A Better Way?

      The reality of most sustainability measuring is that there are no perfect scores. At best, there is “better” and “worse”—and these aren’t often clear. Complex systems, by definition, connect to many issues and often create surprising interactions and conclusions and even unintended consequences. An example as seemingly simple as “paper” or “plastic” grocery bags yields unsatisfying results (both sides can be adequately argued), depending on how and what you measure.

      So, as a designer, if you’re looking for a cookbook to tell you how or what to design, I’m sorry that there is none. For most of your time on a project, you may only have a hazy idea that you’re heading in the “right” direction of a more sustainable solution. You should be prepared to be blindsided by assumptions you thought were undeniable (such as plastic being better than glass or Styrofoam being better than paper in certain circumstances). Maintaining an open mind and a systems-level perspective can be difficult in the face of myriad issues and often trivial pronouncements in the press or even from experts.

      You won’t ever create a perfect solution. Ever. You will have to be satisfied with creating better solutions along the way—each update, hopefully, better than the rest, and potentially no solution ever reaching your ideal vision of “how it should be done.” Every design solution is a compromise of some kind, bowing to structural, financial, or environmental realities, and conforming to customer, market, or client desires. That’s the nature of design. If you’re creating real solutions for real people, the market will probably not yet be ready for the ultimate solution you envision. This, of course, doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to push as far as possible and to achieve as much as you can for the moment.

      As long as you check your assumptions from time to time, keep educating yourself and others on the current state-of-the-art of both understandings and possibilities, and strive to do what you can, you’re on the right track.

      Get moving!

      “Sustainability is the competitive strategy in boom time, turnaround strategy in down time, and survival strategy in a collapse.” —Hunter Lovins

[1] The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital, Nature, Vol 387, May 199

[2] Externalities are basically a cheat. Real markets are incredibly complex—much more so than all economic models. When economics acknowledges the factors that influence real market action (such as the decision-making process customers go through or the social and environmental costs of deforestation) but that aren’t included in economic models, they are referred to as externalities (since they’re missing—or external—to the model). The history of economic models is that the most difficult (and often most important) factors governing economies have been externalities missing from the models used to make economic policy.

[3] There’s actually little to no evidence that wind-strewn bags, though unsightly, have contributed to the destruction of habitats and resulted in the death of wild birds and animals. March 8, 2008 © Copyright Times Newspapers Ltd., www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3508263.ece.

[4] Glass is less energy intensive and much more recyclable than ceramic.

[5] “Paper Versus Polystyrene: A Complex Choice.” Science 251:504-505. Hocking, M. B. 1991

      CHAPTER 3

      What Are the Approaches to Sustainability?

       Natural Capitalism

       Cradle to Cradle

       Biomimicry

       Life Cycle Analysis

       Social Return on Investment

       The Natural Step™

       Total Beauty

       Sustainability Helix

       Other Frameworks

       Putting Them All Together

      There are several approaches, or frameworks, for understanding sustainability and its impact on the design and development of products and services, as well as on corporate behavior. For the most part, none is complete and only together do they form a full picture of criteria, processes, and approaches to more sustainable solutions. The proponents of some frameworks argue that theirs is complete or the best, but this is hardly true. However, all frameworks are lenses that contribute to the larger understanding of the issues, measures, and approaches of sustainability.