The purpose of this diary is to provide a brief overview of the three concepts given in the title, three concepts which are in the realm of sustainability. Sustainability can be defined as "the ability to meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."
Sustainable Design
Sustainable design is, as the name suggests, an approach to design that incorporates the key elements of sustainability. These elements are often called the "Three Es" of sustainability, though they could also be called the "Three Pairs of Es" as each particular E has an alternative that can be used. For each pair, either one may appear in sustainability literature. These "Es" are:
- Environment/Ecology
- Economy/Employment
- Equity/Equality
Sustainable design most obviously covers the development and maintenance of buildings and other human-created structures in the built environment, but also includes services and physical objects. Goals of sustainable design are the reduction of waste, elimination of unnecessary energy use, minimization of damage to species and ecosystems, efficient use of resources, harmonization between nature, humans, and the built environment, and inclusion of all stakeholders in the design process. This means that, for example, a building being developed in a particular community would not be designed solely with the property owner and/or future building owner in mind - future employees, customers, residents, and visitors, as well as all those in the surrounding community who would be impacted by the externalities generated by the development would be brought in to the process.
One of the most noted sustainable design frameworks is the Hannover Principles, developed by William McDonough Architects for EXPO 2000, the World's Fair that took place in 2000 in Hannover, Germany.
The Hannover Principles
- Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse, and sustainable condition.
- Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend on the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
- Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry, and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
- Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to co-exist.
- Create safe objects to long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creations of products, processes, or standards.
- Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems in which there is no waste.
- Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
- Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
- Seek constant improvements by sharing knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers, and users to link long-term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and reestablish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
The Hannover Principles heavily emphasize the first and third Es listed above, and clearly speak to interrelationships and interdependence between humans and the natural world. Economic considerations are only lightly touched upon, which is fairly common with sustainability principles. A notable exception to this rule is the Houston Principles, developed by Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment.
For your viewing pleasure, here are photos of a sustainably designed building for a competition put on by the city of Almere in the Netherlands.
As noted over at Arch Daily,
The tower is sustainable in the broadest meaning of the term. The façade consists of glass and PV & PCM panels, the roof has sun collectors and rain water will be collected to irrigate gardens and balconies. The building is designed to be energy neutral over the year. Additionally, the tower provides a high level of social sustainability: the residents will be involved with the park, the park is involved with the tower, and there is a number of elements that will promote a neighborhood feel in this vertical city. For example, the tower will have a restaurant and collective DIY shops and guest quarters for the use of residents.
The balconies that you see as greenery are intended to be part of the park, with the park growing up onto the building. Green spaces seen in the parking area within the park are intended to be gardens usable by residents.
The Precautionary Principle
The Precautionary Principle is the idea that if there exists a significant risk of harm to people or the environment from taking a particular course of action it is best to refrain from taking that course of action, and further that the burden of proof lies with those who are proponents of the particular activity in question.
This is an incredibly important concept with two key points. First of all, risks are to be fully assessed beforehand. It is expected that a business, for example, planning to undertake a particular project should determine, as completely as possible, the risks associated with that project before undertaking any action.
Thus the precautionary principle turns on its' head our traditional idea of interaction between business interests and regulation or citizen interests. Rather than regulators or private citizens or outside groups having the onus of responsibility to prove that an action poses significant risk, it is up to those advocating for a particular policy or action to show proof regarding the risks associated with that policy or action. The implications, then, of switching to a precautionary approach are obviously immense.
Second, rather than assessing risk and proceeding unabated if no consensus can be determined about what may or may not ultimately happen, the precautionary principle says that we must, as the name suggests, proceed with caution and ultimately take no action if significant risk remains a possibility and substantial risk-minimizing actions cannot be taken.
This is certainly different from the short-term, profit at all costs approach so often taken by business, even in the face of (sometimes un- or underenforced) regulation. The precautionary principle indicates that a for-profit enterprise has a responsibility to all those in the larger community who might be affected in some adverse way by the enterprise's activities, not just to the shareholders.
Permaculture
From The Sustainability Revolution:
David Holmgren and Bill Mollison co-created the concepts of permaculture in the 1970's. Mollison defines permaculture (derived from "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture") as:
the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.
As a sustainable design system, important goals of permaculture are to reduce waste and eliminate unnecessary energy use, thereby producing the most efficient, sustainable system possible. To do this, the entire system is analyzed to find key relationships between component pieces of the system. A system design is then developed that engenders a synergy between these various parts.
Permaculture, having been originally about sustainable agriculture specifically, was primarily concerned at the outset with transitioning from modern farming methods involving industrial farms, powered by fossil-fuel-driven machinery, focused on a single crop, and producing foods with high food mileage toward low-energy, diverse farms that would provide food for the local community. Today, permaculture has morphed from PERMAnent agriCULTURE to the much broader PERMAnent CULTURE, and includes a wide array of practices as well as a range of definitions as varied as the people implementing the practices.
A good example of something used by those practicing permaculture is a "chicken tractor."
As you can see from the picture, a chicken tractor is a pen designed to keep the birds in a particular area. The pen can then be towed to a different area, both to have the fowl be in various areas needing work and to avoid overworking one area. There are many reasons people have chicken tractors, including:
- Organic pest control. Gardeners/farmers can position the chicken tractor over a particular patch of land and watch with amazement as the chickens make meals out of unwanted pests.
- Free, homegrown fertilizer. After eating said pests, and grass etc., the chickens will provide the gardener with droppings that can be used to help grow delicious produce.
- Turning up the soil.
- The bottomless pen allows for the chickens to dustbathe.
- Keeping the chickens out of trouble. This goes both for one's own gardens and the gardens of one's friendly neighbors.
- Keeping chickens safe in urban environments, and safe from predators.
As a broader illustration of permaculture, the following depictions from the website Permaculture, a Beginner's Guide use tea as an example to show likely inputs and outputs of production in a modern, industrialized system vs. production via permaculture methods.
It’s become a cliche to say that we are living on the edge of eco-disaster. It’s also a reality which cannot be overstated. The ecology of Gaia is an interface between land (the Geosphere), air (the Atmosphere), water (the Hydrosphere) and life (the Biosphere), a delicate web of interconnections formed over millions of aeons on the verge of unravelling before our eyes... If the earth’s 4.5 billion year history could be compressed into 30 days, life in the form of simple bacteria appeared on the tenth day whilst the first vertebrates crawled onto the land around the twenty fifth. Homo sapiens (peoplekind) appeared at about 1 minute to midnight on the thirtieth. The industrial revolution would have happened within the last fraction of a second of that minute, yet within this instant, the face of the planet has changed almost as much as within all the previous aeons.
The Eco-crisis is largely a consequence of the way that we in the West consume. Permaculture is about recognising this and taking responsibility for our actions and for our planet, and turning around our behaviours of consumption and exploitation so that we can recreate a world without destruction and pollution. Where all can enjoy clean air, fresh water, good quality food, and meaningful work and leisure. Where we can repair the earth and move society towards a better relationship with the natural world of which we are all a part.
A good resource for an introduction to permaculture concepts, ethics, and applicability can be found at the National Sustainble Agriculture Information Service.