Natural Capitalism, Ch. 5

This chapter is all about green buildings.  Again H&L emphasize a recurring theme in this book – that the whole is different from just the sum of its parts.  A design framework in which each engineer or architect individually optimizes his own component of the building doesn’t necessarily result in the optimum building.  This is one of the greatest challenges of good green design.  If it were merely about putting the right technologies together in the right way, that would be a fairly simple task; the real challenge is to implement a new framework with which to approach building design.  H&L emphasize the need to “have the architects, engineers, landscapers, hydrologists, artists, builders, commissioners (specialists who get the building working properly between construction and occupancy), occupants, maintenance staff, and others who have a stake in a particular building all design the building together.”

H&L emphasize that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, green buildings, if done right, can have lower capital costs than traditional construction – largely by saving on infrastructure and by using passive heating and cooling techniques.  Companies can also get surprisingly large returns from increased worker productivity.  But these savings for green buildings don’t just apply to commercial buildings – green homes can also be much more efficient at no net additional cost.  In their most impressive example, H&L write:

“A Pacific Gas and Electric Company experiment eliminated cooling equipment in two normal-looking tract houses. The first, in Davis, California, where peak temperatures can reach 113°F, was a mid-range ($249,500), 1,656-square-foot speculative home, completed in 1993. During three-day, 104°-plus heat storms, the indoor temperature didn’t top 82°, and the neighbors came into the house with no air conditioner to take refuge from their own inefficient houses, whose big air conditioners couldn’t cope. Yet if routinely built, rather than as a one-off experiment, the Davis house would cost about $1,800 less to build, and $1,600 less to maintain over its life than a comparable but normally inefficient home, because it had no heating or cooling equipment to buy or maintain.” 

In addition to energy savings, natural resource savings can be achieved by retrofitting existing buildings or reusing materials from prior structures.  H&L note that internet markets are appearing for trading construction materials / waste. 

H&L also discuss the need to correct the incentive structure that governs building design.  That is, the contractors and designers can get away with installing cheap and inefficient equipment because they’re not the ones paying the electricity and heating bills.  (Also, at least in some countries, the way the building is initially designed and the way it is finally built are not necessarily the same, as contractors try to cut costs.  A recent report by the Chinese Ministry of Construction found that in 2005, 75% of new buildings in Beijing were designed to follow the energy efficiency code … but only 5% were actually built that way!)  For example, designers and contractors who design a more efficiency building could be allowed to recoup a portion of the yearly savings.  Leases could stipulate a sharing of the energy efficiency savings between landlords and tenants to encourage both to be more efficient, both in purchasing and using the appliances.

H&L conclude the chapter by discussing the larger context – building green buildings in mixed-use, non-sprawling developments.  They note that these “new urbanist” models are often more popular than traditional suburban developments: “the opportunities they create for ‘negacars’ and ‘negatrips’, for convivial communities, and for safer and better places to raise children can be welcome … to developers’ bottom lines.”

Natural Capitalism, Ch. 4

Reading this chapter didn’t spark off any strong reactions or deep thoughts for me. In fact, very few–if any–of the ideas in this chapter (as with others) were new to me, and I wonder if that would have been the case had I read the book closer to its publication date. Either way, I’m curious to hear what your reactions were. The basic premise of this chapter revolved around the notion that we can drastically reduce natural resource extraction and waste production by implementing smart processes that will keep the same materials circulating in the economy.

H&L expand the typical call of “reduce-reuse-recycle” to include repair, upgrading and remanufacturing to improve the efficiency of material flow and use. In their typical style, H&L accompany these ideas with concrete examples: design away scrap, reduce the number of parts, improve quality, and on and on. The jist seems to be that “innovations turn trash into cash” (80).

If this innovation thing plays out according to plan, H&L argue that we will move towards an economy that mimicks a mature “type 3” ecosystem (73). Such an economy will be characterized by heavy recycling of materials, little new material inputs, diversity and many niches. I thought this ecosystem comparison was instructive, and it plays into a larger theme of the book–to emulate efficient natural systems and processes when possible.

One other interesting idea they mentioned was the “take-back” laws in Europe and Japan.
These discussions of materials efficiency and waste have a tendency to focus on the role of industry and corporate leadership, so it was encouraging also to see a fruitful and benevolent role that government can fill. In this case, government does not directly lay down hefty fines and taxes. Instead, it simply transfers the burden of product disposal into the hands of the producers rather than onto public lands and waste collection services. True to the capitalist spirit, this sort of policy has spawned innovation in production, design, materials use, etc. and “the market” then rewarded the companies who best responded to the call. The U.S. already has such a policy in place for certain items like car batteries, perhaps it’s time to expand its scope..?

Natural Capitalism, Chp. 3: Karen’s comments

I am the designated discussion leader for this week’s chapter, and as it turns out, that’s a harder job than I expected. I am writing this on a Saturday night while simultaneously making sure a sleeping nine-month-old doesn’t roll of bed. She’s done it once before, and in doing so quite effectively caused her babysitters’ paranoia level to skyrocket. She knows I am here and keeps checking to make sure I’m not going anywhere…so I won’t. At least not while writing.

I am still a mom-of-the-somewhat-distant-future, thank goodness, and so I have time to compare and contrast models of baby care and see what works and what most certainly doesn’t. At this point, I am putting the pieces together from several wise aunties and grandmas and unrelated advisors, all of whom have something to say about the social-emotional upbringing of their niece/granddaughter/cherished little person. Little or no attention is given (in this baby’s circle, at least, and I have reason to believe that on this dimension she’s representative of a larger trend) to environmental impact or sustainability—to making sure this representative of the next generation at least has something in which to swaddle her own children.

And that’s where baby and Natural Capitalism, Chapter Three intersect. Ours is one of those kids that equals ten other kids—you know, because American moms and dads are consume resources at an astounding rate, making sure their little ones are taken care of. Carseats and cribs and diaper bags (not to mention diapers), oh my! And really, who can blame them? I would do anything to make sure this baby is happy, up to and including sitting here in the dark instead of putting her in her crib, where she would probably cry for an hour. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault, per se, that the next generation in this country is unbelievably spoiled (at least materially); I wish they all received the level of attention our little one gets. But our collective focus is on other things.

H & the Ls don’t say anything I haven’t heard (such seems to be the trend lately, and perhaps I will write on that later), but do provide some food for thought in this chapter, “Waste Not.” For instance, they point out that environmental feedback is constantly occurring in nature, but not in our social institutions: for instance, when’s the last time you heard a parent say “oh, dear, the diapers my baby shat in last week are not decomposing, and I am concerned.” Moms don’t say those things, because along with everything else disposable, diapers get put out on the curb for collection each week—it’s one of the many miracles of modern life. (To be honest, garbage collection never ceases to amaze me; neither does the mail, for what that’s worth.)

The point of this chapter is one that I could explore further, though: the connection between wasting resources and wasting people. What does it mean that the U.S. is the largest penal colony on earth (54) and whatever we’re teaching our children isn’t working (55)? Whatever happened to wrapping the baby up and carrying her on your back while you did whatever you were going to do and then, when she became mobile enough, having her follow you around and showing (not telling) her the essential skills for survival? Why do we farm out that experience? And what change will be effected by the ameliorative measures being taken in (alternative) education these days, when even the best moms and dads don’t consider what the baby’s stroller is made out of, or where it’s made, or who made it?

I’m not interested in bleak statistics or dire warnings or predictions at this point. I am interested in what is compelling about the model of babyhood (and childhood and adolescence and adulthood, for that matter) that we currently work from. Something obviously is, and I can’t condemn folks for being compelled by it. I don’t know the way to fix what’s broken, but I know we’re broken and there has got to be a better way. Pressure’s on to figure something out, though: kids today are depending on us.

Lingering questions about Chp. 2

After all that, I have a few lingering questions (some of them rhetorical, some very serious) about Chapter 2:

1. How will price and availability of hypercars compare to old clunkers like my 1989 Isuzu Trooper?
2. If and when we scrap the old clunkers, what happens to the parts if hypercar materials aren’t remotely related to the old components?
3. Where does carbon fiber come from, anyway?
4. If the transition to hypercars and more integrated communities could happen without new taxes, new standards, or a significant increase in oil prices (26), what exactly is standing in the way of transitioning now? And how can we get around it?

Natural Capitalism, Chp. 2: Karen’s comments

My dad went down to the local Honda dealership a few weeks ago and told the sales associate that he wanted to be first in line for an FCX hydrogen fuel cell car. The Honda sales associate didn’t know what my dad was talking about, so he called in the sales manager; the sales manager said that the FCX wouldn’t roll out till 2008, and even then the vehicles will only be available for lease—they won’t be in full production till 2018. But Dad reiterated his request, and at this point is planning to lease the first publicly available burgundy FCX in the Portland area. I don’t know whether or when that will come to pass, but I do know that my dad is doing his part (through subsequent e-mails to the sales manager and anticipated weekly visits to the dealership) to increase consumer demand for fuel cell cars.

Now, my dad is by no means an environmentalist—for example, he is still not convinced that global warming is a problem. He figures that as soon as he gets his FCX, someone will complain that he is making too much water, and that creates clouds and rain, and that changes weather patterns and causes the sea levels to rise, and that’s bad. Dad got the idea to pre-order a Honda FCX from a listserv he belongs to about innovations in fuel cell technology; the e-mail indicated that the arrangement for the fuel cells used in the Honda concept car had recently been turned around (horizontal → vertical) and that had made the vehicles much more efficient and taken them one step closer to commercial viability. But despite likely ideological differences, Dad heartily agrees with H & the Ls: for years, without ever having read Natural Capitalism, he has been saying that regulatory mandates are not driving innovation (22), and if the U.S. government really wanted to end dependence on foreign oil and make this country the leader in clean energy technology, they would put up a cash prize for the first group of people to design a commercially viable clean car.

As H & the Ls point out, the technology necessary for a total transportation/societal revolution exists—and has existed for quite some time. Getting it on the market on any scale is a matter of time. But it’s also a matter of will: it is going to take a lot more time if the will (politically and among consumers) is perceived to be lacking. I am not aware that anyone else in my acquaintance has been as proactive as my father in terms of demonstrating from the consumer end that people do actually want innovation. I, for example, have hung onto my 1989 Isuzu Trooper through thousands of dollars of maintenance because I cannot afford a Honda hybrid and I feel like junking a car has its own set of environmental…issues. I have not visited a dealership. I have not been agitating for a cost-effective car alternative, just riding my bike and the bus a lot more, complaining all the while about the high price of public transit and TriMet’s ill-conceived expansion plans.

But big changes happen by way of seemingly small decisions. For instance, my experiences in public schools, alternative programs, and private (higher ed) classrooms suggests that when a commitment is made to the students—to fostering relationships, figuring out what they’re good at and developing their skills in those areas, and providing consistent encouragement—learners blossom. Even absent district- or school-wide support, teachers can make that kind of change happen: they can ensure that on the ground a healthy learning environment exists. It frustrates me—as a substitute paraeducator (classroom assistant for special ed kids) in the Portland Public Schools, as a tutor, as an instructor in an outdoor classroom—that not all teachers are able (for whatever reason(s)) to foster a classroom environment of this sort. But I know that it can be done. Maybe it happens in only a small percentage of classrooms, and maybe certain administrative structures are more conducive to making it happen than others; but even under conditions of severe budget shortfall, when more kids than any adult can keep track of are packed into a classroom, some teachers make it work. And what’s more, when those decisions are made, consciously or unconsciously, change moves outward and the school culture changes. It takes time, but it happens.

I use the above close-to-home examples to illustrate the importance of working for change on a small scale. H & the Ls are more policy-focused, as anyone thinking about these issues on a large scale has to be. But even people who aren’t thinking about these issues in the same way are starting to get it, and change things on their own scale. My dad has been telling neighbors and friends about the car he’s going to get; he’ll need to tell those able to buy into the hydrogen car market as soon as it exists to, in the meantime, make their own trips to Honda and do their part to push the fuel cell market forward in PDX. If teachers can make their classrooms work for kids without waiting for an entire district or school system to change, we can make our communities support alternatives without waiting for the federal government to change CAFE standards.

So, changes can happen on the small scale in spite of systemic stagnation. But at the same time more people making their classrooms work (so to speak) makes the district function better, the better a district functions, the better teachers can make their classrooms work. So, I should complement my persistent focus on the small-scale by saying that I do recognize the necessity of large-scale thought and action. I just want to make sure that everyone is doing everything they can, on every scale, to make something like H & the Ls’ vision a reality.

Natural Capitalism, Ch. 2

There’s way too much in this chapter for me to do justice to in one post.  To give a quick summary of the main ideas, H&L first point out the major inefficiencies of the current automotive industry and then propose their natural capitalism-based solution, the “hypercar” which is significantly more efficient (80-200 mpg) and also leads to a significant reduction in the materials needed in the manufacturing process, while also catalyzing the switch to a fuel cell-based electricity generation system.  They then go on to discuss the problem that hypercars can’t solve: “too much driving by too many people in too many cars.”  They do propose some interesting policy ideas for dealing with this problem, including various methods for encouraging public transit (e.g. having employers charge a yearly parking fee, paying their employees the same amount every year, and letting them pocket the difference if they can find a cheaper way to get to work).

The two key components of the hypercar are its ultra-light weight and its hybrid engine, which H&L predict would evolve into a fuel cell. The hypercar would weigh 2-3 times less than a normal car, by taking advantage of light-weight carbon composites, rather than steel.  This light weight translates into much larger gains in energy efficiency, because, as H&L point out, most of a car’s power goes into moving the car, not the driver.  With an ultra lightweight car body, other components (such as the suspension, engine, etc) can also be smaller and lighter, compounding the efficiency gains.  The reductions in materials use achieved by a hypercar are quite staggering: “92% less iron and steel, 1/3 less aluminum, 3/5 less rubber, and up to 4/5 less platinum.”

They then present a rosy view of the hydrogen economy.  They suggest that fuel cells could be made commercial by widespread deployment in stationary applications, i.e. buildings.  As with other distributed generation systems, this could ultimately be cheaper than constructing new large centralized power plants.  But the key question of course, is where to get the hydrogen for the building and hypercar fuel cells.  Initially they suggest reforming natural gas and sequestering the carbon produced in this process.  Again they are a little vague on the timing of this; from other sources I’ve heard, it sounds like fuel cells won’t be commercially available in the price range they need for hypercars for another 20 years or so.

Unfortunately this is one chapter where the age of the book (1999) starts to show.  I wonder if H&L would be as optimistic about the power of “advanced technology, customer demands, competition, and entrepreneurship” to re-shape the auto industry if they were writing the book today.  In this chapter they mention that the president of Toyota in 1997 “predicted hybrid-electric cars would capture one-third of the world car market by 2005.”  H&L further report that “by the spring of 1998, at least 5 automakers were planning imminent volume
production of cars in the 80 mpg range.”  What happened?  H&L seemed to have neglected the large factor that consumer demand plays in moving a giant and reactionary industry like the automotive industry. It appears that Americans’ love of SUVs can only be curbed by high oil prices, not by more efficient vehicles alone.  Also, the cultural and educational difficulty of convincing the public that an ultra lightweight car is just as safe as an SUV may prove a major hurdle. Instead of H&L’s optimistic view that the “strategic advantages … of saving oil, protecting the climate, and strengthening the economy may justify giving automakers strong incentives to pursue their introduction into the marketplace even more aggressively”, we are still stuck with a government that is too timid to raise the CAFE standards.

Natural Capitalism, Chp. 1: Karen’s comments

When I start reading a new text, I usually want to know something about who wrote it, so I seek out background information on the author(s). Knowing even a little bit about their lives helps me to put what they say in context.

To get started on these missions, I am a fan of Wikipedia.org. Some of my college professors saw Wikipedia as a perfectly reasonable source; others seemed to think the site was the work of nefarious forces and should not be taken seriously. I leave it up to you to take advantage of the encyclopedia (or not): interested parties are encouraged to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hawken and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amory_Lovins, in addition to http://www.natcapinc.com/core_hunter.htm, for background info about the authors of our chosen text. One of many tidbits of information available there: Natural Capitalism “has been referred to by several heads of state including President Bill Clinton who calls it one of the five most important books in the world today.” This makes me think we hit upon an appropriate text to discuss.

As a precursor to joining this conversation, I investigated Hawken and the Lovinses on and beyond Wikipedia because I know that their work has broken new ground and set trends within and outside of the environmental(ist) community. I have been acquainted with all three (through their writings and through media coverage of their work) for several years. My most recent interaction with the founder of Smith & Hawken garden supply company, Mr. Paul, was via projection screen: I attended the Oregon satellite of the 2006 Bioneers conference. For whatever reason, I did not expect to be thoroughly impressed by his keynote. But I was. Check it out: it’s entitled “Biology, Resistance and Restoration: Sustainability as an Infinite Game.” The audio can be purchased for the lowlow price of $1.99 on the Bioneers website; it can also be viewed for free on Hawken’s website. I highly recommend it as a complement to the proffered Wikiorientation to these authors’ lives and works.

Now that you have some of the same background information as I for this endeavor, let’s see what these guys (affectionately termed H & L by Amir and Cathy) have to say.

H & the Ls carefully define their terms in the first chapter of this book: natural capital, which includes both resources and living systems, is one of four capitals that make up a healthy economy. The others (human, financial, and manufactured) are factored into the industrial system currently in place, while natural capital is left out of the picture. In a sense, the purpose of this book is for H & the Ls to jumpstart a concerted effort to bring natural capital back into existing economies—not just as one of the four, but as the form of capital considered primary. There are no known substitutes for natural capital, they are quick to point out, and this (along with the facts that 1. valuing natural capital is difficult and 2. there is likewise no substitute for human ingenuity) make it impossible to simply correct the deficiencies in the present system by placing monetary value on natural capital. (For more on that, see earlier posts.)

The bulk of this chapter centers on the suggestion that four central strategies be pursued in order to bring about a “natural capitalist” state of affairs: radical resource productivity, biomimicry, a service and flow economy, and investing in natural capital. H & the Ls contend that some efforts in this direction are already taking place, and in the second half of this chapter give glimpses of the hoped-for future. However, perhaps the most interesting idea of the chapter comes at the transition point between the description of what is and the elaboration of what could be: there, the authors ask “what if, in the absence of a rigorous way to practice [accounting that accepts the biological realities of nature], companies started to act as if such principles were in force?” (9).

“Acting as if” is one of the fundamental techniques used in twelve-step programs; people newly in recovery are encouraged to fake it till they make it, so to speak—to behave as they have seen others (who are further into the program) behave, and in the course of doing so, acquire the habits of mind and heart that go with those behaviors. The connection between recovering from addiction and recovering from the industrial economy here is subtle. I understand the rest of the chapter as an attempt to show concerned businesspeople examples of what businesses that operate in line with natural capitalism look like so that these readers can take the plunge and start reforming the ways they do what they do. They don’t have to have all the internal pieces in place when they take that plunge, but perhaps the hope is that those pieces will start to fit after the external operations have changed.

I have not participated in a twelve-step program myself, but I have heard from several people who have been in recovery for years that the practice of “acting as if” has been of major importance for them. And if it works for people who have substance abuse problems, it can work for businesses dependent on unsustainable practices. Can’t it?

Natural Capitalism, Chp. 1: Cathy’s comments

A very interesting first chapter. Although any serious discussion of social change and how to implement it is conspicuously absent, I don’t think the aim of the authors was to provide a manual for how to change the economic system, but only to provide a wake-up call to the possibilities that exist. As Amir says, they do an excellent job of describing the flaws of the current industrial model, which basically boils down to the fact that it is a linear system (taking resource, producing waste and products) operating on a finite world. However, I am not sure that some of the solutions they propose will have the transformative benefits that H&L suggest; for example, I am not convinced that the service economy they propose would create more jobs. While it definitely sounds good from an environmental perspective, given the amount of money and time spent every year in convincing people to throw out their old products and buy new products, I am not sure that a switch to producing and recycling long-lasting goods would necessarily lead to more jobs. Another critique is that they seem to propose a bunch of solutions as though they could all happen tomorrow; some of them, such as a switch to a service economy, could be relatively fast changes. But others, such as the bio-mimicry technologies that they discuss, are still in the early research stages and probably not commercial for decades, if ever. However, I am willing to reserve judgment since this is only the introduction. H&L certainly promise quite a lot in this book, and I am looking forward to reading more.

Reading Group: Natural Capitalism, Ch. 1

In this first chapter, “The Next Industrial Revolution,” Hawken and the two Lovinses (H&L) give us a brief history and description of capitalism, point out its shortcomings, and from there sketch out their outline for a new industrial revolution to correct the situation.

Their description of capitalism and the problems that arise from it seem on the mark. In fact, much of it echoes the concerns we’ve already voiced in our threads about environmentalism and economics. Essentially, H&L argue that natural capital (meaning the resources and living systems that make life possible) is on the decline, and that the problem with the current capitalist paradigm is that it fails to value natural and human capital. Moreover, they outline several reasons why simply assigning a monetary value to natural and human capital is neither straightforward nor enough of a corrective measure. H&L hit a high note when they point out that the fallacy in contemporary and past economic theory assumes “that natural and human capital have little value compared to final output.” This assumption worked when labor was scarce and natural capital was abundant. They argue, however, that we now face the opposite scenario in which labor is abundant and natural capital is on the decline–we therefore need a new type of economic theory to effectively address these changing conditions.

H&L’s “natural capitalism” attempts to be just that. They propose a natural capitalism based on four main strategies: resource productivity, biomimicry, service and flow, and investing in natural capital. While these four categories bubble with exciting ideas, many of them come from the stock of ideas that have been floating around in the environmental movement for quite some time (or are they the originators of some?). Their main points are that the current industrial model is quite wasteful: according to H&L only 6% of material flows in the U.S. economy end up in final products (p. 14). Their solution, then? To increase our efficiency, to improve productivity, to waste fewer resources, to remove “vestigial subsidies” that promote inefficient processes, and to correct “deliberate distortions in the marketplace” that favor extracting virgin materials over recycling.

H&L also envision a new business model in which companies retain ownership of their products and instead of selling them, lease them to customers. Because companies would own their products, and therefore be responsible for repairs and disposal, H&L hope that this would inspire a new kind of corporate benevolence. They believe that it would then be in the company’s best interest to reduce the toxicity and improve the recyclability of their products. Furthermore, H&L argue that this would encourage companies to develop more efficient processes which also would create more jobs.

Introducing the Reading Group

We thought it might be fun to try something different with this blog. In addition to our regular posts, we’ll be starting an environmental reading group. Taking advantage of the online availability of some relatively new books written by leading environmental thinkers, we’ll be reading and discussing them on this blog. Since the first books we’ll chose are available online for free, anybody with internet can read with us, and indeed we welcome anybody who’s interested to chime in on the discussions.

We’ll aim to read a new section of a book roughly every week, but we’ll leave it up to the discussion leader for that week to post at their discretion. We’ll rotate discussion leaders, meaning every week someone else will write a new blog entry with their reaction to the section we read that week. The discussion will continue in the comments section for that post, and we invite anyone to post their reactions, questions, suggestions or thoughts about the reading.

The first book we will be reading is Natural Capitalism by Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken. The first chapter of the book is available online, so feel free to get reading and perhaps even join us in a week!