is that “the world is a sysers, and Meadows published Limits to tem of ecological checks and balances that Growth: The 30 Year Update (2002), in consists of finite resources. If the elements which their new conclusion suggested that of this system are damaged or thrown out of humanity was in a very dangerous state of balance or if essential resources are depletovershoot, “where we are drawing on the ed, the system will suffer severe damage world’s resources faster than they can be and will possibly collapse” (p. 82). Thererestored, and we are releasing wastes and fore, beginning January 1, 2016, the UN pollutants faster than the Earth can absorb announced the adoption for 17 Sustainable them or render them harmless. They are Development Goals (SDGs) by the world’s leading us toward global environmental and leaders. With these goals, the aim is to not economic collapse” (p. 3). As Meadows et all just fight climate change, but also global continue, they go on to explain that while poverty and inequality. they are now far more pessimistic than they were in 1972, they also urge that there still may be time to address these issues and hopefully, at least, soften the landing of our impending collapse.

It has been nearly fifty years since this global information and communication network was introduced to the notion that our patterns of consumption and waste 27

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Left) Source: http://impakter.com/ wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ SDG-Poster_A4.jpg

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Leverage Points As a system, there are actually several leverage points that we may be able to utilize in which small changes could potentially lead to large shifts in behavior throughout the entire economy, as well as society. The most effective, as well as realistic of these, involve establishing new rules, encouraging self-organization, setting appropriate goals, and shifting the paradigms.

Rules

suggests that those within the market are ready for change. For that reason, this is often an unpopular place of intervention in the system as it arises from the encouragement of variability and experimentation, which means that those who control the system lose power.

As Meadows (2008) states, “the rules of the system define its scope, its boundaries, its degrees of freedom… As we try to imagine restructured rules and what our behavior would be under them, we come to understand the power of rules. They are high leverage points. Power over the rules is real power” (p. 158). This is the principle reason that the integrity of the sovereign state has been in such a drastic decline. With the ability of large corporations to lobby their special interests by financing political candidates electoral campaigns, they are able to place substantial influence on the writing of the rules, and therefore, often hold more power than those who are passing these rules as laws. What must be done instead is an establishment of rules that provides incentives, punishments and constraints that shift the global economy, or at least the domestic economy, towards sustainable behavior.

System goals, the third leverage point of systems, as already suggested, is a direct reflection of the purpose of function of the system and must be determined very carefully. It determines almost every aspect of how the elements of the system are shaped, as well as their interactions with one another. If the goal is not set appropriately, all the other system traits down the list—rules, information flows, stocks and flows, etc.—will be shaped to that goal and, as we have seen, the resulting outcome is unlikely to reflect what is actually best for the system.

Self-Organization

Paradigms

The next leverage point in the system, self-organization, refers to the ability of living systems and some social systems to change themselves by creating new behaviors and whole new structures. Some may refer to this as evolution, others, technical advance or social revolution, but in all systems, it refers to the ability to respond to information and is an indication of resilience. It is not just the result of human creativity, but also the result of the market rewarding such creativity, which often

Then, we have the shifting of paradigms.

These may be the most difficult aspect of a system to change, but at the same time, can be done with one simple click of the mind.

Paradigms represent the shared beliefs of how the world works, “the mind-set out of which the system—its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters—arises” (Meadows, 2008, p. 162). They are shared ideas within society, the deepest beliefs, and the unstated assumptions.

Goals

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Redesigning the Path

Source: http://www.integritusprime.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/nature-spiral-bokeh-micro1.jpg

If utilized correctly, leverage points do have the potential to lead to a complete overhaul of our system as we know it. We can change the rules that we abide by.

We can change how we behave and how we respond to the vast information flows stemming from the global information and communication networks. We can change which goals we seek and for what purpose we seek them. We can change how we, together, as a society, see the world and the underlying assumptions that construct our perceptions of the system. We can redesign the path that we are on—from a path of concrete, plastics, and independence to one of zero-waste, biomimics, and natural ecology.

As a species, we do have this unique ability to self-reflect. We can contemplate our existence, our place within the system, our impact. In the past, we have tried to distance ourselves from nature, believing that we are superior to nature, seeking our independence and autonomy. We have been seeking to solve all of our problems through our ingenuity and creativity alone.

However, in the 3.8 billion years since that first bacteria brought life to this vast universe, of which our global system is a mere speck, nature has already solved all of these problems that we have been attempting to solve since we began our estrangement from nature. Nature has learned how to

An example of a pattern in nature (left)

soar through the skies, cross the seven seas, live in the deepest of oceans and atop the highest of peaks. It has learned how to craft miraculous materials, harness the sun’s energy and light up the night sky. It has even built a self-reflective brain. It has self-organized, turning rock and sea into a place where life is conducive to life.

Janine M. Benyus, author of Biomimicry (1997), suggests that as humans, “we regard limits as a universal dare, something to overcome so we can continue our expansion” (p. 7). However, the time has come “for us as a culture to walk in the forest again” (Benyus, 1997, p. 9). Nature is one of the few mediums that enables a complete shift of paradigms. In some cases, this may occur through the removal of technology, allowing us to recognize the intrinsic beauty of the natural environment. It allows us to escape the digital world and get back to our roots. We can explore a forest that 31

Honeybees and honeycomb (above) Source: https://spin.atomicobject.com/wp-content/uploads/ bees-honey-comb.jpg

remains untouched by man with no civilization for miles around, climb the face of a mountain with nothing but a harness, rope, and brute strength, swim in the depths of the ocean with nothing but the air in our lungs, or surf a wave with nothing but a board beneath our feet. In others, it may be a direct result of improved technology.

As escalation and technological innovation has led to the ITR and increased consumption through unabated product refinement, it has also enabled great progress in science, which can directly benefit both the environment and society. As Benyus (1997) states, new scopes and satellites allow us to witness nature’s patterns from the intercellular to the interstellar. We can probe a buttercup with the eyes of a mite, ride the electron shuttle of photosynthesis, feel the shiver of a neuron in thought, or watch in color as a star is born. We can see, more clearly than ever before, how nature works her miracles. When we stare this deeply into nature’s eyes, it takes our breath away, and in a good way, it bursts our bubble” (p. 6). Both of these views, the macro and the micro, are crucial to the transition to a sustainable society.

As a concept, biomimicry refers study of nature’s models for the purpose of imitating or simply taking inspiration from its designs and processes to solve problems that we as humans face. It is a new way of not just viewing nature, but valuing nature, based not on what can be extracted, but

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on what can be learned. It sees nature as a model, measure, and mentor. “Doing it nature’s way,” Benyus (1997) suggests, “has the potential to change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business. In a biomimetic world, we would manufacture the way animals and plants do, using sun and simple compounds to produce totally biodegradable fibers, ceramics, plastics, and chemicals. Our farms, modeled on prairies, would be self-fertilizing and pest resistant. To find new drugs or crops, we would consult animals and insects that have used plants for millions of years to keep themselves healthy and nourished.

Even computing would take its cue from nature, with software that ‘evolves’ solutions, and hardware that uses the lock-andkey paradigm to compute by touch” (p. 2-3).

In each of these cases, nature has already presented us with a model to echo. It is an ordinary leaf and its process of photosynthesis, for example, from which our solar cells are designed, and perennial grains that stem from the inspiration of tall grass, as well as architecture that is inspired from the orientation of termite mounds.

Biomimicry even offers solutions to the entire ways in which we conduct business—how we make, sell, market and buy everything—working only with substances and materials that would be able to be recognized and assimilated by nature. It would be, according to Benyus (1997), “a future in which industry runs on sunlight (or a similar renewable nonpolluting source), doesn’t ‘overdraw’ natural resources or foul its own nest, sees nothing as waste, is cooperative and diversified, and does more with less through ingenious, high-quality, information-rich design of products and processes” (p. 254). It would not just be a closed system, it would be a regenerative system. A system where life created conditions conducive to life.

10 Principle Strategies of Ecosystems Over these 3.8 billion years that natural selection has had to eliminate behaviors that do not work within the grand scheme of life, it has come up with a set of strategies that appear to be characteristic of all complex, mature ecosystems. These include:

1.

Use waste as a resource

2.

Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat

3.

Gather and use energy efficiently

4.

Optimize rather than maximize

5.

Use materials sparingly

6.

Don’t foul the nest

7.

Don’t draw down resources

8.

Remain in balance with the biosphere

9.

Run on information

10.

Shop locally

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Farming in a Biomimic World By learning to farm in nature’s image, humanity will be adopting practices that are possibly the most essential to the survival of our species as any of the biomimic approaches, as well is the notion of helping those across our system get back to their local roots. It would involve not only transitioning towards an agricultural system based on the native plants of each community and region, but it would also involve restoring balance to the plants and soil that has been plagued by industrial farming through the destruction of their natural defenses, genetic diversity, and the overall health of the soil, which in the case of top soil, eroded through the concentration on annual plants over perennials, can take thousands of years to rejuvenate, leaving it essentially nonrenewable.

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Fresh bananas harvested through permaculture techniques (right)

Source: https://kaluyala.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/parallax1.jpg

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Chili peppers being grown the permaculture techniques (left)

Permaculture One such example of these forms of agriculture is permaculture, or permanent agriculture. It is based on designing with the knowledge and wisdom learned from nature’s ecosystem—that as ecosystems become more efficient and stable, they come to require far less work than those that are kept in their first stage of succession. Benyus (1997) references that, “Australian ecologist Bill Mollison…advocates keeping some crops on the land for many years, to bring farming as close as it can come to nature’s efficiency. For years, Mollison has worked on perfecting a system whereby small-scale farmers would set up a low-maintenance garden, a woodland, and an animal and fish farm and then become self-sufficient—fed, clothed, and powered by local resources that are literally right at hand” (p. 38). Under Mollison’s idea of edible landscaping, crops that are most frequently visited are planted closer to your dwelling, while those that require less attention are placed in

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concentric circles stretching out from the house. Designing the layout and selecting synergistic planting arrangements, using companion plants that bring out best in each other, which combine to create this self-supportive system, Mollison explains, is the most labor intensive part. Therefore, by scaling agriculture down to a personal and community level, we will learn, once again, to regard the growing of our food as a scared, biological act.

Growing Edge Community Garden Savannah, GA

Source: http://emergentstructures.org/project/growing-edge-community-garden-shade-house/

Source: https://kaluyala.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DSC06569.jpg

Community Gardens It is unreasonable to expect that everyone has the ability to construct a garden on their property. In urban areas, many people simply do not have a yard. In these cases, there are two primary opportunities. One of which are community gardens, which are simply single plots of land scattered throughout an urban area and gardened collectively by a group of people. In some cases, these gardens will require a monthly membership fee for a designated plot, but one of the great benefits of participating in this system is the shared knowledge that is gained through engaging open conversation with community members. Moreover, according to the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA), “community gardening improves people’s quality of life by providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education” (“About Us”, n.d.).

However, until such community movements become the norm, the responsibility of spreading the knowledge of these benefits will often fall on the shoulders of others, such as the Savannah Urban Gardening Alliance (SUGA), whose mission “is to increase access and awareness to local, healthy food, one garden at a time… Cultivating a gardening movement in Savannah’s communities through outreach, education and support” (“School Gardener Manager Program, n.d.).

Therefore, one of their most recent initiatives has actually been to help local schools develop gardening programs to teach the community youth not just about these benefits, but also the skills of gardening in general.

Community Supported Agriculture Under community supported agriculture (CSAs), on the other hand, “city dwellers subscribe with a local organic farmer at the beginning of the season, then pick up a bag brimming with fresh produce each week of the summer. The farmer gets the money up front, and the buyer shares in the risk, agreeing to eat whatever crops do well and do without those that fail. In this way, consumers learn to eat with the cycles of the local landscape and have the satisfaction of knowing the food is grown nearby in a conscientious way” (Benyus, 1997, p.

56). In more southern areas, these are even extended to year-round programs. It all just depends on the local system.

Typical fresh produce grown at a community garden or available at a CSA (below)

Source: http://media1.fdncms.com/chronogram/imager/community-supported-agriculture-farms-index/u/original/2233551/veggg.jpg

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Redesigning the Path In this global economic system, it is clear that today’s businesses and governments are in need of a new framework—one that will focus on the deep environmental and social issues that have come to define the system—one that will bring about a transformation of commerce. As suggested by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, authors of Natural Capitalism (1999), “while industrial systems have reached pinnacles of success, able to muster and accumulate human-made capital on vast levels, natural capital, on which civilization depends to create economic prosperity, is rapidly declining, and the rate of loss is increasing proportionate to gains in material well-being. Natural capital includes all the familiar resources used by humankind: water, minerals, oil, trees, fish, soil, air, etcetera. But it also encompasses living systems, which include grasslands, savannas, wetlands, estuaries, oceans, coral reefs, riparian corridors, tundras, and rainforests. These are deteriorating worldwide at an unprecedented rate. Within these ecological communities are the fungi ponds, mammals, humus, amphibians, bacteria, trees, flagellates, insects, songbirds, ferns, starfish, and flowers that make life possible and worth living on this planet” (p. 2). As

our appetite for growth continues to place strain on these living systems, we are not just putting their existence at risk, but we are also placing the services that they offer at risk. Services such as water storage and flood management, clean air, fertile soil, and waste processing, among so many others, that are critical to the prosperity of the human race.

It is ironic that capitalism, as the global economic system, fails to adhere to basic accounting principles by failing to place any value on its greatest assets. This is not to say that this failure comes from the absence of an assigned monetary value to each service. While such systems as triple bottom line accounting do exist, which accounts for economic costs, as well as social and environmental, for the most part, these services, processes, and characteristics, as well as what we can learn from them, cannot actually be monetized. Under the industrial capitalism, as well as global capitalism, “the creation of value is portrayed as a linear sequence of extraction, production, and distribution” (Hawkens et all, 1999, p. 7). It simply fails to place any stock in its stocks.

What Hawkens, Lovins, and Lovins propose

Triple bottom line: People, planet, profits (left) Source: https://www.nukleusorganicwear.com.au/wp-content/ uploads/2015/06/Slider-2-01600x300.png

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Redesigning the Path is a new economic system based on an entirely different philosophy, different goals, and different fundamental processes from those that characterize the current system.

It would be a form of capitalism in which living systems truly mattered and it would consist of four central strategies.

employment with jobs that actually provide its performer with a sense of fulfillment, all three of which would thus lower the costs for both business and society.

Radical Resource Productivity

As nature itself is a closed-loop, zero waste system, the imitation of nature’s processes will result in a drastic reduction in the wasteful throughput of materials, and therefore, biomimicry is the second strategy. This will involve redesigning the industrial system by imitating biological and ecosystem processes, replicating its natural methods of manufacturing and engineering, and learning to reuse materials in a closed cycle.

The first of these strategies, radical resource productivity, is the cornerstone of natural capitalism. Not only would an increase in resource productivity slow the overall depletion of natural resources, but it would also lower pollution and provide a means of which to increase worldwide

Biomimicry

Ecopark – Kalundborg, Denmark In the town of Kalundborg, Denmark, a group of four companies to create one of the world’s most elaborate, and successful, ecoparks, where these companies are all located, linked and dependent on one each other for resources or energy, referred to “industrial symbiosis.” Through an intricate piping system, the Ansnaesverket Power Company sends waste steam to power the engines of two of the other companies, the Statoil Refinery and Novo Nodisk, a pharmaceutical plant, as well as to the thirty-five hundred homes in the town as a source of heat, which eliminates the need for traditional oil furnaces. In addition, the power

plant also sends its cooling water, which has then become comfortably warmer, to fifty-seven ponds in the area, allowing the fish to thrive within the warm water, producing two hundred and fifty tons of sea trout and turbot each year.

Back at Novo Nordisk, the waste steam sent by the power company is used to heat fermentation tanks, which produce the insulin and enzymes needed for pharmaceuticals. This, in turn, creates seven hundred thousand tons of nitrogen rich slurry that is sent as fertilizer to nearby farmers, which then send a portion of their plants grown with assistance of the

fertilizer back to the Novo Nordisk to feed the bacteria in the fermentation tanks. At the same time, the Statoil Refinery sends purified waste gas to the power company and Gyproc, the wallboard manufacturing company next door, while also using some as fuel themselves. Even the sulfur that is extracted during the purification of the gas is sent to the sulfuric acid producer, Kemira. Finally, the power company, who also extracts sulfur from the purification of their emissions, converts most of it to calcium sulfate and sends it Gyproc for wallboard, as well.

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Cradle-to-Cradle Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C), one of the ways in which Biomimicry will change the future of business, is a product design and manufacturing strategy in which the cornerstone of the philosophy is waste equals food. It focuses on a shift towards a circular economy through total life-cycle analysis and zero waste processes. It offers a call to rethink the way that we make things, both technically and biologically —to ask the tough questions about what exactly the process is for the manufacturing and production of a product and of what exactly is the product made, as well as what will happen to the materials once the product’s life has come to an end.

This philosophy also goes handin-hand with the transition to a service-and-flow economy, as under service-and-flow, the responsibly handling of the materials after the life of a product has ended is on the manufacturer.

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5 Criteria of C2C:

Cradle-to-Cradle process illustration (above)

- Material Health - Material Reutilization - Renewable Energy - Water Stewardship - Social Fairness In cases throughout the world, such as with the outdoor outfitter Patagonia or athletic apparel company PUMA, we are seeing companies that are setting up bins in retail locations in order to invite customers to return products that are no longer of use so that the manufacturer can reuse the material or simply recycle them responsibly themselves.

Sources: http://d15v13h3408o3u.cloudfront.net/damfiles/article_img_3/sustainability/strategy/PUMA_History-of-Sustainability_Imagery/2012_BringMe-Back-1d4f3a244013aadea8b07e4c115aa21e.JPG www.bluehair.co/corner/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Cradle-to-Cradle-illustration-v2.png

PUMA recycling bin (below)

Biosphere 2 Experiment In 1991, a group of eight scientists, nicknamed the “bionauts”, began a never before attempted, twoyear experiment, in which they were sealed inside a 3.15-acre, glass sealed structure near Oracle, Arizona. “Inside,” according to Hawkens, Lovins, and Lovins, (1999), “was a diversity of ecosystems, each built from scratch, including a desert, a tropical rainforest, a savanna, a wetland, a field for farming, and an ocean with a coral reef. The “bionauts” were accompanied into their habitat by insects, pollinators, fish, reptiles, and mammals that were selected to maintain ecosystem functions” (p. 146). The goal of the Biosphere 2 experiment was for all inhabitants within the ecosystem, including the “bionauts,” to live entirely off the land within the dome, where all air, water and

nutrient cycles would take place, as well.

As the experiment went on, air quality began declining at a steady rate. Carbon dioxide levels rose, oxygen levels fell, and of the original twenty-five small vertebrate species, only six survived the entire experiment. Fortunately, and to the surprise of the scientists conducting the experiment, cockroach populations flourished and took on the role of de facto pollinators as many of the other species of insects became extinct.

By the end of seventeen months, due to the drastic decline in oxygen levels, it was as if the “bionauts” were living at an altitude of 17,500 feet. The end conclusion, or lesson, as Hawkens et all (1999) suggest, was that “it required $200 million and some of the best scientific minds in the world to

Service-and-Flow Economy The third central strategy, the implementation of a service-and-flow economy, then involves fundamentally restructuring the relationship between consumers and producers. A transition from an economy focused on the consumption of goods towards the acquisition of services. “Rather than an economy in which goods are made and sold… consumers obtain services by leasing or renting goods rather than buying them outright” (Hawkens et all, 1999, p.

16). Under this system, the product remains an asset of the manufacturer, who therefore, now has an incentive to make high quality products that are easily repairable, recyclable, and upgradable. In addition, not only does a service economy increase employment opportunities through increased demand for material remanufacturing, but it also has the potential to stabilize the unpredictable business cycles that char-

construct a functioning ecosystem that had difficulty keeping eight people alive for twenty-four months. We are adding eight people to the planet every three seconds” (p. 147). Therefore, when calculations, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) attempt to measure the value of natural resources and entire ecosystems by assigning a monetary figure to them based on available substitutes or what governments or households are willing to pay to clean them up, they are assigning a number that comes no where near its genuine worth. There are simply some resources with such diverse arrays of benefits that they cannot be bought or have substitutes manufactured.

acterize the current system as customers would be continuing to purchase services for extended periods of time rather than once every few years.

Investing in Natural Capital For the fourth central strategy of natural capitalism, Hawkens, Lovins, and Lovins (1999) propose that we must begin investing in natural capital, which means restoring our stocks of natural resources. Such methods of investing in natural capital could include a revising of the tax and subsidy system in such a way that those who cause harm to the ecosystem, or otherwise act in unsustainable manners, are subject to increased taxes, whereas those who offer restorative benefits to the system are rewarded with subsidies.

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Redesigning the Path In addition, the adoption of a framework such as that of natural capitalism and a service-and-flow strategy requires a couple of other focuses, as well.

Muda As both natural capitalism and a serviceand-flow economy are centralized on a zero-waste system, there must also be an emphasis on the elimination of “muda,” which refers to any activity performed by humans that does not provide value, or even decreases value, thus, reducing the potential for an increased competitive advantage for the business itself. One of the more famous examples of the elimination of “muda” in a production setting is that of the Toyota Production System (TPS), more commonly referred to as Just-In-Time manufacturing, but irrelevant due to the fact that the founder of Toyota, Kiichiro Toyoda, is also where the idea of just-in-time manufacturing originated. It is TPS that is attributed for the fact that Toyota remains the company that they are today, a leader in the automotive and manufacturing industry.

In addition, when Herman Miller began to show signs for impending bankruptcy, they hired on a consultant from Toyota to help establish more efficient production systems and they now attribute their success to the implementation of TPS, along with a few modifications that added, of course.

sive inventories that characterizes so many of the current system’s business practices.

While this may seem to inhibit the ability of the business to experience substantial growth, as it is a system trait, this supply-at-demand technique allows for greatly increased flexibility and reliability, as well substantially decreased costs in inventory and transportation. In the end, what it is, is an overall more efficient use if resources, time, and money.

Simplification & Scale Another set of such system traits that can be adopted in manufacturing is that of simplification and scale. In adopting that of simplification and applying it to the whole manufacturing process or plant, according to Hawkens et all (1999), “it gains the wider ability to save simultaneously such resources as space, materials, energy, transportation, and time” (p. 130). In regards to scale, the decision is to be determined by the rate at which the customer pulls, as well as the location.

While such practices would seem to reduce employee retention or, as aforementioned, competitive advantage, studies show that lean thinking, when actually implemented, is able to increase production, according to Hawkens et all (1999), “by two- to fourfold, while inventories, delays, defects, errors, accidents, scrap, and other unwanted outcomes fall by about four- to tenfold” (p.

132). It is often even the case that the proTherefore, in many cases, it may be in the cess begins with a company- or factory wide best interest of businesses to redesign their guarantee that there will be no job loss and core strategies and practices around what is is able to maintain that promise. That being called lean thinking, a practice that focuses said, lean thinking is not just a practice offers benefits to the firm, but with its reon production of goods and services based sulting reduction in waste, is a practice that on actual demand by the customer, not also benefits society, and with the overall forecasted demand. Nothing is produced adoption of a service-and-flow economy, until it is actually requested, which is the can lead to a fundamental shift in measuropposite of the conventional “batch-andqueue” technique that results in the masing the standards for corporate success. At 42

Redesigning the Path the macroeconomic scale, we can finally conceive the idea of much more rewarding and far less risky economic system. More than that, it implies an overturning of longheld assumptions regarding the growth of economic systems in which we can now use less while still growing, becoming both stronger and leaner.

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Finding our True North We are getting closer. However, we are taking our time when we need to be chasing the sun. It is dropping below the horizon and we do not have much time before darkness falls. We need to lift our eyes from the map on the screen and look to the skies..

We need to again venture into the wilderness. It is no longer the forests or oceans or mountains or canyons that we are seeing, it is pixels—Thousands, upon thousands, of pixels, spanning across the world.

It is true that technology has allowed humanity to make great strides in scientific progress. We can share information with one another within the blink of an eye. We can save lives, cure disease, restore vision.

However, it is, at the same time, blinding us—blinding us to reality—blinding us to the reality of this impending darkness. It seems that with the ability to access any information at any moment, we actually know very little. What is needed is to take a step back, to move from thinking local and acting global to thinking global and acting local— to think in terms of long-term, sustainable growth of the global system and act in a manner that encourages the growth of the community. We must again become neighbors, learning not just from the global information and communication flows but also from each other—from working together and building together—from 44

working towards the betterment of both the local and the global systems in which we reside. We must re-learn, as a community, what it means to build character, not digital avatars.

What is needed is a drastic reorientation of wellbeing and what we value as a community. We must transition the economy from linear to circular, eliminating our propensity for waste and using our creativity to see solutions where we have historically seen complications. We must re-learn what it means when we find our labor of love— what it means to slow down, put in the time and effort, and produce something of substantial quality—something that will last.

It is from this that we can come to appreciate not just the value of these efforts but also the source of these things. We can come to appreciate those businesses that actually care about the products and services that they are selling, as well as their yearning to share their passions with their community. In doing so, we will not just be enriching the community and local economy, but we will be enriching its culture and reducing our footprint as a society.

Sources: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-288060c288e03da8eac8ec8be6c18c52?convert_to_webp=true https://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5698/21310657882_13b9dc0ac2_b.jpg

Keep St. Pete Local One particular organization that illustrates the benefits that can be received by building local communities while utilizing the vast information and communication flows that characterize the networking society is Keep St. Petersburg Local, a non-profit organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida, who has emerged in recent years and who’s success has been compounding on itself. Keep St. Pete Local, as it is more commonly referred to, aims to build both a thriving local economy and its own unique community. They act as the voice local businesses in the St. Petersburg area and help both businesses and consumers in the area encourage community growth through shopping locally, participating in various workshops, as well as attending any and all local events, such as the Saturday Morning Market, “Oktoberfest,” “Localtopia,”or simply free shuf-

unlikely that the non-profit would have reached the success that it has today without such assistance from global information and communication flows as social media.

As more and more of the comIt is more likely that without these munity members get involved flows, many in the community and grow to appreciate the local members would be unaware of culture that thrives throughout the community, the bigger Keep St. many of the local businesses and events and therefore, would not Pete Local builds and the bighave such a strong local identity. ger the local community grows.

As the local community grows, Keep St. Pete Local logo (below) small businesses that would have Source: http://keepsaintpetersburglocal.org/images/upstruggled to gain recognition withloads/KSPL_LOGO_-_HI_RES.jpg in the community due to location or the availability or larger, corporate chains have now been able to flourish themselves and even become hot spots within the community. People are, in general, becoming neighbors again, getting to know each other, becoming friends, and even networking in the real world. fleboard at the St. Pete Shuffleboard Club on Friday nights, among many others.

That being said, it is also very

However, while implementation may occur at the local level, we cannot force communities in a direction of sustainability.

We must, therefore, make it meaningful to them and we must inspire them. As Benyus (1997) states, “when you think about it, designing may be the most powerful fulcrum from which we can move the economy and the culture toward a more sustainable place. Designers are the people who give a product not only its functionality but also its personality. From art-deco lamps to the tail fins on Cadillacs to Euro-style Bang and Olufsen stereos, designers have been trained to capture the dreams and aspirations of society—what we are or hope to be” (p. 281-282). Thus, it must be the designers who, by moving from shaping the commodities of life to shaping life itself, act as the change agents. That being said, however, this can also not be done alone. It must be accomplished through both interdisciplinary and community collaboration, to not just reach our full potential as a team, but to also reach the full potential of our econ-

omy, our society, and our environment. It is all one complex system.

“Love Your Neighborhood” Mural St. Petersburg, FL

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Glossary

Age of Reflection – A period between 1800-1840 which emerged as a counter-movement to Scientific Revolution Agricultural Revolution – A period around 10,000 B.C. in which man transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society Anti-reductionism – Notion that nature is far greater than the sum of its parts Biomimicry - refers study of nature’s models for the purpose of imitating or simply taking inspiration from its designs and processes to solve problems that we as humans face British Agricultural Revolution – A period around 1650 – 1880 in which new agriculture techniques were adopted and resulted in output growing faster than the population; often attributed as a direct cause of the Industrial Revolution Batch-and-Queue Manufacturing – Production of large quantities in order to stock inventories for future sales Capitalism – A term used to describe an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state Community Garden – A single plot of land in an urban area and gardened collectively by a group of people Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) - A system in which a farm operation is supported by shareholders within the community who share both the benefits and risks of food production Cookie – A small piece of data transferred to a consumers computer by a website for the purpose of remembering their browsing information Cradle-to-Cradle - a biomimetic approach to product design and manufacturing, as well as a certifying organization; revolves around the shift towards a circular economy through total life-cycle analysis and zero waste processes Drift-to-low performance - Represents the tendency of individuals, groups, and societies to allow performance standards and goals to slowly diminish over time from looking at inadequate past performances Economies of scale – A term used to describe the savings in cost gained by increasing levels 46

Glossary of production Enclosure Acts – A set of laws in during the British Agricultural Revolution that granted the right to purchase previously communal agricultural land for exclusive, commercial use Epistemological optimism – Notion that man is deeply connected to nature Escalation - As competing actors continuously try to get ahead of one another, the resulting efforts tend to build exponentially and they can actually get out of hand surprisingly quickly Expansion Model of the World - the world consists of markets in which products function first and foremost as tokens of economic exchange. They attract capital, which is either recycled back into more production or becomes part of the accumulation of private or corporate wealth Fourth World – A term used to describe the millions who suffer from homelessness, poverty, and even illiteracy living in the developing nations Flow – Dynamic flux of an element; flows in and out Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) - A metric used as an aggregate measure of wellbeing within a nation and includes economic, social, and environmental factors Goals - Reflection of the purpose of function of the system Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – Total income earned within a country; Alternatively, total expenditures within an economy Gross National Product (GNP) - Total monetary value of the final goods and services produced within a country Industrial Production – A form of capitalism that began with the Industrial Revolution Industrial Revolution - A period between 1760 and 1840 in which the mechanization of production began the shift towards factories and mass-production and transformed nearly every aspect of society Industrial Symbiosis – An industrial community which, is located, linked and dependent on one each other for resources or energy Information Age – See Information Technology Revolution

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Glossary Information Technology Revolution – Period brought in by the mass production of the computers and availability of the Internet Just-In-Time Manufacturing - Focuses on production of goods and services based on actual demand by the customer, not forecasted demand Mercantilism – A term used to describe government-regulated trade prior to capitalism Muda – Waste Natural Capital – The world’s stocks of natural resources Natural selection - The process whereby organisms and species better adapted to their environment survive over time Paradigms – The shared ideas, beliefs, and unstated assumptions within a society Permaculture – Permanent Agriculture; Keeping crops for extended periods of time to bring farming as close as it can come to nature’s efficiency Photosynthesis – Process by which green plants and certain algae and bacteria take carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight and transform them into oxygen and energy-rich sugars Rules – Defines the scope, boundaries, and degrees of freedom of a system Scale – Size of production Scientific Revolution – A period from around 1343 to 1687 in which great developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry were made and began the emergence of modern science Second Industrial Revolution – A period that marked the emergence of large-scale iron and steel production, electricity, the internal combustion engine and the use of petroleum, as well as a massive expansion in railroad and telegraph networks Seeking the Wrong Goal – Trap that suggests a system’s efforts are pushing in the wrong direction Service-and-Flow Economy – An economic system in which consumers obtain services by leasing or renting goods rather than buying them outright 48

Glossary Simplification – Using material sparingly Stock - Foundation of a system; Accumulation of a particular element Subsidies - money awarded to a business by a government in order for the price of a product or service to remain low and/or competitive Success to the Successful – Tendency of the system to continuously reward those who already possess a competitive advantage Sustainability Model of the World - the world is a system of ecological checks and balances that consists of finite resources. If the elements of this system are damaged or thrown out of balance or if essential resources are depleted, the system will suffer severe damage and will possibly collapse Sustainable Development – development that is able to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ Sustainable Society – A society that is able to satisfy its needs without diminishing the chances of future generations System – A set of things interconnected in a way that they produce a pattern of behavior over time Tacit Knowledge – Knowledge gained through experience Self-organization - refers to the ability of living systems and some social systems to change themselves by creating new behaviors and whole new structures Threshold Hypothesis – Term suggesting that for every society there seems to be a period in which economic growth (as conventionally measured) brings about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point—the threshold point—beyond which, if there is more economic growth, quality of life may begin to deteriorate Toyota Production System – See Just-In-Time Manufacturing Tragedy of the commons - Refers to the overuse and overexploitation of commonly shared resources; As every user of each resource benefits directly from its use, but shares the cost of its abuse with everyone else within the system, there is not enough feedback on the current 49

Glossary condition of the specific resovurce to those who are deciding to continue its use Triple Bottom Line Accounting – An accounting framework focused on people, planet, and profits

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