Seeking an alternate world- Making sense of going green with respect to the modern day development paradigm

Times they are a changing. Boy, can you feel it or what? Never before in modern, post industrial times has the common man been so aware of changes in rainfall, temperature, freak weather... the list is endless. Every other day, we read about new records being toppled in the these very categories. Climate and weather occupy more and more space in our newspapers alongside burgeoning development, pollution, and infrastructure woes. The mood is sombre and sometimes on edge, predicting various doomsday scenarios. There are calls for action, change, and even questioning the very way of life that we have grown so used to.

Within this environment of climate change and demands to reduce emissions of green house gases our nations are preoccupied with pushing up growth indices in order to convince themselves, and others who they hope to attract investments from, that we are doing fine. If anything at all, the 2007-09 recession years have shown us that current models of development and modern day economics have serious flaws. This model implies that nations have to keep ticking to stay above. In other words, this means that we have to keep selling, keep consuming, keep producing, keep extracting, keep mining,.. to project a healthy rate of growth. Sales have to be better than before to ensure that a business is afloat, no matter if the consumer needs it or not. This has lead to a world of misinformation, exaggeration and titillation.We buy because we dread the fall-outs of not doing so, we buy because we feel that we are being benefited, we buy because we feel we are doing well and we also buy because we don't want to feel left out. Along the way we have grown to believe in these globally disseminated messages of size, gloss and finesse. Modern day economics have meant that we have lost, or are rapidly losing, any connects with the way we lived earlier. With that is the disappearance of traditional knowledge systems of carrying capacity- how much to take, when to take, how to give back and so on. What all this means is the struggle to resurrect ourselves from the graves of climate change is arduous. The important question is 'how can we maintain both modern day growth economies, and do less harm to the environment simultaneously?'

20th Century Economics necessitates increased consumption. Today's green initiatives are overwhelmingly about clean energy. While this is essential, you cannot forget other aspects of sustainability. The old adage, 'too much of anything isn't good...' is perfect to describe the situation. For the building industry to do well, it necessitates more building (whether we need it or not); the building materials sector too needs to keep doing better that they did last year to retain value in the market; this only means more raw materials needed and so on. The same applies to the Automobile, Fishing, FMCG, Textiles, and essentially every fathomable industry. We have already out-consumed natures bounty in many ways. Entire oceans of fish are vanishing, various ores and minerals have been 'mined' dry, forests have been denuded....it gets clear where this is headed. The growth based valuation of modern day economics is sending us over the precipice.

So how do we see any credible green initiative in today's context? Essentially, it is about painting a picture of an alternate world. To borrow the slogan of the World Social Forum- "Another World is Possible".Are the answers all there? Gosh no! Each initiative is about exploring possibilities and building on promising ones. We need to stop looking for overarching solutions for current day problems, and rather find what is most appropriate to us in our respective regions. Some solutions may cross borders, yet many more would be specific and limited. As professionals, serious about seeking out alternate models of development, we need to  recognise what our roles are in the prevailing economy. We are either catalysts of change, slowing down the processes of decline, or, are charting new courses development wise. There are always the nay-sayers who would label such thinking as regressive, but they act as if there exists no other possibility.

What is important are the choices that we make. We need to constantly ask ourselves questions like, 'is this good for me in the long run?', or better yet 'Is this sustainable?' before we act on our choices. It is a tough one no doubt. This 'recent past' in the context of human history is also 'the memory of our times'. The challenge is unlearning the trappings of our lifetimes and seeking connects with the past and possible futures that would ensure long term sustainability. We have begun to get connected like never before... it is important we stay the course.

How Green ‘is’ my valley

At what point in its development does a product become Green? Does adding a rainwater harvesting system to a building make it a Green building? Would using a small amount of recycled materials to a larger mix of inputs required to develop an end-product tantamount to it being labelled Green?

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is a subject that questions the edifice upon which companies and their respective product lines are built. Companies should not be able to merely change a process or an input and enjoy the fruits of being in the Green category. As the world focuses its attention on the environmental impact of every product, and even service, the ‘code of ethic’ practised will assume a magnitude of greater importance. Companies and their concomitant industry associations need to pay great attention to this matter so that it can protect its categories and products and command more than a semblance of credibility from consumers and other upholders of civil society.
A simple background research to this article indicated that there are many groups who are concerned and are articulating what their collective Green ethos is. The charter documents of these associations and groups throw much light on how difficult (or easy) it is supposed to be to sit around a ‘green’ conference table with your head held high. Barring the common ones involving recycling, here are a few:

• Practice Fair Trade
• Fair treatment of employees
• Practice energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption
• Minimize waste in our production processes and in our end product
• Give back to our communities
• Be an example of Capitalism with a Conscience

In the quest for mainstreaming Green many such ethical questions will dog us along the way. Merely having a code of ethics will not help the cause. The answer lies in self regulation and an inclination to innovate at every stage to identify the best practices. Too many companies today are way too glib in professing Green without comprehending the full import of their actions. If they will not self-regulate, they run the risk of denigrating the positive aspects of the Green quotient and levelling the playing field for all the pretenders. When this happens companies and their brands will lose the advantage of the Green tag and will find it painstaking to cut through the Green clutter. Taking off on a classic Hollywood film with a similar name, it is our responsibility to examine ‘’How Green ‘is’ my valley?’’

How do we begin to truly comprehend sustainable consumption?

Let me admit that this is going to sound really far fetched and probably is.
I think that we have to get some essential data to come to a true understanding of what would constitute sustainable consumption and therefore sustainable living decisions.

• First we would need to record (and constantly update) our consumption; right from food, down to the clothes we wear, the books we read, the fuel/energy.water we consume, the materials we use to build our cars, our homes, roads, and so on.
• Next, we would need to further break this down to the raw materials that go into each of these items. For example, a cup of coffee would have coffee, milk, sugar, chicory, the packing material (and it;s constituents), the fuel consumed in transporting to your nearby store and then to your home. Similarly, for all the other things that you end up consuming... from the list you generated above.
• Then, we would need to map the earth for the quantities of raw material that exists today. This mapping would have to be as exhaustive as there are materials that we consume. While doing this, we should also map the physical footprint occupied by each resource.
• Finally, we would have to keep a tab on the rate at which we are withdrawing these various raw materials.

Only when we have the above facts, that it sure seems like a lifetime (or many) of data collection, can we begin to understand the implications of how we can get sustainable. Against each consumption statistic, we can map the existing stock, and the exhaustion time based on the rate of withdrawal. Some decisions could be like this:

• When we cut down on one, we increase the life of the stock. If we need to increase the stock (for example; a crop), then we look at other areas where we can start production.
• Decisions on moving from one unsustainable material to another that we consider green today, can be gauged by the above point. However, we would also have to understand the implication of increasing the consumption of one particular material. Take for example fuel- When we move from petroleum fuel to say bio-diesel from crops... then consumption on that crop would increase, leading to a pressure to convert other existing crops (and these could be low income food crops) into bio-fuel generating varieties. The result could mean lesser stock of food crops for all.

Steps towards sustainable consumption and sustainable living could follow these steps:

• Reduce consumption with controllable limits of the mean
• Rate in terms of criticality each resource (stock)
• Rate in terms of sustainability each resource (resources that can cater to a much larger consumption and can be replenished at nearly the same rate)
• Rate in terms of sustainability each technology/process/product (where each of these means the least impact on the sustainability of other resources, and a greater degree of replenishing the raw material consumed in the process)
• Encourage/incentivise/penalise to ensure that consumption moves from far more critical stocks/technologies/processes/products to sustainable stocks/technologies/processes/products. This would also mean encouraging and driving directions of new technologies
• Encourage/incentivise reduced consumption.
• Continue this process.

Are current green initaitives only half measures towards sustainability?

Are current green initiatives only half measures towards sustainability.... merely postponing the inevitable?
Essentially all human activity revolves around the extraction of virgin material, energy production/usage and the generation of waste.
Much of today's 'green' activity focusses on the following:

• Material- Here the focus is keeping things as local as possible and to consume only low energy products. 
• Energy- Here the focus is on producing cleaner power and increasing the usage of renewable energy for our power needs. When it comes to engine fuels, the focus is on moving away from fossil fuels and opting for more non-polluting alternatives like bio-fuels. On the demand end these initiatives have resulted in technology that consume less power or fuel to give us the maximum output.
• Waste- Here the focus is on cleaner non-polluting technologies.

These are well meaning methods towards a greener future, but is it enough to become truly sustainable. That begs the question- what is being truly sustainable? I would imagine that it would mean that we consume material in a manner that there is enough left for posterity... for future generations and other species to live quality lives on this earth. It would also mean that we consume energy/fuel in a manner that there is enough to go by for posterity, or, that any residue of our activities does not result in a toxifying of our air, ground or water.

Now, what would be the steps that we would have to take to ensure that we satisfy the above conditions of sustainability? Let us consider the current 'green' measures:
Materials- By consuming local or consuming low energy products would we meet those conditions? I believe that it all depends on the rate of consumption. The stresses are already showing, with a running out of various stones and timber alternatives, or, the astronomical price increases that we have been seeing. It looks to me that to change to a non-consumerist community would be far more challenging (it's kind of an addiction). The answer would be to reach a near net zero virgin resource consumption situation. The focus would therefore have to be on the development of technologies in nearly all fields that see the use of reused or renewable raw materials. Since at IGH we focus on the built environment, the examples would be along the lines of technology to reuse steel without hampering its brittleness (a result of its carbon content), the making of reconstituted concrete/blocks/tiles that bring the use of cement down to zero, low-energy woody materials/ composites, non-toxic resins and polishes, and so on. Does this mean the end of conventional construction? These are the debating points.... whatever it leads to, one thing is for sure... we would need a radical re-think on the business as usual processes.

Energy- The answer is not whether we should use renewable energy or non-fossil fuel energy. What we ought to be focussing on is whether the overall resources that is used in the production of energy can be sustained for ever? Yes, the sun's energy will last us many millennia, but what about the life of technology like PV... they currently have a shelf life of about 15 to 20 years.... what then? Have we figured out methods to manufacture PV technology in a manner that we dont spend more than what we expect the PV products to produce? Can we design systems that are perennial? What about bio-fuels? Can we be sure that we would have enough land for growing the bio-fuel without eating into our forests or adding pressure on our regular food crops?
Waste- Here is quite a crucial component that defines how badly we have tilted the sustainability balance. Be it materials we use for all production/building activity, or, everything we consume as food and other daily consumables, or the fuel we burn to power our transportation, cities and industry..... we leave something behind. Can we endeavour to work on technology that produces no residue, or, renders all such gaseous, liquid or.solid residue into re-usable materials or inert enough not to cause any problem whatsoever to our air, water or land?

The earth's population is slated to settle around the 10 billion mark. While it means that there would only be that many mouths to feed, another phenomenon, which is the increasing global urban population, would have a pronounced impact on what resources we have left. Along with this comes a greater hunger and greater 'want' from a basic 'need' based society. The pressure will be on us to consume less, and pollute less.... which is as much a measure of attitude/s as it is a challenge for technology. Like I mentioned earlier, the former has led us to where we are... and while we do our utmost to bring change in lifestyles, the focus would equally be on gearing the latter to meet the stringent sustainability demands as mentioned above.

I do agree that current 'green'measures are probably the first steps towards such a change, but it only seems prudent that we know where we are headed and what, at best, will suffice.

Do green initiatives have something to work towards?

Sometimes I find myself asking... what are we working towards? Of course we are involved in creating sustainable built environments, but are we doing enough?
What is enough? Is there some target that we are working towards? Do others have a target? From my opinion, many other green businesses have financial targets... But what about sustainability targets?