The Natural Step was created by Karl-Henrik Robert, a pediatric oncologist who became concerned about the rising rate of cancer in children. He was st ruck by the fact that parents of these children would do anything to cure the cancer, yet such parents, acting in concert as members of society, could not take the environmental steps that would reduce the risk of such cancer. He decided that action was prevented, in part, by disagreements over matters of detail like what specific level of a potential carcinogen was really harmful. Paul Hawken, who became Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Natural step, argued that scientists were arguing about the withering leaves instead of focusing on a fact they could all agree on: the tree was dying (Hawken, 1995).
Robert wrote a draft paper outlining the fundamental system conditions essential for a sustainable society and shared it with a group of fifty scientists. Twenty-one drafts later, he had a consensus document, based on the laws of thermodynamics, which the Natural Step interprets as follows:
1) Conservation of matter and energy, which means that we never really consume matter or energy, we just change its form.
2) Entropy, meaning that matter and energy tend towards lower levels of organization. When we appear to consume matter or energy, we are really increasing its entropy.
Given these laws, how can complex systems like life occur? Because of the way in which plants use the sun's energy for photosynthesis. The Natural Step (TNS), like McDonough's protocols, is based on an analogy to nature, in which the sun's energy fuels a local reversal of entropy, allowing evolution of complex, highly-organized forms, including human beings and the technologies we create.
From this assumption, TNS derives four fundamental system conditions:
1) Substances from the Earth's crust must not systematically increase in the biosphere. This implies that natural resources like fossil fuels should not be extracted at a rate greater than they can be replaced by the natural cycle of photosynthesis and sunlight. The conclusion here is the same as Hawken and McDonough's principle, 'work from current solar income', but it has the implication that we are not only using up our energy reserves, we are systematically polluting the biosphere with greenhouse gases.
Note that Robert can side-step the detailed argument about whether a greenhouse effect is really occurring by pointing-out that "the concentration of substance in the ecosphere will increase and eventually reach limits--often unknown--beyond which irreversible changes occur" (Robert, Daly, Hawken, & Holmberg, 1996, p. 5).
2) Substances produced by society must not systematically increase in the biosphere. The implication here is that human-created substances must not be produced at a rate greater than natural systems can absorb--or else we will again risk 'irreversible changes'. McDonough and Hawken's 'waste equals food' reaches a similar conclusion, but TNS holds out the possibility that there may be other ways to absorb waste besides making them food for organisms.
It seems to me that TNS might not object to wastes that could be locked into some kind of geological formation for thousands of years. This is one of the disposal mechanisms proposed for nuclear wastes and while I am sure TNS would object to nuclear power on other grounds, it is possible that the waste could be stored deep in a geological formation for millennia. The problem is, no one could guarantee that some natural or human disaster would not break it loose again, while it was still active.
3) The physical basis for the productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically deteriorated. This is the 'don't slash and burn the rain forest' argument: we have to protect the photosynthesis engine that drives the evolution of complex system.
4) There should be fair and efficient use of resources with respect to human needs. For TNS, efficiency means satisfying the first three conditions. "Basic human needs must be met with the most resource-efficient methods possible, and their satisfaction must take precedence over provision of luxuries" (Robert, Daly, Hawken, & Holmberg, 1996, p. 5). 'Needs over luxuries' is where the fairness issue comes in, and does threaten to entangle TNS in a debate about what is a luxury, and what is a need? But as we noted earlier, poverty is one of the causes of pollution, and the poor are also more likely to experience the effect of contaminated drinking water, air pollution and other environmental hazards--witness the shanty town surrounding Bhopal.
TNS has begun to have a major impact on corporations like Interface and IKEA. At Interface, which works with both William McDonough and TNS, "A new tufting method has cut nylon use 10%. Old fibers are 'combed' rather than melted for recycling. Certain yarns are substituted with hemp and flax, a step toward carpeting that is both 'harvestable' and compostable. Processing water is treated for golf-course irrigation. Massive electric motors are jump-started with gravity-feed systems rather than huge jolts of electricity... 'Looking at waste really forces you to look at how your systems are designed', says James Hartzfield, a top Interface official" (Petzinger, 1997, p. B1).
These 'natural steps' are not only good for the environment, they also help the bottom-line, saving Interface $25 million since 1995. Interface is also gaining a reputation as a low-cost, green vendor. For example, Interface's green reputation gained it a opportunity to bid on carpeting Gap's new headquarters; Interface then won the bid based on cost.
IKEA is a major global manufacturer or furniture. The company's name is derived from the initials of its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who began a mail-order business in Sweden selling, among other things, home furniture. In the post World War II period, Swedish furniture prices went up much faster than other goods. Kamprad saw this as both a social problem and a business opportunity and moved in with a large selection of lower price furnishings. According to Kamprad, "The IKEA vision is to contribute to a better way of life for the majority of people. We do this by offering a wide range of home furnishings of good design and function, at prices so low that the majority of people can afford to buy them" (p. 47) . IKEA grew into a major mail order and retail supplier of furniture and other household products.
German regulators spotted a problem with the formaldehyde content of the fiberboard used by IKEA. Instead of evolving a minimal response to this regulation, IKEA started to work with Dr. Robert to create a standard that would exceed any regulations the company might encounter worldwide, thereby freeing it from concern with any regulations. IKEA would also fulfill the mandate of its founder to 'contribute to a better way of life for the majority of people'.
Among the 'Natural Steps' taken by IKEA were:
1) A "Trash is Cash" program, which included the construction of an on-site recycling center at the store in Gotenborg, Sweden and selling materials like wood, cardboard, metal and paper that would have formerly gone into the landfill. The result was an improved bottom line as well as a cleaner world.
2) IKEA worked with Greenpeace to reduce the environmental impact of its catalogue, which used over 40,000 metric tons of paper. IKEA managed to eliminate the use of chlorine bleach in creating its catalogue, prohibited the use of any paper made from old growth forest, and agreed to recycle all of its catalogues and even those of its competitors.
3) Joined the U.S. E.P.A.'s Green Lights' Program, which meant a commitment to reduce kilowatt/hours in North American IKEA stores by at least 15%. After four years of research, IKEA came up with a way of retrofitting its stores with fluorescent lighting whose initial cost would be recovered in less than two years by energy savings. These new lights required less energy to operate, lasted longer and generated less heat, thereby producing savings on cooling bills as well.
Interface and IKEA demonstrate that social responsibility and profit can go hand-in-hand. In contrast, Milton Friedman argued that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engage in open and free competition without deception or fraud" (Friedman, 1996, p. 126). A corporate executive may do what she likes as an individual, but in her official capacity, she is responsible to the shareholders and employees. If she decides to take an action that will benefit the environment, one that costs extra money and goes above and beyond what is required by law, she is spending shareholders money, possibly reducing employee salaries or raising costs to consumers.
Note that Friedman would have no difficulty with a company that decided to 'go green' as a marketing strategy, as long as the motive was profit. If a green reputation gets Interface a chance to bid on Gap's headquarters, that is simply good business. But the company should be careful to do only what is necessary to market itself as green, and only as long as buyers care.
Let us consider an example: the AES Corporation, a supplier of power to utilities, decided to devote two million dollars, or about one year of profits, to activities that would reduce the environmental impact of its coal-fired power plants, in the absence of any regulations that would force them to take these actions (Southerland, 1995). This move was not made in anticipation of any increase in sales, due to their 'green' strategy. Friedman would regard this as an involuntary tax imposed by AES management on its shareholders and customers.
On the other hand, Friedman would not have a problem with the environmental reforms made by Interface and IKEA if their primary goal was improving the company's bottom line. To retrofit lighting in order to save money is fine; to do it because a company wants to be socially responsible is, in Friedman's view, unethical.
Hawken and McDonough's philosophy of corporate responsibility appears to be diametrically opposed to Friedman's. But in fact, Hawken and McDonough suggest ways of changing the rules of the game in ways that would encourage companies like AES to behave responsibly towards the environment without hurting their bottom line. Again, this kind of change follows the analogy of nature. Organisms evolve to take advantage of every ecological niche, including those created by the waste produced by other organisms. Given a multi-million year time frame, presumably organisms would evolve that would use our industrial wastes as food. But we don't have that kind of time, so we will have to evolve market mechanisms that will encourage this kind of cycle.
One way to accomplish this would be to have the government impose 'green taxes', such as a tax on the carbon content of fuels like coal. Then companies like AES could obtain a lower tax rate by using alternate energy sources, or planting trees in rainforest locations, or designing more efficient coal-burning operations.
Such changes in the rules would make environmental responsibility consonant with profit. The problem, as Hawken notes, is that corporate leaders are so involved with the political process that they can prevent such changes. To return to Friedman's argument, corporate leaders don't just respond to the rules of the game--they make them. Therefore, one is back to the central problem: one has to convince a few imaginative business leaders to push ahead toward sustainability--to prove that it is both possible and desirable. A few virtuous leaders can pave the way to new sets of rules that will make it easier for others to follow.
Another possible change in the rules would be to allow prices to reflect actual environmental costs. The physicist Amory Lovins likes to use the example of Desert Storm. The motivation for this operation was to free Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia, but we would not have been so interested in these countries if they did not supply much of the world's oil. Therefore, argues, the war constituted in part a way of subsidizing lower oil prices. If the price of oil were raised to partly cover the costs of these sorts of wars, then companies and individuals might be encouraged to insulate homes, make more efficient automobiles, invest in solar energy, etc.--in effect, making us far less dependent on foreign oil and benefiting the environment at the same time (Lovins, Lovins & Zuckerman, 1986).
The first step in moral imagination is recognizing that one has assumptions about reality which constitute a view, or perspective. The idea that we must protect tanker routes from the Gulf in order to insure energy supplies is such a view. Lovins is trying to tweak us into engaging in moral imagination by doing what systems engineers call outscoping. If the real problem is energy supplies, why not outscope to consider other solutions besides oil? What about conservation? alternate fuel sources? insulation?
There were certainly other reasons for protecting the national sovereignty of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia besides insuring a plentiful supply of oil. But it is clear oil was a factor, and we need to consider this kind of military presence as part of the cost of oil--a human cost, not just a financial one.
Amory and L. Hunter Lovins also engage in moral imagination when they confront the problem of designing energy-efficient vehicles. They think the barrier is cultural, not technological: that the automobile industry "is not a composite-molding/electrical/software culture but a diemaking/steel-stamping/mechanical culture. Their fealty is to heavy metal, not light synthetics; to mass, not information. They have tens of billions of dollars, and untold psychological investments, committed to stamping steel. They know steel, think steel, and have a presumption in favor of steel. They design cars as abstract art and then figure out the least unsatisfactory way to make them, rather than seeking the best ways to manufacture with strategically advantageous materials and then designing cars to exploit those manufacturing methods" (Lovins & Lovins, 1995, p. 84).
Lovins and Lovins are trying to get auto manufacturers and consumers to imagine a very different world, in which most of us drive ultralight cars that look very different from the ones now on the road. Creative engineers at General Motors have built at least one prototype that gets 62 mpg; Lovins and Lovins envision designs that could get over 300 mpg. "We Americans recently put our sons and daughters in .56 mpg tanks and 17-feet-per-gallon aircraft carriers because we hadn't put them in 32 mpg cars--sufficient, even if we'd done nothing else, to have eliminated the need for American oil imports from the Persian Gulf (Lovins & Lovins, 1995, p. 85).
Another example from transportation is the contrast between the bus systems of New York and Curitiba, Brazil. In New York, "a four-mile bus ride is a smelly, jolting forty-minute journey taken by the old and poor. In Curitiba, Brazil, it's a clean, fast trip half the city makes twice daily" (McKibben, 1995, p. 65). The bus system in Curitiba involves several innovations:
1. Special lanes for buses.
2. New tube stations, where eight passengers can board per second.
3. Special extra-large buses that can accommodate up to 270 passengers.
The mental model for this bus system was a subway--it is a surface subway, much cheaper than building an underground. In what sense is this above-ground subway an exercise in moral imagination? Why isn't this just a clever technological fix for a complex urban problem?
Behind the bus system is a vision--of a green metropolis where most residents own cars but choose not to use them, where the downtown is a pedestrian mall and citizens can still move freely and quickly around the city. The bus system is part of an overall city plan that emphasizes environmental responsibility and also tries to reduce poverty by allowing the poor to trade recycled trash for food, providing free medical care and a network of local libraries housed in lighthouses. Curitiba is not utopia--shantytowns still sprout on the outskirts and infant mortality is still high (Lewan, 1994). But there is a commitment to innovative solutions that simultaneously attack poverty and pollution.
In contrast, there is no guiding vision for New York. The accepted reality is survival--New Yorkers take a kind of gritty pride in their toughness as the city lurches along like its buses, barely working much of the time. Curitiba loaned a few buses and tube stations to New York and for a time, they ran well. But none of the balkanized agencies responsible for transit in New York appears to have learned anything from it--it had nothing to do with the 'realities' of life in New York. The first lesson of moral imagination is that this reality is a view.
This page was last edited: Wednesday, July 14, 1999