When we first used this case with students, we told them the story up to the point where the dye manufacturers resisted letting the EPEA inspect their production methods. The purpose of multiple dilemmas in cases is to allow students to think about problems that require wisdom for a solution. This dye dilemma is too late in the process. Now, we begin by asking students to evaluate the four options Susan Lyons considered before she brought McDonough in as a consultant, including Foxfiber, organic cotton, PET and Climatex. Which would be best, if one considered criteria like cost, availability and aesthetics?
From a cost standpoint, Susan Lyons saw the options as relatively equivalent. From the standpoint of availability, Climatex had an edge because she knew Kaelin and trusted him to deliver. From the standpoint of aesthetics, Foxfiber had a very limited range of colors, organic cotton was better, but still had limited colors. The range of dyes available for PET was uncertain. Climatex again had an edge.
Which of these options would be best, if one put environmental sustainability first? In order to answer this question, students have to consider what environmental sustainability means. Sally Fox’s product looks best from many environmental perspectives--there are no toxic chemicals used in treating or dyeing, and it is grown organically. Climatex is certified by Eco-Tex as human ecology safe; it has to be incinerated, instead of recycled, so students have to decide whether incineration is an acceptable alternative. If one values turning existing wastes into products, PET is particularly attractive, because it makes soda bottles into fabric. In the end, the choice depends on having a framework for deciding what counts as environmental sustainability. Students typically realize this in class discussion. They also have to think about the extent to which sustainability ought to take precedence over other design criteria.
After McDonough supplies a framework, we ask the students to re-consider Lyon’s choices. Climatex fails because incineration does not fit waste equals food. Chemicals are required to dye organic cotton, so one must check each carefully for potential toxins. McDonough also points out that cotton is frequently grown under oppressive conditions, so one must check whether the cotton is grown by poorly-paid migrant laborers. The question of organic cotton illustrates how sustainablity involves looking at the whole process by which a technological system is created and implemented.
PET may be made from recycled fabric, but cannot itself be recycled because it mixes organic and technical products in a way that prevents their separation. Foxfiber fits the McDonough criteria, raising the question of whether one pick a fabric with limited colors and availability because it is the best environmentally. Is it more important to make a statement or sell a product?
The solution is a new design. Students need to see why adopting a novel sustainable framework forces Lyons and Kaelin to come up with a new alternative. One cannot make a statement without creating a viable, marketable product--the statement is the product. As McDonough says, "It exists, therefore it is possible."
Now students are ready to try our initial dilemma, at the point where the dye companies have refused to let Michael Braungart and the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency inspect their manufacturing processes. We ask the student what to do next. Typically, we put them in roles---one group pretends to be McDonough, another Braungart, another Kaelin at the mill, who will have to pay for Braungart and the EPEA, another a fictitious group of customers who get to indicate whether they care about the extra environmental benefits--this customer group can be sub-divided into mainstream and ‘green niche’ consumers. Depending on the size of the class, we sometimes add other roles.
In one memorable class, both McDonough and Braungart came and talked to the groups that filled their roles. Naturally, these groups suggested no compromise--persisting until they found a company that would make the dyes.
When asked to give their personal opinions, over half of the students typically elect to market Climatex and keep doing research on dyes. A smaller group tries to argue that Kaelin should become a dye manufacturer, but we point out how nearly impossible that is. Then we bring in the fabric and show them that sometimes you can succeed by sticking to your principles.
Then we shift to the Rohner Textil mill and put the students in Albin Kaelin’s shoes. He has to create a network of suppliers who will agree to follow the spirit as well as the letter of the EPEA’s protocols.
The first dilemma involved the twisting of the yarn. After the wool and ramie had been harvested, combed, blended and spun into a single yarn onto cones, the two or more single yarns needed to be twisted about one another in order to make the yarns strong enough to be fed through the loom. If the yarns were not strong enough or nonuniform, they would break, forcing the weaver at Rohner Textil to stop and repair them. This process kept the loom down for a while, obviously reducing productivity and quality of the product.
The problem that Kaelin faced was eliminating a coating chemical from the twisting process. It was a normal procedure to apply a chemical to the yarns as they were twisted. This process greatly improved the strength of the twisted yarn. The EPEA rejected the chemical, since it did not meet the design criteria.
The EPEA had approved a procedure that could be implemented at the same company that spun the yarn in Germany. Instead of the original chemical used for twisting, this company could use potato starch. First, potato starch was dissolved in ordinary water, and it was sprayed on the yarns as they were twisted. The twisted yarns were then dried, making the bond stronger. Finally, the excess starch was removed in another water bath. The yarns were again dried and wound on cones.
The technological capability of this company was such that these operations could be completed at a rapid pace. They had already agreed to submit to the EPEA all information on the spinning of the yarns, and they were willing to cooperate for the twisting as well. This company was medium-sized, consisting of about 270 full-time employees. Having both the spinning and twisting done at the same place was an attractive situation, since this agreed with Albin Kaelin's philosophy of "keeping the number of players in the pool as small as possible."
Another option was to give the twisting business to a small, four-person operation in Switzerland, located halfway between Rohner Textil and the spinning
factory. This factory had also worked previously with Albin Kaelin and Rohner. Its entire business consisted of twisting yarn. This mill used older machinery that operated at lower speeds from newer machines, such as those located at the spinning mill. Because the machinery was slower, the price of twisting here was higher than at the spinning mill; however, this slower speed afforded two advantages. First, the yarn could be twisted in such a way that they were strong enough for the loom without adding large amounts of chemicals and washing them out after weaving. Second, the slower winding on the cones made the yarn rest more uniformly on the cones. The small company worked exclusively with all-natural yarns and used no chemicals in any of its twisting operations, except for lubricants for the machinery. The EPEA also approved the twisting procedure of this company.
Students are asked which company and procedure Kaelin should choose. They tend to favor the first, or larger company because it is more likely to stay in business and also because it combines operations, limiting the number of players. In fact, Kaelin decided to work with the smaller company, because he wanted to fulfill the spirit, not just the letter, of the EPEA’s protocol. No chemicals was better than one that used potato starch. Also, Kaelin liked the fact that the smaller company would be more dependent on Rohner Textil’s business, and therefore more likely to make future modifications in order to continue to make Climatex Lifecycle even more environmentally intelligent.
Even though you have the product, the project is not finished. (Albin Kaelin)
In 1994, Steelcase consisted of a $2.3 billion company, employing 17,700 worldwide. Between 1986 and 1990, Steelcase averaged a dominant 21 percent of the United States office furniture industry, and in 1989, it purchased a series of design-oriented companies to bolster their dominance, which they feared was threatened by innovations being made by smaller, nimbler companies. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was this sort of innovation; the fledgling Bell Telephone Company took on the corporate giant Western Union, and eventually outstripped it.
To avoid being surprised in this way, Steelcase bought small, innovative firms like DesignTex and formed them into the Steelcase Design Partnership. The goal of this effort was to add creative products to Steelcase’s overall market profile. The William McDonough Collection, based on Climatex Lifecycle, could deliver what Steelcase wanted.
Therefore, Steelcase wanted to leave DesignTex the maximum room for creativity, and so did not interfere with its daily operations. One downside of this is that DesignTex had to sell to Steelcase like it would to any other company. There is no guarantee Steelcase will use fabrics like Climatex Lifecycle on its furniture.
The McDonough design protocol was paying off for Albin Kaelin. In March of 1994, Lyons, McDonough, and Kaelin signed an agreement giving Rohner Textil the patent rights for the manufacturing of Climatex Lifecycle. In exchange, Kaelin agreed to pay the cost of the EPEA and granted Lyons and DesignTex exclusive use of the fabric in the United States until the end of 1996 after its planned release in July of 1995 under the trade name, "The William McDonough Collection." The product was not set for release in Europe until December 1995, so this arrangement gave DesignTex and McDonough a big head start in the market. Possessing the patent and trademark, however, gave Rohner Textil a great deal of flexibility over the projected long term product life of Climatex Lifecycle.
In the fall of 1994 Susan Lyons made arrangements to use the McDonough Collection fabric on Steelcase's Sensor chair, which won an award from the Industrial Designers Society of America. Steelcase sold over one million chairs from 1986 to 1990. The Sensor chair had become a benchmark for the industry by 1994, and it presented an opportunity for the McDonough Collection to reach a large customer base quickly.
Before Climatex Lifecycle could be used on this chair, it needed to undergo rigorous testing to meet a number of different performance standards, including International Standards Organization (ISO), Swiss textile standards and the standards set by the Association of Contract Textiles (ACT), of which DesignTex was a member.
By the middle of November, it appeared that the testing goals were in reach. At that time, however, Steelcase introduced a new test required of all fabrics to be used on its furniture, because the company intended to automate its manufacturing processes. As Albin Kaelin later reflected, "as this test was new at the time, we were not able to get sophisticated details. The only parameters we did know was that it was a test to ensure that the newly introduced robots could upholster the chairs easily, so that the fabric does not slip out of the grips of the robot."
The result of the introduction of this test at the end of November 1994 was a disaster. As Lyons wrote to Kaelin, "Well, this is an adventure--everything failed on Steelcase... The reason for failure was cited as a lack of stretch in the filling direction. I am thinking that the ramie may be too rigid... We have found that fabrics with higher wool content perform better on molded seating. I know that dropping the ramie content may compromise the Climatex features, but frankly, I think it is more urgent to get the molded seating pass."
At Rohner, Kaelin and his team worked out changes to the finishing procedures to make the fabric less rigid. They came up with four different finishing chemicals that made the fabric pass the Steelcase robot test. The EPEA approved only one of the four chemicals, and this chemical could pass the EPEA protocols only if Rohner committed to eliminating it. Plus, the fabric would now have to be re-tested according to all of the ISO and ACT standards.
McDonough, Braungart, Lyons and Kaelin had fought an uphill battle to make the product as environmentally intelligent as possible, and they had overcome overwhelming odds. Should they compromise the "waste equals food" standards in order to please one major customer?
I use this dilemma to talk about satisficing versus optimizing. According to Herbert Simon, most managers are satisficers ; they would look for an option that satisfies the constraints, but not worry about optimizing. In the previous dilemma, Kaelin refused to add chemicals in order to accommodate a larger twisting mill, even though the EPEA had approved the chemical. In that case, Kaelin was acting like an optimizer, not a satisficer, trying to exceed requirements.
Again, we continue to use role-playing in this case. Because Kaelin acted like an optimizer on the last case, those students who play his role typically argue that he would optimize again on this case. Lyons, of course, wanted to compromise. McDonough and Braungart are generally portrayed as resisting compromise, like Kaelin. Some students in these groups argue that Steelcase ought to bend its rules, given that the company does have a strong environmental record. Their model is the earlier case of the dye companies, where persistence paid off. We let the group that role-plays Steelcase decide on this issue, then tell them that the actual company would not have considered compromise. This dilemma provides an interesting lesson in how manufacturing standards affect environmental design.
In the end, Kaelin and Lyons compromised and added the chemical for Steelcase. But it was only a temporary satisficing strategy. He and the other members of the network retained a commitment to continuous improvement. Optimization is a moving target.
The case of Paul Flückiger, the dye-master at Rohner Textil, was discussed in Chapter 3. Recall that Flückiger substituted a dye that fulfilled the EPEA’s requirements and was cheaper than the alternative supplied by Ciba-Geigy. However, he failed to follow the ISO 9001 standards and to consult the EPEA.
The dilemma for the students is what to do with Paul--reprimand him? fire him? compliment him on taking initiative and not being bound by procedures? We typically do not use role-playing on this case; we want the students to tell us what Kaelin would do, and what they would do. Some end up on the side of disciplining or reprimanding Paul. After all, he did not follow procedures. Others counter that the codes and procedures should not be taken too literally. After all, Paul was right--the new dye was cheaper, and just as environmentally benign.
We then explain that Kaelin blamed himself for not making sure all of his employees thoroughly understood why one had to follow this process. When building a sustainable network, one has to make certain that all of the members buy into the core values, because at some point, they are going to have to make independent decisions.
This process never ends. (Albin Kaelin)
Albin Kaelin was not surprised when the Ramie spinning mill closed its doors in early 1996. The textile industry worldwide was changing with the opening of markets in Eastern Europe and the continued expansion of production in Asia. The Swiss textile industry, with its tradition of stability and high standards for wages, was suffering from these structural changes. Overall, Swiss textile industry sales were down 9.5% between 1994 and 1995, and the trend was continuing.
The close of the spinning mill could not have occurred at a worse time for Kaelin and his team of thirty at Rohner. They could not afford to be cut off from their supply of ramie yarn when Climatex Lifecycle was new to the marketplace. Rohner Textil was weathering the recession rather well, because Climatex Lifecycle had been well-received in the United States through Rohner's large, important customer, DesignTex, Inc.
Initial sales reports from DesignTex and Rohner were very positive. Swiss TV dedicated seven minutes of the business news to highlight the operations of the Rohner mill. The product was introduced to the European Market in January of 1996, and because of all of the good publicity about the product, Kaelin had little trouble attracting customers.
Kaelin needed to act quickly, since his team of thirty did not have a significant stockpile of ramie yarn. Unfortunately, the mill that was spinning the wool fibers for Climatex Lifecycle did not have the machinery for preparing the ramie for spinning. Not every spinning mill was capable of processing ramie fibers because very few firms processed ramie fibers and not one manufacturer made machines suitable for stretching ramie. Kaelin explained "For most cases manufacturers can use linen and cotton as substitute materials for ramie, so ramie is not a popular fiber." This was not an option for Kaelin, since ramie and wool were the materials the EPEA approved for Climatex Lifecycle.
The spinning mill that had just closed overcame this problem when one of its machine operators was able to modify a wool worsting machine so that it could handle ramie fibers. The operator moved the rollers farther apart and knew how to modify the speed of the machinery so that the ramie fibers would not break. The process was highly dependent on his skill at operating and maintaining the modified machinery, in contrast with wool spinning, which was highly automated.
Kaelin and Designer Lothar Pfister, also responsible for product development, canvassed Europe to see if there were other mills which may have modified its equipment accordingly. They found none, but they did find four spinning mills that were willing to purchase the equipment from the recently-closed spinning mill and transfer the equipment to their locations. Each mill said it would be willing to finance the cost of purchasing and transporting the machinery.
Knowing the state of the industry, Kaelin and Pfister were not sure if the mills could afford to finance the machinery. They wanted to avoid repeating this process by choosing a spinning mill in danger of bankruptcy. They were not even sure if the machinery, once transported, could be reassembled to deliver high quality ramie fibers. They gathered as much information about each alternative as they could.
The students are given all the information Kaelin had on each of these choices, and asked to guess what he would do, and what they would do in the same situation. In order to evaluate Kaelin’s decisions, they had to be able to exercise enough moral imagination to put themselves in his shoes and really understand his perspective. Then they would be free to disagree with it in a thoughtful way.
The first mill was located less than 100 km (about 60 miles) from Rohner. It was a large company and possessed several other spinning mills in Europe. It had the technological know-how and financing available to acquire the ramie equipment from the closed spinning mill. The management of this company seemed very committed and ethical, although it was difficult for Kaelin and Pfister to judge because the company was large. The financial condition of the company seemed stable and the risk of failure unlikely. At the time, they had little experience with producing ecological projects, but the company met all environmental legal limits and indicated that it would be willing to cooperate with the EPEA. Since the company was large, it was unlikely that they would modify their processes to adopt Rohner's quality standards; however, Rohner had worked with them in the past without notable problems.
The second firm owned its yarn dyeing and spinning mills in Northern Europe, about 1000 km (600 miles) from Rohner. This was a medium-sized company that was willing to purchase the equipment from the bankrupt spinning mill. Rohner had used a few samples of their work in Rohner's products. The company had proven to be highly flexible at meeting Rohner's demands for producing these sample lots, showing that they valued Rohner's business. Because this company was located in Northern Europe, Kaelin and Pfister were not sure if this company was meeting all environmental legal limits; however, the company indicated that it would likely cooperate with the EPEA inspections.
The third alternative possessed yarn dying and spinning facilities about 100 km (60 miles) from Rohner, which had ten years of experience working with this small company. The owners were the managers. The company was putting out one ecological line of products at the time and was in compliance with local environmental legal limits. It was likely that they would cooperate with the EPEA inspections and would be flexible to Rohner's quality demands. The firm had the technological expertise to handle operating the ramie spinning equipment, and the company was willing to purchase the equipment, but Kaelin and Pfister were unsure if this investment was too great for this struggling mill.
The last mill they considered existed 300 km (190 miles) from Rohner. It was a medium-sized company with experience in spinning for the fashion industry. This was a very old, family-owned company with highly committed family members managing the operations. Since the company worked in the fashion industry it was very flexible and adaptable to rapid changes in customer demands. They were also willing to take risks in developing new products, a necessary condition for survival in the fashion industry. Rohner had worked with this company in the past, producing successfully a few sample trials. The mill did not have an ecological line of products; but, it indicated that they would try to cooperate with the EPEA inspections. The company was willing to purchase the ramie spinning equipment from the closed mill, but because this was a family-owned company, Kaelin and Pfister could not glean information about the financial condition of this company.
This dilemma is difficult to present to students unless they do homework and come in with a list of pros & cons for each company, derived from the paragraphs above and additional information in the published version of the case. Another strategy is to divide the students into four groups, each one representing one of the companies, and have them come to class prepared to argue for their alternative.
For Kaelin, as always, the choice was obvious. He had anticipated the problem, and was already making the transition to the third, or smallest mill. Rohner's business would be more important to them: therefore they would be more willing to modify their procedures to adapt to the EPEA’s requirements. This decision flies in the face of the assumption by many of the students that a larger mill closer by would be better, because its size would make it less likely to go out of business and its proximity would save transportation costs in terms of both money and environmental damage. But for Kaelin, the network was the key: he could most easily integrate this mill into his existing network. He hired experts from the spinning mill that had gone out of business to teach everyone at the new mill how to fulfill the spirit as well as the letter of the design protocols.
Al Rich is an ethical entrepreneur whose company fails; therefore, his case fills a dual gap for students: it is a case where an inventor took environmental ethics seriously, right from the beginning, but failed as an entrepreneur. Was he any less creative and committed than individuals in Csiksenmihalyi’s studies? Students are plunged into a series of dilemmas that raise these questions before they know the outcome and can judge him from 20:20 hindsight.
Currently, the first dilemma focuses on whether Rich’s design would fit the McDonough/Braungart protocols or The Natural Step. Rich’s design is not motivated by either of these frameworks, but using one or both of them provokes deep discussion of what is meant by environmental sustainability. Clearly, his design follows the principle of running on current solar income, but is it really cradle-to-cradle? How long will its components last, and what will happen to them after they wear out? Students can try to figure out how the EPEA would classify Rich’s technology. It might be considered a product of service, and therefore would have to be owned by ASN, which would lease it to homeowners and recycle all components. Would this kind of strategy have improved or hurt ASN’s shaky bottom line?
One of my colleagues, Edmund Russell, used the ASN case in his class. Student groups did research on alternatives to Rich’s technology, then each student had to decide whether she or he would invest venture capital in Rich’s company, given these alternatives. I did something similar in one of my classes. The alternatives the students came up with included:
1) Installing on-demand heaters that heat water only as it is needed. Typically, these use natural gas, which is a fairly clean source of fuel. Students have to consider how much it violates the ‘run off current solar income’ principle. One solution is to combine gas heat and solar. Then students have to look at the payback period for this steep initial investment, which depends on a variety of factors, location being the most obvious--in the southwest, where there is plenty of sun and one is not far from natural gas, the pay-off is shorter than in the northeast.
2) Adding a timing mechanism to the water heater. This option is similar to the on-demand heat, but substitutes regular times at which the hot water would be turned on, say at 6 AM so it would be warm enough for morning showers, then off during the middle of the day, perhaps on in the evening and off at night. A simple timer could result in significant savings, depending on patterns of household use.
3) Adding insulation the water heater. This is a relatively inexpensive option which can reduce the water heating bill by as much as 20%. Students concluded that a solar water heater would save more over a long period of time, but there were significant savings from insulation alone. Again, these two technologies could be combined to shorten the payback period.
Eight of the eighteen students in my colleague Ed Russel’s fourth-year engineering class decided that Rich’s system would be worth investing in. These students were generally impressed with Rich’s character and determination. They added a number of caveats to their decision. Several pointed-out that Rich’s system would produce about a five-year payback when used with electric water heat, but a much longer payback if used with cheaper natural gas--again, depending on location. Others suggested design modifications in Rich’s system, including using the existing hot water tank instead of installing an additional one and combining his system with other technologies: on-demand gas heating of the water, insulation for the tank and using excess energy from a heat pump to pre-warm the water.
Those students who favored investing in Rich’s system were also clearly motivated by environmental concerns. As one said, "Eventually we may reach a point where everyone will be forced to recognize that we cannot keep taking from the earth and only return waste." Those who opposed it based their arguments primarily on economic grounds, but were clearly less impressed by the ethical underpinnings of Rich’s technology. For example, one student wondered why those in the U.S. should worry about saving energy, since we seemed to have enough to supply our population? This sparked a debate on the global nature of energy and environmental concerns.
Almost all the students complained about insufficient data. Engineering students are used to having data given to them as part of a problem; they were not comfortable having to look it up themselves, and were clearly nervous about drawing conclusions from less-than-perfect information. In other words, they expected that knowledge would dictate the decision; no wisdom in the form of engineering judgment was necessary.
This is a common response to our cases--if only I had more information, the answer would be obvious. We deliberately try to supply more information than a student should need, in cases like DesignTex, Rohner Textil and Dow Corning. In the ASN case, we like them to find out a bit more for themselves.
Another dilemma that focuses on the marketing aspect of ASN concerns what should happen after sales do not pick up in Virginia. Should Rich move, and if so, where? Students are given a table of tax credits and subsidies available across the United States, and asked to choose among them. This dilemma can be used to raise the issue of whether ethical inventors like Rich ought to be encouraged by subsidies or tax breaks, or whether they ought to be left to survive or fail in the marketplace.
Once Rich moved to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, we give students another dilemma, focused on the salesman who gets Rich into trouble by recommending replacement of functioning systems. This dilemma can be connected to the Fluckiger case, where Kaelin failed to get every member of his network to understand the rationale for a procedure that ensured environmental intelligence. Similarly, Rich did not make certain the salesman understood the procedures involved with assessing, documenting and selling solar designs.
This dilemma can be used to discuss the difference between adversarial and partnership models for environmental enforcement. The EPA is a regulatory agency; the EPEA is an agency contracted by a company to help them improve their environmental intelligence. The former typically operates in adversarial mode, whereas the latter had to depend on partnership with a company. SMUD was theoretically a partner with companies like ASN, but it treated Rich like an adversary, penalizing him before discussing the problem with him.
The partnership model assumes that both parties are virtuous--they really want to improve the environment. The adversarial model does not want to depend on virtue. Rich saw himself as a virtuous practitioner; for whatever reason, SMUD did not.
Students are given three dilemma points in this case. The first concerns what technology SELF should promote: hydro, clean coal, or solar. Like many of the first dilemmas in other cases, this one raises the whole issue of what counts as sustainable. One can ask the students to guess what Williams would prefer and also what they would prefer. The case provides relatively good information on these options, but again, if one wants to take more time with this case, one can ask the students to look up more information about each.
For Williams, solar represented the only real choice. Students typically agree with this. One or two want to add nuclear as an option, and that can lead to an interesting discussion.
One can also raise the issue of whether people in the developing world have a right to electrical power, in the same sense that they have other rights. One of my student discussion leaders did a clever exercise to bring the problem home to his peers. He had about two-thirds of the class put on blindfolds, to simulate their role as a rural community without electricity at night, and the other third sit opposite them in their role as members of developed nations. He asked the two-thirds who were blindfolded whether they felt they had a right to take the blindfolds off, and what it would be worth to them.
This was a good way to segway to our second dilemma, in which we asked students how SELF should finance the purchase of solar units by the village of Magiacha in China. Should SELF compromise its reliance on the individual and allow either the Chinese government or NGOs to partially fund the purchase? If so, which of these options should it choose? One of our students even proposed yet another alternative--having the U.S. government foot part of the bill.
This dilemma forces students to revisit the issue of subsidies and their consequences, this time on a global rather than just a domestic scale, and this time from the standpoint of what they do for consumers rather than inventors. Will the villagers maintain the technology if they do not own it? Will local entrepreneurs be less interested in servicing and selling units? Williams thinks the answer is yes.
Students can also debate the relative merits of government versus NGO funding. The former implies the village will be beholden to the government of China, which is friendly to capitalism but repressive regarding any sign of political freedom. NGOs are independent of any government, by definition, and therefore pose less political threat, though some may have their own agendas.
Our engineering students do typically agree with SELF’s philosophy, once they better understand its system of financing. Basically, if villager A fails to pay off his loan from SELF, villager B cannot get a loan to put a system on his house. Williams’ notion of individual responsibility is intimately tied up with local, communal responsibility.
The third dilemma concerns Maphephethe, in South Africa, where solar technology apparently has to be introduced in a way that reinforces the social stratification within a village. Engineering students like to refer back to Star Trek’s ‘Prime Directive’ when talking about culture and technology. The idea is that one culture should not interfere with the practices of another. Is SELF operating in a way that is consistent with this directive? If so, is that right? As of this writing, we have not tried this part of the case on engineering students, but we expect some lively debate when we do.
We are currently working on a series of cases involving ESKOM, the major utility in South Africa, which is extending the grid to some villages and even providing solar technology to others. This large corporate model stands in contrast to Williams’ model of small, local entrepreneurs taking up the solar challenge. We expect some interesting future discussions on this topic.
Perhaps Eugene Hargrove best articulates what we can learn from cases like this:
...our environmental ethic, when we really have one, will be a collection of independent ethical generalizations, only loosely related, not a rationally ordered system of ethical prescriptions. People who want to understand and follow this environmental ethic will have to study the application of these generalizations to specific situations, as if they are learning to apply rules, but in fact they will be internalizing these rules or generalizations and in this way learning to see the world aright from the standpoint of environmental ethics .
This page was last edited: Wednesday, July 14, 1999