No one thing can ever be “sustainable.”
- A tree is not “sustainable.”
- A shoe cannot be “sustainable.”
- A building should never be labeled as a “sustainable building.”
Why?
- Trees rot.
- Shoes wear out.
- Buildings fall down.
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Every thing eventually dies and disperses. We can’t sustain individual object forever. It’s just not possible. No one thing can ever be “sustainable.”
These things, however, CAN be part of “sustainable systems.”
- Sustainable forestry is possible as long as we are able to sustain a system of harvesting of wood without degrading the health of the forest as a whole.
- Sustainable manufacturing is possible as long as we are able to sustain a system of making of new sneakers while not degrading the source of new materials.
- Sustainable development is possible, as long as the creation of a new a building can provide ways for us to continuously and positively contribute to the health of the economic, social and ecological systems within our communities.
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This isn’t just a matter of semantics. This is a subtle, but important change in mindset to achieve the jump from focusing on things to focusing on systems.
In the midst of our research studying the applicability of systems thinking within the urban design and development process, Tim O’Riordan of the UK Sustainable Development Commission managed to really drive it home for us. He said: “By looking at just the building project, and not the larger whole, you are inherently promoting non-sustainability.”
Our focus on systems, rather than just things comes from the study of systems thinking. System thinking is a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past sixty years to make full patterns and structures of a system clearer so we can see how to change them effectively. It challenges us to view things in relation to the larger whole, rather than seeing static snapshots of a situation.
Systems thinking acknowledges that reality never unfolds in straight lines – rather, actions we take within systems are constantly reinforcing or balancing each other. The relationships between people and things within a system can be expressed as feedback loops – reinforcing loops promote consistent and accelerating growth, while balancing loops seek stability through actions that counteract one another. In this way, we can study the health of a whole forest, the viability of an on-going manufacturing process or an entire community.
This way of working together holds far more potential because it helps us see not only the parts that are already right in front of us, but also possibilities and pitfalls that were not visible to us before. We can find vast potential by working with the ‘whole’ and focusing on measures that have multiple benefits.
Simply put, the use of systems thinking can help you avoid risk and make better use of resources all while helping while contributing to the health of your community as a whole.
We can make it to sustainability. As long as we’re able to sustain the systems.
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This post was adaped from a summary of research entitled “An Introduction to Needs Based Design” by Nat Haltrich, Ella Lawton and Geoff Stack completed in the spring of 2008 for the Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program at BTH in Sweden.
4 Comments
Foresters are struggling with this concept of sustainability. Just as a tree is not sustainable, technically neither is a forest. Eventually, the forest changes or disappears or is destroyed by nature. It is a matter of time. And, in addition the forest cannot be sustainable in the context of a larger system that is not sustainable. That is one of our frustrations as foresters. We wish to sustain the forest landbase but society demands too much from it. Now it is demanding unrealistic harvests of biomass for energy mandated by public policy directed at mitigating climate change. What we are left with is the ability to do good work in the forest to move us towards sustainable systems,but we can’t assure sustainability in the context of the larger system within which the forest is embedded and influenced.
Robert – Thanks for the work you do and for your insightful reply. I thank you for taking the dialogue to the next level on two fronts:
First, you’ve noted that the health, and therefore the sustainability of a forest is dependent on the health of regional and global ecosystems. A tree is a system within the forest, which is a system on the Earth. They are interconnected “holons,” nested within each other.
Secondly, you’ve highlighted the link between environmental sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. The world needs wood, and we need someone to harvest it, but that livelihood can be put in jeopardy if an unsustainable society that does not work within the limits of the ecosystems we depend on. All of these systems are interdependent.
Again, dealing with all of these connections between systems can seem daunting, but this is exactly where the strengths of systems thinking come into play. By embracing complexity instead of fighting it, we can see the limits and the opportunities available to us that we couldn’t see before by just looking at individual parts.
What do you see as your biggest challenge in maintaining a sustainable supply of wood products?
Geoff
I’ll answer by describing one from the supply and one from the demand side. On the supply side we need to ensure that all forest harvests are conducted on sustainably managed forests. To that end we must strengthen regulations, licensing and approved best management practices at the state level. The current climate legislation could mandate more harvest for biomass without the required sustainability assurances.
On the demand side it would be helpful if consumers of wood products supported the certification programs that provide a degree of assurance of sustainability as well as lowerin their overall consumption. But here is where is gets complicated. In order to mitigate atmospheric carbon it would be better to make products out of wood then a fossil fuel intensive material. Think wood toys instead of plastic or wood beams instead of steel. So in some cases we would like consumers to use more wood and we might want to increase the overall wood supply to accomplish this. But from our end in the forest we have no way of knowing if our increased production will be used in an appropriate way as an offset to fossil fuel or wasted. That is where a systems approach comes in- but the complexity is confounding.
Brilliant. I probably heard you say this 40 times in Karlskrona, and you explained it here beautifully. I’m integrating that into a lecture somewhere…
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[...] city is not and cannot be sustainable by itself (as a tree is not sustainable [1]), but it can exist in a sustainable system (like a tree). As a complex system itself, there are [...]