By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
There are many definitions of sustainability, ranging from the expansive seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to my own conception, which is more focused on sustainability management, or building organizations that can enable economic growth while preserving the planet. Sustainability can be seen as a management principle, as an expansive set of policy goals, and as a design principle where one develops products and services designed for minimal negative environmental and social impact. As my concept of sustainability management has evolved over the past two decades, it has included some, but not all, of the non-environmental elements of the Sustainable Development Goals. As Bill Eimicke, Dong Guo and I wrote in our recent book on Sustainability Metrics and Management, a workforce and governing structure comprised of people with diverse life experiences can enable an organization to more successfully navigate the complexity of a technologically advancing, global economy. An organization that treats its employees and neighbors with respect and fairness will reduce political and regulatory impediments to its operations. In our view, sustainability must be built on organizations capable of being managed according to the principles of sustainability management.
But organizations are only building blocks; they must be embedded in a broader set of principles and practices that enable better lives for the people of the world. This requires public policy, investment and public-private partnerships. These broader societal and private practices can be encapsulated in five key sustainability solutions that I will list and then elaborate on:
- Moving toward a circular economy,
- Mining waste instead of the planet for resources,
- Building a renewable resource-based economy,
- Preserving biodiversity by concentrating human populations in sustainable cities, and
- Adapting to and, when feasible, geo-engineering our warming planet.
Sustainability Solution #1: The Circular Economy
The current economy is linear. Production leads to consumption, followed by disposal of waste. In the circular economy, production leads to use, followed by reuse. Products are designed for remanufacturing. Business models include buying back products that have outlived their usefulness to mine them for valuable resources. The goal of the circular economy is to reduce waste and environmental impact. The value base of the circular economy is the notion that consumption is a means and not an end. The winner is the person with the richest life experiences, not the most stuff. Consumption is not regulated or discouraged, but focused on services, learning, social engagement, travel, and entertainment. Additionally, infrastructure and business models enable reuse of resources. This leads to Sustainability Solution #2: Mining waste instead of the planet for resources.
Sustainability Solution #2: Mining Waste Instead of the Planet for Resources
The linear economy leads to dumping valuable inorganic and organic materials into a hole in the ground. Some of the waste stream is burned for energy, and even with advanced waste sorting, there will probably always be some materials whose highest economic value is to burn the material for energy, while using any residual material that remains in constructing buildings or roads. A half-century of waste sorting at the source has essentially failed. Some waste is recycled, but most is not. The policy of recycling waste is a failure. According to EPA:
“EPA began collecting and reporting data on the generation and disposition of waste in the United States more than 35 years ago. The Agency uses this information to measure the success of materials management programs across the country and to characterize the national waste stream. These Facts and Figures are current through calendar year 2018. “The total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2018 was 292.4 million tons (U.S. short tons, unless specified) or 4.9 pounds per person per day. Of the MSW generated, approximately 69 million tons were recycled and 25 million tons were composted. Together, almost 94 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 32.1 percent recycling and composting rate. An additional 17.7 million tons of food were managed by other methods. Other food management includes the following management pathways: animal feed, bio-based materials/biochemical processing, co-digestion/anaerobic digestion, donation, land application and sewer/wastewater treatment…In addition, nearly 35 million tons of MSW (11.8 percent) were combusted with energy recovery and more than 146 million tons of MSW (50 percent) were landfilled.”
One could argue that the recycling glass is 1/3 full, but I see it as 2/3 empty. Recycling is a half-century-long failure. Like the related environmental “solution” of reducing consumption to save the environment, it just doesn’t work. It relies on unrealistic assumptions about human behavior. We can change our patterns of consumption and can consume a less destructive mix of products and services, but people will not reduce consumption. No one wants to live alone with a candle in the dark to preserve the planet. We can create a circular economy, but not a less consumptive one. Human, home, and even business-based waste sorting doesn’t work. A far better long-term solution is to rely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics to sort a mixed stream of waste and mine the waste stream for raw materials. This will require development of two distinct types of organizations: one to mine and process the waste stream and another to market the recovered raw materials. Most municipal sanitation departments are not equipped to do both, and some are incapable of either, only knowing how to collect and dump garbage.
Sustainable Solution #3: Building a Renewable Resource-Based Economy
Our economy is based on the consumption of two types of materials: 1. Those that grow organically, powered by photosynthesis, and 2. Finite materials mined from the Earth. Currently, it is less expensive to mine the planet for finite resources than to mine the waste stream. But the planet’s mined resources are finite and are getting more expensive to dig or pump out of the ground. With AI and robotics, the waste stream will be easier and cheaper to mine, and, when powered by renewable energy, our economic base will be based on recycled and renewable resources. By concentrating development in a service-based, brain-based global urban economy, we will pollute the planet less and ultimately live in a more productive, less polluting economy than one based on increasingly expensive finite resources.
Sustainable Solution #4: Preserving Biodiversity by Building Sustainable Cities
The Earth’s human population is currently 8.3 billion. In 1970, the population was less than half of that, at about 3.7 billion. Fortunately, we have discovered that urban economic development reduces the birth rate, and we will likely peak at 10 billion humans at the end of the 21st century. Children were an economic asset in the age of pre-industrial agriculture, but an economic liability in the modern developed world. The expense of raising children appears to be the best form of birth control invented. Today, about 58% of our population lives in cities; by 2050, it is projected to reach 70%, and by the end of the century, it will likely reach 85%. As the world becomes fully developed and operating on a service- and brain-based economy, a circular urban economy and sustainable cities enabling a high quality of life will become feasible and common. Human population will peak and begin to decline. By concentrating people in cities and mining our waste stream, we make the preservation of wilderness and biodiversity feasible. The key is that renewable resources such as food and lumber are grown with maximum attention to water, energy, chemical efficiency, and reduction of pollution.
Sustainable Solution # 5: Adapting to the Warming Planet
It will be many years until we begin to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and eliminate global warming. This means that the planet will continue to warm. Science, technology, and engineering will play a central role in developing the means to adapt to the changes in our climate and weather. We will need new infrastructure to address flooding, and maintenance of transport, energy, and communications systems. This will require financing and investment, something our American national government has forgotten how to do. Evidence of our political dysfunction is demonstrated by America’s recent “accomplishment” of a $40 trillion debt. Nevertheless, the smooth running of our communities and economy requires that these systems be protected against the impact of extreme weather events. National insurance for disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction will need to be developed and paid for. Reconstruction will need to be seen as a right in wealthy nations on our warming planet. Securing this right will be difficult and expensive. Taxes will need to rise to generate the revenue needed to adapt to global warming.
The impacts of our warming planet may also legitimize the idea of geo-engineering to reduce the impact of extreme weather events. According to a recent piece by my long-time colleague Upmanu Lal, and his colleagues Qin Huang and Moyan Liu:
“Floods, droughts and major storms have shaped human history and the march of civilization. They continue to impact societies worldwide. Over the centuries, humans have mastered flight, harnessed the atom, and reached the age of the Anthropocene, a human-dominated planet. Yet, control of extreme weather eludes us. Indeed, it is not even discussed as a national or global priority. Most weather modification applications today involve small-scale operations, such as cloud seeding aimed at improving precipitation locally, typically during droughts... A changing climate, and its control through geoengineering and decarbonization, has been part of a global debate over the last three decades—a discussion where the increasing impact of climate change extremes takes center stage. These discussions focus on managing the global radiation balance, necessitating coordinated efforts on a planetary scale. They do not directly address weather extremes. In this perspective paper, we outline an argument that control over catastrophic weather extremes is imperative to reduce exposure to catastrophic events that are not mitigated by traditional physical, financial or social infrastructure, and explore conditions under which this may be feasible. If such an approach were successful, it could revolutionize hydroclimatic risk mitigation”
Their proposal is to redirect extreme weather events away from population centers. While the technical, legal, and regulatory obstacles of such a technology would be substantial, the economic savings of successfully redirecting storms would be significant as well. The cost of mistakes or unanticipated impacts is always an issue with geoengineering, but I believe that the economic costs of extreme weather will result in efforts to reduce the economic damage of storms.
Conclusion: Building Sustainable Solutions
In order to achieve the vision of sustainability summarized here, it is important to understand that our contemporary economic life is on a non-sustainable path. Many young people, having come of age in a climate-challenged world, believe this. It is hardwired into their values, the emerging global culture, and their understanding of how the world works. Unfortunately, this understanding is actively resisted by the people running the American national government. They are living in the past and consider the modern world a threat to a way of life that only existed in their imagination. They are trying to dismantle government at the very moment when we need a national government to promote an industrial policy and a government able to generate resources and invest in the infrastructure required to build a resilient circular economy.
While government has a role to play, the real work of sustainability will need to be accomplished by the private sector and the market economy. This is not backdoor socialism, but as FDR understood nearly a century ago, an important way to save capitalism and ensure that its productivity, innovation, and market sensitivity are fully engaged in the transition to sustainability.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
