Dr Bradfield Moody is the head of development at Australia’s CSIRO. His professional background includes a period as the co-facilitator and Australian representative of the youth advisory council to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
He has written a book, with Bianca Nogrady, on the 6th wave of innovation which they think will be driven by the need for resource efficiency and will leverage off the increasingly digital technologies we are developing.
One of their central ideas for this next innovation wave is that waste = opportunity. “If you want to succeed find the biggest amount of waste you can, and do something with it”.
This is a talk by Dr Bradfield Moody at last years VIVID Creative Sydney festival on this idea:
Dr Bradfield Moody’s thesis is at the core of sustainability and gives us a strong direction on how a sustainable world and society may be acheived over the coming decades. If we acknowledge that a massive value shift towards consuming less is not likely to spontaneously occur, then we need to be looking at triggers for driving reduced consumption across our economies.
An increase in the demand of materials is the trigger that will drive the change to a less wasteful society and economy.
Examples of this are already starting to occur. Industrial ecology, or industrial symbiosis, is increasing in the manufacturing space. This is the practice of taking the waste products from one company and using it as inputs to another company’s process. One example is the partnership between Ontera Carpets and Dunlop Flooring. Carpet trim waste from Ontera is being used by Dunlop Flooring to feed into the manufacture of their carpet underlay. Thus reducing Ontera’s waste to landfill, and reducing the virgin raw products that Dunlop has to source for its product, with associated energy and water footprint benefits for both companies.
The first action I take to be concious of sustainability issues that may affect me, or that I may be creating, is to think in terms of impacts and waste.
How does this activity impact my environment (local and global), other species, my local community, communities in other countries?
Is there any waste that is being created by this activity, and how can I reduce or eliminate this waste?
As a simple, but complex, example let’s take the purchase of fish in a supermarket.
Question 1: What do I know of the impacts that fishing and the activities that occurred to get this fish to this supermarket?
Fishing practices that create a lot of ‘by-catch’, such as trawling, which catch many species other than fish which then often needlessly die. SOLUTION: try to find fish that has been caught using methods that reduce or eliminate by-catch, such as line-fishing.
Over-fishing of a species, so that it is likely to ‘collapse’, e.g. have such a small population that it cannot reproduce in sufficient numbers to allow continued fishing, and in extreme cases will become extinct. SOLUTION: try to find out which species are over-fished (tuna) and which species are abundant (mackerel). This list willbe different depending on which part of the ocean the fish was caught in.
Is the fish imported? Suggesting a fair amount of energy was used to store and transport the fish to the supermarket so that it remained fresh.
Question 2: What waste has been created by this activity?
Is the fish packaged in materials that can be re-used or recycled? Steel cans and paper can be recycled, or composted (in the case of paper). Hard plastics can generally be recycled or reused, plastic films are often not.
Is the fish whole or filletted? What happened to the parts of the fish that are not eaten? This question is more complex and value-laden than the rest of the issues I’ve touched on so far (unless you are my parents and feed all the seafood remains to the turtles in their dam). I don’t have an answer, or even a direction for you, but it’s certainly worth pausing to consider.
This was a really quick, back-of-the-envelope analysis of one aspect of how we live. There’s certainly more that could be drilled down on in this issue, and I’m sure you will if you’re interested.
However, I hope it also served the purpose of demonstrating that sustainable practice begins with asking two simple questions. The answers to these questions then set the direction for actions you choose to make you, or your organisation, more sustainable.
The foundation of posts on this blog (and snippets curated on its sister tumblrlog) is the concept of creating sustainable societies* to live in a sustainable world. It will examine the elements required to move towards sustainable societies, current barriers, attitudes and roadblocks to this process. Sometime we will talk about what we don’t want as much as what we do want.
Let’s start with the basics: Definitions/concepts.
Working as a sustainability professional I often come up against the issue of practically applying the conceptual framework of sustainability. Often, when introducing sustainability to a new audience, people will quote the Brundtland report definition. You can find other definitions and descriptions on the definitions page.
While the definition is useful, it’s also obscure and ephemeral.It operates at a macro level, describing the result of cumulative actions across the globe, rather than specific practices by specific individuals or groups of individuals.
However, the report also details the very nature of the problem that sustainable development is trying to solve. It recognises that:
“the many crises facing the planet are interlocking crises that are elements of a single crisis of the whole [1] and of the vital need for the active participation of all sectors of society in consultation and decisions relating to sustainable development.” - source. wikipedia: Our Common Future
So, to build a foundation for future posts on this blog, I present the following venn diagram on the three spheres of sustainability. When I use the term “sustainability” I mean environmental, social and economic sustainability (reserving the right to be in favour of a steady state economy model, as opposed to a growth economy model). I also embrace the terms at the junction of each circle, and understand that often when someone says “sustainability” they possibly mean “energy efficiency” or “social justice” and that these nuances need to be acknowledged if we are to have a meaningful engagement on answering the question “what is the problem we are trying to solve”, and then solving it.
I’ll dig into these sub areas in future posts.
*yes, societies. A sustainable society for east coast Australia will manifest very differently to a sustainble society in Denmark (for instance). However, the principles are the same.
Want more? Articles from other sites that may be of interest:
It’s a BIG area. According to some conceptions it is everything, it is affected by everything we do, make and how we choose to behave. That’s huge, and intricate and broad and deep.
To call oneself a sustainability professional implies that one has a handle on the gammut of the issue. The breadth AND the depth of one of the most difficult issues we are dealing with. While this is inspiring and ensures constant challenges, it can also be overwhelming and lead to a sense of guilt that you cannot ever hope to cover the breadth and depth of what it means for us to be a truly sustainable society.
Point 1: do you need to? Or since one of the key tenets of sustainability is society/community, perhaps this is actually about contributing to your area of interest/expertise and working with others on theirs. So what if you don’t understand and cannot advocate for cycling in urban environments as a core transport option, perhaps your contribution is understanding how forest communities interact with their ecology and ways to ensure they are empowered to do so. Both are needed.
Point 2: Break it down. An article in SD Scene earlier this year spoke of the 3 challenges we face:
Biodiversity Loss
Climate Change
Depletion of Resources
Pick one area, for me it’s Depletion of Resources. Work in that area to make a difference, and trust that others will be working in the other areas to make a difference too. Just because you are not, for instance, an expert in climate change does not de-value your contribution to the other areas of challenge.
Want more? Articles from other sites that may be of interest:
The opinions expressed on this site represent my own and not those of my employer or any organisation I belong to.
While I make all reasonable effort to ensure all facts are correct at time of publishing, this is a rapidly changing field and some information may become out-of-date. Similarly, the purpose of this blog is to explore and build on my understanding of sustainability issues, so any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.
