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Zum Bearbeiten hier klicken. I. Choose your own industrial ecology-inspired puzzle and think up three alternative explanations for it.
It is the very first lecture of our course "Social Systems Policy and Management" and it is the very first question Frank Boons addresses to us: What are your expectations of this course, what do you want to learn? What many of us, me included, knew about the course by then was not yet much more than the plain title and a grasp that it most probably has to do with social sciences. Nonetheless the popping up ideas and expectations were quite numerous and precise, the majority of them addressing one common issue: We want to know how to successfully implement the concepts, technologies and solutions, which we will be provided with trough our studies, in society! Or in other words, we want to know how we can make society and its individuals´ behavior change in a way it reduces their environmental impact. I am very aware that I find myself still at an infantile stage of my career as an industrial ecologist and my views will most probably change along with the gain of knowledge in the field. However, from my present point of view I feel that it is exactly this problem of "implementation" or "putting into practice" that is THE biggest challenge in industrial ecology. What happened in class the other day just indicates that I am not alone with this thinking. As it is not very likely nor realistic that THE problem can simply be eliminated with THE single solution, it is perhaps a good idea to first try understand WHY and HOW the problem arises. Therefore I chose to discuss possible reasons for the following puzzle, which is based on my personal observation throughout the past years: Even though the individual´s awareness of environmental problems is increasing rapidly and ever more ways are presented how to counter these in everyday life, hardly anybody actually changes their behavior. Today there aren´t that many people who do not see the environmental problems society faces and thus the need for more sustainable practices. We all know that we should save electricity, water and other resources, use public transportation instead of private cars to reduce emissions and depletion of fossil fuels, separate our garbage to increase recycling rates and buy local and seasonal products to avoid transportation ways, to name only a few. The common awareness of these and many more measures, including their positive effects, does exist. But still, we do not make use of this tool box we are given. We stick to our well known unsustainable consumption patterns. But why don´t we change our behavior? 1. Harm to lifestyle: One common opinion towards behavioral changes in favor of environmental impact reduction is that it would go along with negative effects of one´s personal lifestyle. Such an impact is that consuming sustainably in fact is expensive. Our current economic system assigns monetary values to products and services. During the past decades more and more sustainable products gradually entered the market, competing with their conventional counterparts. So what obviously happened was that the fact of being sustainable was interpreted buy the market as giving an additional service to the consumer and hence charging him from slightly to randomly more than for other products. For instance most European grocery chains do offer fair trade coffee, organic and local fruit or vegetables, reusable paper- or fiber- shopping bags and many other products of daily need with prices just high enough to make us debate between conventional and "green". What comes more is that people often fear sustainable lifestyle is equal to relinquishment and less consumption. Of course it is true that by "simply" consuming less we could probably achieve the biggest effects. But this is neither in the individual´s nor in public interest, as it would go along with a shrinking economy, thus countless indefensible negative side effects. Instead of consuming less the issue is to make the right choice - in favor sustainably responsible products and services, from basic daily needs up to luxury goods. As I belief, a very promising example to realize the above is the Cradle to Cradle concept, developed by Michael Braungart and William McDonough. With their approach of an production system that mimics nature, where waste equals food and material loops are being closed, they disprove any of the above mentioned concerns. They even strongly reject the idea of consuming less or adapting our lifestyles. However it is obvious that only the consumers can force industry to implement such concepts by becoming aware of his responsibility and making the right decisions. 2. No direct feedback on our actions Another reason I believe to be a big obstacle towards change in behavior is that environmental problems such as climate change can not be solved over night but require long-term actions. This in turn makes the specific problem appear very vague and far for the individual. Hence actions to counter the problem are not rewarded any direct feedback. On the one hand the consequences of climate change are well being predicted by countless scenarios. We were all told, not only once, that sea levels would rise and weather conditions would get more extreme. On the other hand with incidences like typhoon Haiyan hitting the Philippines in 2013 it remains unclear if or to which extent this can be related to climate change. As a result we tend not to see, or even to neglect the urgency of the problem. With possible solutions it is similar: There is no direct result being delivered, no prove that the actions we take actually make a difference. Let´s say we decide to buy an organic apple from a local farmer instead of a conventional non-fair trade banana from the supermarket. All that remains after having either of them eaten is the balance on our bank account. But there is no such thing as a carbon-footprint or water-use account balance that would reconfirm our decision or give us any kind of direct feedback. However it is in humans nature that we evaluate our actions by the results they deliver. So if these results can not be yielded within a certain time or even within our life span we´ll question the effectiveness of the initial action or simply loose focus on it. Just as there is no direct feedback, short term success or recompense, we do not either have to fear any penalty or fines if we do not take action at all. This means there is purely no incentive to change our behavior. An example shows that artificially created incentives do increase our effort: German house owners would not invest in renewable energy systems such as photovoltaic with the plain motivation that it reduces their carbon footprint and do good to the environment. Only when they were financially subsidized by the government suddenly amazing numbers of PV modules popped up on roofs all over the country. Now the investment immediately turns to account in monetary terms, besides emissions on the long run. 3. Overflow of information Apart from the above points I also observed that throughout the past years, as the environmental debate became a main topic on the daily agenda in the news, media channels, politics and economics, society got literally showered with new information, findings, shocking facts and behavioral advice. The frequency grew with the amounts of information - at some point just too much for the individual to filter and reflect. Moreover some information will even contradict other, from different sources or earlier stages of research. So what is trustworthy and what is based on random speculations? Which sources are credible, which are not? What is to be prioritized? What should we really do? I guess it is just a comprehensible reaction that being overwhelmed in such a way results in resignation an blocking off the topic. This holds a puzzle in itself: Once we are told we should replace our old household appliances with new ones that meet the state of the art energy standards and will tremendously decrease the electricity demand. Then again we hear not to do so unless the item is at the end of its life. But we shall rather use the existing as long as they work, because the production of new energy saving appliances by far outweighs the possibly achievable energy savings. So what to do? Most likely go for the latter: not do anything at all. II. Develop an ex ante position on the following proposition: “the business of business is to increase its profits” Giving this statement quite a bit of a thought and time to evaluate I came to the conclusion that do not agree with the given idea. From my point of view business in practice is not the theoretical framework we would find in many famous elaborations on the economic system. It is not such an abstract formation of numbers and rational correlations. Business in real life is not being undertaken by machines and data processors but it happens in the even tiniest department of the most diverse businesses all over the world. There average man and women of diverse private and cultural background, attitudes and interests come together for a few hours a day to jointly work on a defined goal. From the smallest unit of the single employee up to the company as a whole, business inevitably involves interaction between human beings with a soul, a mind and lots of emotions. This social aspect will always influence on decisions being made - whether it is consciously or unconsciously. Any kind of economic activity will also cause impact or side effects on third parties. I do not belief it is possible to completely fade out our individual moral attitudes and exclusively focus on maximizing one variable - the financial ratio of profit - no matter if it contradicts our personal values. But besides from thinking that business entities are not able to avoid a certain social involvement, I would even encourage them to actively take social responsibility. In today's economic system companies and interest groups are often more influential and powerful than national or local governments to bring about change. By convention democracy has very long and complex ways of decision making and implementation. Contradictive interests of government and coalition may block progress. Moreover companies in many cases have more expertise and insight on certain problems and possible solutions than governmental agents. Hence they are able to target and implement their Social Responsibility investments more effectively and efficiently. And last but not least it should not be forgotten that many of the world´s largest and most successful businesses are also well known for their SR involvement. They even made it part of their successful strategies. Google for instance states a very good example. The globally acting enterprise is known as being one of the most exemplary employers with outstanding work conditions. Also Google appears as a big investor in renewable energies, such as large offshore wind farms, and other sustainable technologies. To conclude I can just point our once again that even though from a purely rational approach it seems logical to focus on profit, we have to keep in mind that business is made by humans, humans are not purely rational creatures. |