http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9729000/9729574.stm
'Forty years ago, a self-appointed panel of experts called the Club of Rome published a tract entitled the Limits to Growth, a massively influential report that showed how exponential growth in population and resource use, in a world of finite resources, would end very badly.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Sceptical Environmentalist, told the Today programme that the 1970s environmentalists were "spectacularly wrong" because they "fundamentally missed innovation".
"Technology can do amazing things," he said. "We have done a lot better than predicted".
"If we're going to tackle future problems such as global warming we need to focus on innovation," he believes.'
As presented here, Bjorn Lomborg's ideas are rather worrying. He is right that (some of) the specific predictions in The limits to growth were wrong and I accept that he is right that the authors underplayed the benefits of technology, but the undisputable fact is that there ARE limits to growth as resources ARE finite.
At the end of this short interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme (link above) Lomborg says that the idea of telling people that they have to live with less is a hard sell. This is undoubtedly true, but by playing up the mistakes in specifics, and down the key point about finite resources, he makes it seem as if people shouldn't be told the unpalatable inevitable consequence of finite resources even if it is true.
What is living with less? Superficially it sounds like we're all to tighten our belts and live more frugally. That may be so, but one of the benefits of technology is that it aids the separation of services from goods/products, and enables us to get more service from the same physical resource. This is a key tenet of www.natcap.org / the book Natural Capitalism and www.collaborativeconsumption.org lists an increasing number of ways of arranging to derive service benefits from physical resources.
We win all round by doing this. The obvious example of taxis illustrates. The driver wants his/her taxi to be reliable, so it is in the manufacturer's interest to make it so. The taxi driver wants his/her taxi to be in use a high proportion of the time. This makes maximum benefit from the investment in the taxi, and also provides maximum capacity to the taxi network.
(The technology has not yet yielded up a unified booking system for private hire vehicles. In the main, they operate as separate companies. It should be possible to tell a system that I want to go from A to B, arriving/departing at time xx:xx and for the system to dispatch a vehicle appropriately for the job. The systems exist, but they ae not comprehensive and we still have to choose which company to contact.)
Showing posts with label natural capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural capitalism. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Natural Capitalism
I have been discussing, on Facebook, with fellow advocates of an RBE whether the ideas presented in the book Natural Capitalism are valid and helpful in the transition to an RBE which most people, if not everyone, agree cannot happen overnight. One of the principles that NatCap and an RBE share is that what we need are services, and not goods in themselves. One example used is the chauffagiste, who provides the service of keeping your home warm, for which you pay him. In our current economic system, it will clearly make sense for him to do this cost efficiently, as any £ he saves can be kept as profits and/or passed on as cost savings to the end user.
From an environmental poin of view, one would hope that this would lead to reduced waste / pollution and use of non-renewable resources, but it might be the case that your chauffagiste buys energy from a producer who is polluting like billy-ho but producing energy at low unit cost to the end user. In NatCap terms this is because the right to pollute is under-priced. If it wasn't, and all the externalities of producing energy were costed into the unit price, the rising price itself would itself provide the disincentive to use the energy inefficiently.
Once every natural resource has a price on it, maybe NatCap will arrive at an RBE through its own method and logic.
NatCap would see everything given a price so that Capitalism obeyed its own rule of not liquidating capital (natural capital here) and calling it income. So, if the price of physical resources included all externalities, the factory gate price of the good (energy in my example) would not vary in those terms. It would still vary by the efficiency of the corporation - ie how much it was paying out in wages. Capitalism seeks out the cheapest labour and cheap ways to replace human labour, but in doing so reduces the spending power of the consumers it needs to keep spending to keep cyclic consumption going. This is how capitalism destroys itself.
From an environmental poin of view, one would hope that this would lead to reduced waste / pollution and use of non-renewable resources, but it might be the case that your chauffagiste buys energy from a producer who is polluting like billy-ho but producing energy at low unit cost to the end user. In NatCap terms this is because the right to pollute is under-priced. If it wasn't, and all the externalities of producing energy were costed into the unit price, the rising price itself would itself provide the disincentive to use the energy inefficiently.
Once every natural resource has a price on it, maybe NatCap will arrive at an RBE through its own method and logic.
NatCap would see everything given a price so that Capitalism obeyed its own rule of not liquidating capital (natural capital here) and calling it income. So, if the price of physical resources included all externalities, the factory gate price of the good (energy in my example) would not vary in those terms. It would still vary by the efficiency of the corporation - ie how much it was paying out in wages. Capitalism seeks out the cheapest labour and cheap ways to replace human labour, but in doing so reduces the spending power of the consumers it needs to keep spending to keep cyclic consumption going. This is how capitalism destroys itself.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Making markets work
This is the heading of chapter 13 of "Natural Capitalism" (Lovins, Lovins and Hawker) that influenced me years ago. One of my favourite bits is where the authors directly expose tthe assumptions of the free market as, if not being invalid, having obvious exceptions. The authors say that "it's only because markets are so imperfect that there are exceptional business opportunities left."
I'm blogging this material here as to get to an RBE we need some transitional steps - and making the free market do what it theoretically should, or showing that it can't, may be one such step.
It's a US focussed book, published in 1999, but the ideas hold up pretty well. Anyway, here are the 18 assumptions (in italics), interspersed with the "hang on though" exceptions (in the book you turn the page). All credit is due to the authors of the book.
1. All participants have perfect information about the future. If anyone had it, he or she’d be barred from elections and stock markets — and probably not given any credence by the rest of us.
2. There is perfect competition. Competition is so imperfect that exceptional profits are commonly earned by exploiting either one’s own oligopolistic power or others’ oversights, omissions, and mistakes.
3. Prices are absolutely accurate and up-to-date. Markets know everything about prices and nothing about costs.
4. Price signals completely reflect every cost to society: There are no externalities. Most harm to natural capital isn’t priced, and the best things in life are priceless.
5. There is no monopoly (sole seller). Microsoft, airlines’ fortress hubs, and your managed health-care provider come close.
6. There is no monopsony (sole buyer). Consider your utility, the Peanut Marketing Board, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
7. No individual transaction can move the market, affecting wider price patterns. What about Warren Buffet and the Hunt Brothers?
8. No resource is unemployed or underemployed. Thirty percent of the world’s people have no work or too little work. (Economists justify this by calling them “unemployable” — at least at the wages they seek.)
9. There’s absolutely nothing that can’t be readily bought and sold (no unmarketed assets) — not even, as science-fiction author Robert Heinlein put it, “a Senator’s robes with the Senator inside.” Most of the natural capital on which all life depends can be destroyed but neither bought nor sold; many drugs are bought and sold in a pretty effective free market, but doing either can jail you for life.
10. Any deal can be done without “friction” (no transaction costs). The hassle factor is the main reason that many things worth doing don’t happen.
11. All deals are instantaneous (no transaction lags). Does your insurance company always reimburse your medical bills promptly? Does your credit-card company credit your payments immediately?
12. No subsidies or other distortions exist. Worldwide subsidies exceed $1.5 trillion annually — for example, America’s 1872 Mining Act sells mineral-bearing public land for as little as $2.50 an acre and charges no royalties.
13. No barriers to market entry or exit exist. It’s hard to start up the next Microsoft, Boeing, or GM — or to get out of the tobacco business
14. There is no regulation. The world’s regulations, put on a bookshelf, would extend for miles.
15. There is no taxation (or if there is, it does not distort resource allocations in any way). The Internal Revenue Code exists.
16. All investments are completely divisible and fungible — they can be traded and exchanged in sufficiently uniform and standardized chunks. You can’t buy a single grape at the supermarket, nor an old-fashioned front porch in most housing developments.
17. At the appropriate risk-adjusted interest rate, unlimited capital is available to everyone. Many people are redlined, must resort to loan sharks, or have no access to capital at any price.
18. Everyone is motivated solely by maximizing personal “utility,” often measured by wealth or income. So why does anyone fall in love, do good, or have kids, and why do three-fifths of Americans attend weekly worship services?
I'm blogging this material here as to get to an RBE we need some transitional steps - and making the free market do what it theoretically should, or showing that it can't, may be one such step.
It's a US focussed book, published in 1999, but the ideas hold up pretty well. Anyway, here are the 18 assumptions (in italics), interspersed with the "hang on though" exceptions (in the book you turn the page). All credit is due to the authors of the book.
1. All participants have perfect information about the future. If anyone had it, he or she’d be barred from elections and stock markets — and probably not given any credence by the rest of us.
2. There is perfect competition. Competition is so imperfect that exceptional profits are commonly earned by exploiting either one’s own oligopolistic power or others’ oversights, omissions, and mistakes.
3. Prices are absolutely accurate and up-to-date. Markets know everything about prices and nothing about costs.
4. Price signals completely reflect every cost to society: There are no externalities. Most harm to natural capital isn’t priced, and the best things in life are priceless.
5. There is no monopoly (sole seller). Microsoft, airlines’ fortress hubs, and your managed health-care provider come close.
6. There is no monopsony (sole buyer). Consider your utility, the Peanut Marketing Board, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
7. No individual transaction can move the market, affecting wider price patterns. What about Warren Buffet and the Hunt Brothers?
8. No resource is unemployed or underemployed. Thirty percent of the world’s people have no work or too little work. (Economists justify this by calling them “unemployable” — at least at the wages they seek.)
9. There’s absolutely nothing that can’t be readily bought and sold (no unmarketed assets) — not even, as science-fiction author Robert Heinlein put it, “a Senator’s robes with the Senator inside.” Most of the natural capital on which all life depends can be destroyed but neither bought nor sold; many drugs are bought and sold in a pretty effective free market, but doing either can jail you for life.
10. Any deal can be done without “friction” (no transaction costs). The hassle factor is the main reason that many things worth doing don’t happen.
11. All deals are instantaneous (no transaction lags). Does your insurance company always reimburse your medical bills promptly? Does your credit-card company credit your payments immediately?
12. No subsidies or other distortions exist. Worldwide subsidies exceed $1.5 trillion annually — for example, America’s 1872 Mining Act sells mineral-bearing public land for as little as $2.50 an acre and charges no royalties.
13. No barriers to market entry or exit exist. It’s hard to start up the next Microsoft, Boeing, or GM — or to get out of the tobacco business
14. There is no regulation. The world’s regulations, put on a bookshelf, would extend for miles.
15. There is no taxation (or if there is, it does not distort resource allocations in any way). The Internal Revenue Code exists.
16. All investments are completely divisible and fungible — they can be traded and exchanged in sufficiently uniform and standardized chunks. You can’t buy a single grape at the supermarket, nor an old-fashioned front porch in most housing developments.
17. At the appropriate risk-adjusted interest rate, unlimited capital is available to everyone. Many people are redlined, must resort to loan sharks, or have no access to capital at any price.
18. Everyone is motivated solely by maximizing personal “utility,” often measured by wealth or income. So why does anyone fall in love, do good, or have kids, and why do three-fifths of Americans attend weekly worship services?
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Growth error
Jolyon Connell, founder and editorial director of The Week magazine writes in the 8 October 2011 edition that Matt Ridley, wrote in The Times that "the West has been running a vast financial pyramid scheme, but the world itself is not in debt." Correct. We haven't tried borrowing money from other planets yet and the world is of course a closed system: This applies as much to finances as anything else and importantly physical resources. But Ridley continues: "the world economy actually grew by 5% last year according to the IMF." This is factually correct, I assume, but we are talking about growth in GDP/GNP (which are identical at world level). We can't have a pyramid scheme with real resources, because they are finite. If we "liquidate our natural capital and call it income" as the authors of Natural Capitalism term what we are doing, no restructuring, bailing out, quantative easing or any other financial tinkering will save us.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Monetary reform
From my limited knowledge of particular monetary reform proposals, I would say they are a stepping stone to an RBE. The reforms proposed by Positive Money are very inviting. The obvious one is its proposal to eradicate the fractional reserve system, and I'm going to agree and set that to one side.
One of my rerservations centres around the control of money supply. They propose to wrest this from the hands of bankers and politicians - yay - and give it to n independent body. OK, but how is this independent body going to decide by how much to increase money supply, and in whose interest will they do so? Their own, presumably. And will they be inccorruptible?
My other observatiion is that most ordinary people will still have to work to get hold of money, and therefore there will be pressure to create work so that people can do it, which leads us straight into the idea that problems (say disease and disorder) are s good because they create work/jobs for people to solve them. This does seem to be a weakness of money that these reforms have not addressed, unless I'm mistaken.
Under Positive Money you would enter into a bond, actively allowing the bank to use your money for an agreed period during which you would not be able to take it back. You also get to decide which projects your capital will be spent on. Logically fine, and on the second point you can already choose ethical investments.
The problem as I see it, though, is that some people will still want the maximum return on their investment, so even if the projects invested in aren't sociilly constructive, and/or if they liquidate natural capital and call it income (to quote Natural Capitalism), they will still attract investement because they give a high return on the money put forward.
As I understand it, posiive money is itelf undecided on how it will quantify money supply. And he point is that even if we willingly put a brake on money supply, the limiting factor is still real resources and not money.
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore this stepping stone. The looming finacial crisesmay be alleviated by a system which uses positive money.
One of my rerservations centres around the control of money supply. They propose to wrest this from the hands of bankers and politicians - yay - and give it to n independent body. OK, but how is this independent body going to decide by how much to increase money supply, and in whose interest will they do so? Their own, presumably. And will they be inccorruptible?
My other observatiion is that most ordinary people will still have to work to get hold of money, and therefore there will be pressure to create work so that people can do it, which leads us straight into the idea that problems (say disease and disorder) are s good because they create work/jobs for people to solve them. This does seem to be a weakness of money that these reforms have not addressed, unless I'm mistaken.
Under Positive Money you would enter into a bond, actively allowing the bank to use your money for an agreed period during which you would not be able to take it back. You also get to decide which projects your capital will be spent on. Logically fine, and on the second point you can already choose ethical investments.
The problem as I see it, though, is that some people will still want the maximum return on their investment, so even if the projects invested in aren't sociilly constructive, and/or if they liquidate natural capital and call it income (to quote Natural Capitalism), they will still attract investement because they give a high return on the money put forward.
As I understand it, posiive money is itelf undecided on how it will quantify money supply. And he point is that even if we willingly put a brake on money supply, the limiting factor is still real resources and not money.
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore this stepping stone. The looming finacial crisesmay be alleviated by a system which uses positive money.
Monday, 13 June 2011
National Ecosystem Assessment
Commentators have called this "an attempt to put a hard economic value on Britain's nature". Natural Capitalism that putting a mometary value on ecosystems makes semse because we put a monetary value on "everything" else, but use ecosystems as if they are infinite.
George Monbiot is sceptical: "When you turn nature into an accounting exercise, its destruction can be justified as soon as the business case comes out right." And "it almost always comes out right." Charles Clover in The Sunday Times observes that 'the agricultural losses incurred by setting aside land to promote a "diverse, flowery landscape" are more than made up for in gains from tourism and recreation; that building on green belt would have a disastrous effect on property values."
Where to start. "Property values" is a euphemism for property prices, which as we know fluctuate widely, whereas the value (utility) of a property doesn't. Then there's use of aesthetic values. We lose agricultural land but we gain tourism and recreation. Sorry, but this is not a sensible comparison. Agricutural land is where we grow food. Food is to eat, to sustain life. Yes you can sell it, but you still have to have food. Tourism may bring in money, but you still need to have food. Recreation is good and helps make us fully human, but you can't eat it.
Quantifying all the natural resources we have is a gargantuan task, and having a single unit to measure their utility - ie money - has appeal. But this must still lead to conserving our natural resources, and not be a device for more financial jiggery-pokery, which adds nothing to the physical world and humanity as a whole.
http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/
"The need for the UK NEA arose from findings of the 2005 global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), which not only demonstrated the importance of ecosystem services to human well-being, but also showed that at global scales, many key services are being degraded and lost. As a result, in 2007 the House of Commons Environmental Audit recommended that the Government should conduct a full MA-type assessment for the UK to enable the identification and development of effective policy responses to ecosystem service degradation"
"The UK NEA will help people to make better decisions that impact on the UK’s ecosystems to ensure the long-term sustainable delivery of ecosystem services for the benefit of current and future populations in the UK".
Nothing to do with money. We need ecosystems to live, and we can't buy them.
George Monbiot is sceptical: "When you turn nature into an accounting exercise, its destruction can be justified as soon as the business case comes out right." And "it almost always comes out right." Charles Clover in The Sunday Times observes that 'the agricultural losses incurred by setting aside land to promote a "diverse, flowery landscape" are more than made up for in gains from tourism and recreation; that building on green belt would have a disastrous effect on property values."
Where to start. "Property values" is a euphemism for property prices, which as we know fluctuate widely, whereas the value (utility) of a property doesn't. Then there's use of aesthetic values. We lose agricultural land but we gain tourism and recreation. Sorry, but this is not a sensible comparison. Agricutural land is where we grow food. Food is to eat, to sustain life. Yes you can sell it, but you still have to have food. Tourism may bring in money, but you still need to have food. Recreation is good and helps make us fully human, but you can't eat it.
Quantifying all the natural resources we have is a gargantuan task, and having a single unit to measure their utility - ie money - has appeal. But this must still lead to conserving our natural resources, and not be a device for more financial jiggery-pokery, which adds nothing to the physical world and humanity as a whole.
http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/
"The need for the UK NEA arose from findings of the 2005 global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), which not only demonstrated the importance of ecosystem services to human well-being, but also showed that at global scales, many key services are being degraded and lost. As a result, in 2007 the House of Commons Environmental Audit recommended that the Government should conduct a full MA-type assessment for the UK to enable the identification and development of effective policy responses to ecosystem service degradation"
"The UK NEA will help people to make better decisions that impact on the UK’s ecosystems to ensure the long-term sustainable delivery of ecosystem services for the benefit of current and future populations in the UK".
Nothing to do with money. We need ecosystems to live, and we can't buy them.
Communism
I suppose TVP/TZM advocates might find themselves saying that we shouldn't squander our natural resources in pursuit of [financial] profit. (In Natural Capitalism terms, liquidate our natural capital and call it income). Thinking about it, I'm quite happy with "we shouldn't squander our natural resources". That's it, full stop. Profit? Maybe, maybe not, competition? Maybe maybe not. But if competition and financial profit are not being harnessed to the end of environmental sustainabilty, or at least not against it, then they have to be sacrificed. This is nothing to do with social justice - even that is contingent on sustainability.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
McLaren MP4-12C
No - I haven't turned into a petrol head. What's interesting about the design of this supercar is the moulded carbon fibre body shell weighing only 78kg. The Book Natural Capitalism which chimes in well with the idea of a resource based economy mentions this technology in its Hypercar chapter. It makes the point that while carbon fibre is expensive per unit weight, it is the cost of it per car that is relevant. The carbon fibre can be coloured in mould and can be very light per car as this McLaren shows (though its hardly a practical car). By keeping the weight down the need for motive and stopping power is reduced, hence lighter motors and brakes. The carbon fibre monocoque is very crash-worthy, not only because of the design but also because of the low weight.
In Natural Capitalism the idea is that the need for private cars can be minimised by sharing them (leasing / hiring) and by planning our town and cities to reduce the need to travel. This fits very closely with the RBE ideas.
In Natural Capitalism the idea is that the need for private cars can be minimised by sharing them (leasing / hiring) and by planning our town and cities to reduce the need to travel. This fits very closely with the RBE ideas.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Natural Capital - saving nature saves money too
One of the key points in the book Natural Capitalism is that we are "liquidating our natural capital and calling it income". This is a way of stating that we are using up the earth's resources too fast in the language of economics. It is part of the book's argument that capitalism is not following its own rules.
The Telegraph recently reported on a UN report that tries to cost the services nature provides (also a theme in Natural Capitalism) - the current system seems to treat these services as free and unlimited a lot of the time. The estimate was £40 trillion - equal (interestingly) to the combined income of all the world's nations.
The Telegraph recently reported on a UN report that tries to cost the services nature provides (also a theme in Natural Capitalism) - the current system seems to treat these services as free and unlimited a lot of the time. The estimate was £40 trillion - equal (interestingly) to the combined income of all the world's nations.
Five Steps
http://www.mcdonough.com/writings/five_steps_5.htm
This extract gives an idea of this writer's take on the world. It rather tunes in with the ideas of Natural Capitalism, which I was advocating years ago, and which I think could help especially in the transition between the monetary system and an RBE. The idea of needing the service of things like cars and washing machines, rather than the thing itself, is a key one in Natural Capitalism. Of course, if someone is selling you the service of a washing machine, it is in their interest as well as yours that the machine is efficient, effective, reliable and economical, whereas in the buy-sell model, once you have bought the machine and the manufacture has your money, the other costs are down to you. There's littl incentive to sell you a machine that will never break down as the "first cost" (selling price) will be high and put you off, even if the lifetime costs would be lower.
"Consider the automobile. We don't have to list the ways in which car owners have begun to feel that their need for mobility is in conflict with their desire for a convivial, healthy world. But rather than declare the car the enemy, we would suggest that it's just not serving our needs very effectively. It's ripe for innovation.
A designer might respond to this challenge by creating a more efficient car that has a minimal impact on the environment, such as a hydrogen-powered hypercar free of carbon emissions. One could also employ a preference for a safe, organic upholstery fabric, or begin to reassess each material used in the making of automobiles. Ultimately, manufacturers might optimize their vehicles by using positively defined biological and technical nutrients and creating a coherent system for the retrieval and reuse of the cars valuable materials.
Each of these solutions reflects one of the values on the step-by-step path of eco-effective design. Together, they add up to revolutionary changes-changes that we are actively working to bring about with car manufacturers and auto parts suppliers. But we think there's yet another crucial step: What if we thought of the auto industry not simply as a maker of cars but as a provider of mobility? How might the industry best provide the service of mobility to meet the wants, needs and loves of its customers? Could we design new kinds of mobility systems that serve a rich social agenda?
Well, yes. If we explore not just the car but the many needs it fulfills, we can begin to imagine the re-invention of the whole paradigm of transportation. As a mobility provider, for example, a manufacturer might offer customers access to many different kinds of vehicles rather than selling them a car. Why own and maintain three cars when you could use the service of a big, spacious vehicle for family trips, a sports car for a weekend date, or a public community car to transport your children? In each case you'd be provided the service of mobility by an automaker that owned and reused the vehicles' valuable materials-and utilized them effectively by keeping their resources in motion.
Take the community car. As part of a broadly defined local or regional transportation plan, a fleet of community cars could provide people a range of services throughout the day. Responding to electronic calls, the cars could deliver people to transportation hubs in the morning; ferry groceries, laundry, and prescriptions during the day; deliver children from school to violin practice or their grandmother's house in the late afternoon; and take couples to the movies at night.
Built and used within an evolving system of coherent material flows, the community cars could manifest a wide spectrum of positive effects. People formerly excluded from transportation-children, the elderly, the handicapped-would have ready access to mobility. The retirees operating the community cars would be able to maintain their sense of community and their ties to the young. The system's effectiveness-its ability to both optimize the use of materials and conveniently move people to the places they want to go-would generate wealth for providers and satisfaction, free time, and peace of mind for customers.
The re-invention of mobility illustrates a key principle of eco-effective innovation: products are essentially packaging for services. With this in mind, designers can begin to apply the Five Steps to all products of service, conceiving effective, intelligent systems for meeting the most basic human needs-like washing one's clothes.
A designer developing an eco-effective laundry detergent, for example, might follow Steps One-Four to progressively create a product with only safe, nutritious ingredients. A Step Four soap might be defined by the chemistry of the local water supply. It might also be produced locally in dry pellet form and sold in bulk, obviating the need for packaging and the expensive long-distance transportation of heavy, liquid concentrates.
At Step Five one might build on the reformulation of soap to develop a strategy for delivering an effective laundering service to the home. This strategy would include the washing machine itself, which would be conceived as a product of service designed for retrieval, disassembly and reuse. The machine would be delivered to a customer's home pre-loaded with detergent for 1000 loads of laundry-the customer pays not for the machine, but for the service. After the last of the machine's micro-filtered detergent has been dispensed, the appliance would be serviced or replaced, and its valuable materials would enter the technical metabolism to be used again in new machines.
An innovative commercial venture might focus on providing a community laundry service. Laundry could be picked up from customers in a community vehicle and delivered to one location, where washing machines would run on the power of the sun and wastewater would be purified by a system of botanical gardens. The service might even provide a social venue, where those who chose to wash their own clothes could relax in a pleasant courtyard among the garden's flowering plants. Washing clothes, long considered environmentally unfriendly, suddenly begins to generate community wealth."
This extract gives an idea of this writer's take on the world. It rather tunes in with the ideas of Natural Capitalism, which I was advocating years ago, and which I think could help especially in the transition between the monetary system and an RBE. The idea of needing the service of things like cars and washing machines, rather than the thing itself, is a key one in Natural Capitalism. Of course, if someone is selling you the service of a washing machine, it is in their interest as well as yours that the machine is efficient, effective, reliable and economical, whereas in the buy-sell model, once you have bought the machine and the manufacture has your money, the other costs are down to you. There's littl incentive to sell you a machine that will never break down as the "first cost" (selling price) will be high and put you off, even if the lifetime costs would be lower.
"Consider the automobile. We don't have to list the ways in which car owners have begun to feel that their need for mobility is in conflict with their desire for a convivial, healthy world. But rather than declare the car the enemy, we would suggest that it's just not serving our needs very effectively. It's ripe for innovation.
A designer might respond to this challenge by creating a more efficient car that has a minimal impact on the environment, such as a hydrogen-powered hypercar free of carbon emissions. One could also employ a preference for a safe, organic upholstery fabric, or begin to reassess each material used in the making of automobiles. Ultimately, manufacturers might optimize their vehicles by using positively defined biological and technical nutrients and creating a coherent system for the retrieval and reuse of the cars valuable materials.
Each of these solutions reflects one of the values on the step-by-step path of eco-effective design. Together, they add up to revolutionary changes-changes that we are actively working to bring about with car manufacturers and auto parts suppliers. But we think there's yet another crucial step: What if we thought of the auto industry not simply as a maker of cars but as a provider of mobility? How might the industry best provide the service of mobility to meet the wants, needs and loves of its customers? Could we design new kinds of mobility systems that serve a rich social agenda?
Well, yes. If we explore not just the car but the many needs it fulfills, we can begin to imagine the re-invention of the whole paradigm of transportation. As a mobility provider, for example, a manufacturer might offer customers access to many different kinds of vehicles rather than selling them a car. Why own and maintain three cars when you could use the service of a big, spacious vehicle for family trips, a sports car for a weekend date, or a public community car to transport your children? In each case you'd be provided the service of mobility by an automaker that owned and reused the vehicles' valuable materials-and utilized them effectively by keeping their resources in motion.
Take the community car. As part of a broadly defined local or regional transportation plan, a fleet of community cars could provide people a range of services throughout the day. Responding to electronic calls, the cars could deliver people to transportation hubs in the morning; ferry groceries, laundry, and prescriptions during the day; deliver children from school to violin practice or their grandmother's house in the late afternoon; and take couples to the movies at night.
Built and used within an evolving system of coherent material flows, the community cars could manifest a wide spectrum of positive effects. People formerly excluded from transportation-children, the elderly, the handicapped-would have ready access to mobility. The retirees operating the community cars would be able to maintain their sense of community and their ties to the young. The system's effectiveness-its ability to both optimize the use of materials and conveniently move people to the places they want to go-would generate wealth for providers and satisfaction, free time, and peace of mind for customers.
The re-invention of mobility illustrates a key principle of eco-effective innovation: products are essentially packaging for services. With this in mind, designers can begin to apply the Five Steps to all products of service, conceiving effective, intelligent systems for meeting the most basic human needs-like washing one's clothes.
A designer developing an eco-effective laundry detergent, for example, might follow Steps One-Four to progressively create a product with only safe, nutritious ingredients. A Step Four soap might be defined by the chemistry of the local water supply. It might also be produced locally in dry pellet form and sold in bulk, obviating the need for packaging and the expensive long-distance transportation of heavy, liquid concentrates.
At Step Five one might build on the reformulation of soap to develop a strategy for delivering an effective laundering service to the home. This strategy would include the washing machine itself, which would be conceived as a product of service designed for retrieval, disassembly and reuse. The machine would be delivered to a customer's home pre-loaded with detergent for 1000 loads of laundry-the customer pays not for the machine, but for the service. After the last of the machine's micro-filtered detergent has been dispensed, the appliance would be serviced or replaced, and its valuable materials would enter the technical metabolism to be used again in new machines.
An innovative commercial venture might focus on providing a community laundry service. Laundry could be picked up from customers in a community vehicle and delivered to one location, where washing machines would run on the power of the sun and wastewater would be purified by a system of botanical gardens. The service might even provide a social venue, where those who chose to wash their own clothes could relax in a pleasant courtyard among the garden's flowering plants. Washing clothes, long considered environmentally unfriendly, suddenly begins to generate community wealth."
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