What your beginning of year surveys said

Thank you to all the students that completed the beginning of the year survey around sustainability.  This survey was designed to get a base line of knowledge of students prior to the course.  We hope to show in an end of year survey that knowledge is increased!  

1.  Definition of sustainability

There were lots of interesting definitions of sustainability - I think it is fair to say everyone who answered the question had a vague idea which is a great starting point, with one or 2 sticking out has having significant knowledge on the subject.  

What we would like to see now is that you transform your vague idea into a strong definition. Last week I blogged on the 4 system conditions.  This provides a strong definition for sustainability which also gives a point to measure the current situation and changes you make against.  Review the post here.  

2.  Your personal rating of your own knowledge of sustainability

Of all students who took the survey, most of you rated your knowledge at about 2.5 out of 5 - meaning you thought your have about some knowledge, and certainly not none, but you are aware that you are not experts. What we learnt from that question is that it isn't written well. We rate our level of knowledge against what we are aware of, not what we are unaware of. We will re-write this question so that it is clearer next time. 

It was interesting to compare your knowledge of sustainability to your actions around being sustainable - a higher personal rating on sustainability knowledge did not necessarily translate to more actions around acting sustainably.  The converse was also true - less perceived knowledge was not always associated with fewer actions.  

3.  Actions that you are taking

Out of 147 respondents, the following results were seen:

• 126 recycle
• 41 reuse or upcycle
• 32 walk or bike as a conscious alternative to driving
• 21 compost
• 20 try to save power by turning lights out, using fewer heaters and so on
• 18 use environmentally friendly products (cleaning/beauty)
• 18 grow your own vegetables
• 14 make conscious efforts to reduce water use/collect grey water
• 13 choose products with less plastic/packaging
• 12 try to practice conscious consumerism - thinking before they buy and making conscious choices for the environment
• 9 actively try to reduce their number of car trips
• 9 say that they 'reduce' but did not specify what it is that they are reducing
• 8 try to educate their children or other people about sustainability
• 8 reduce paper use
• 5 buy NZ made or local if at all possible
• 5 actively carpool

There were a number of other things identified that between 1 and 4 people did including: buying second hand, insulating, using public transport, reducing use of pesticides, growing own eggs/meat, planting trees and eating less meat.  

You can see how strongly the theme of reduce, reuse, recycle came through which have of course been the subject of heavy marketing campaigns - recycle and reuse coming up in the top 3 positions. If you add up the categories that are reduced within that list, it comes to approximately 105 actions.

While reduce, reuse and recycle are definitely good messages they only tell half the story. 

Using less is definitely a good action and should always apply.  I applaud all of you that are doing this.  To improve the effectiveness of this, set targets - look at the power units you used last May and then challenge yourself this year to use less.  Measure your rubbish going to general waste next week - set a target to reduce it for the following collection.  Lots of other ideas like that.  Setting measurable targets improves results.  

When it comes to reusing, again it is best to use common sense - we want to keep everything out of waste streams for as long as possible, so use them as much as you can and when you can't use them any more, see if somebody else can. 

We applaud you all for your recycling efforts and encourage you to continue to do so. Remember, it is important to be knowledgeable when recycling. Most recycling, (especially plastics which are probably the bulk of most people's recycling) is only down-cycling, in other words, the products created with recycled materials are often no longer recyclable themselves so they must be disposed of in the landfill.  

While recycling is better than nothing, and it allows us to delay the burden on the landfill, it is still a waste stream where virtually all materials will eventually end up in landfill.  We send most of our recycling to China, but recent changes in China mean that they are accepting less of what we send - much of what we think is being recycled, is simply going to the landfill anyway. So, the message here is reduce your purchases/use of products that have packaging, even if they are recyclable.  If you must purchase them, pick those with compostable packaging if you can and if that doesn't work, reuse and upcycle as much as possible before they end up in a waste stream.  Again set yourself targets - if you buy water, set yourself a target to stop doing it, same with supermarket plastic bags.  Both those could be achieved very quickly.  Look at other waste ending up in your recycling bin - especially the plastics....consider alternatives, set targets, achieve them and then set another!  

Take care with biodegradable products which several people mentioned - biodegradable does not always mean environmentally safe! Biodegradable things can sometimes break down into toxic by-products that poison the environment.  A classic example is the biodegradable plastic bags still made from oil based plastic.  These are a have.  If you put them in the landfill they won't break down - they need light.  If you leave them in the light they disintegrate into very small pieces because of the polymer inserted into the plastic.  This then leaves small fragments of plastic to float around in the environment, get in waterways, into food chains and back into us.   Be aware of green wash - ask questions.

Those of you that are actively walking/biking/taking public transport to reduce fuel use - how about setting yourself targets.  Maybe set a target to reduce annual fuel travel miles from 12,000km to 10,000 in the first year. Set a target to walk 500km and bike 1000km.  Imagine how good you would feel to be able to say you'd walked 500km this year and biked 1000km.  Otago Polytechnic have a target for 2014 to reduce air transport by 10%.  

Well done to everyone who grows their own food.  This is a pass time that seems to be growing in popularity which is really great.  Why not set some targets.  If you grow nothing, plan to harvest 10kg next season of produce, perhaps you could count the number of cucumbers or courgettes you pick as another way of measuring it.  It's fun to set targets, beat them and set them higher next year.  Challenge your neighbours or friends to beat what you are producing!

4. What is missing from the reduce, reuse, recycle message?

The first thing that is missing is an equal focus on the 4 system conditions. The reduce, reuse, recycle theme is just trying to minimise the impacts of the system we live in. However, as you have seen, the system is not perfect. The challenge now is to redesign the system.  Look at alternative ways of doing things to meet the 4 system conditions.  You can look at this personally, locally, in a specific business, or over a wider area.  

Another thing that is missing from this theme is the people. Interestingly, people were missing from everyone's actions in the survey too. Maybe this was just an oversight. We bet many of you are doing community work, giving locally, and so forth - you just don't see it as an integral part of sustainable practice - but it is vitally important. It's about making sure that in developing sustainable practices, that our human needs are also met.  Refer to the blog post on the 9 human needs.

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So, in summary, hats off to you, team. This was a really great starting platform and by doing it, we can see that a total of 373 actions towards improving sustainability were recorded by you all. Stick with us on this journey. Listen, learn, talk to others, set measurable targets, achieve them. Share your targets with others and let us know your thoughts on the process. What challenges did you come across? what ideas did you come up with?  Feel free to email me a blog post to share.  Lets take this journey together, making a more sustainable you, home, community, business, and world.  

Have a fabulous term break and I'll be back blogging in week one of term 2 - the subject: Creating a  vision of a sustainable future.  

4 system conditions - a definition for sustainability

Last week I related the 9 human needs to the model of strong sustainability, by showing that the environment is essential in all of this.

Now I'd like to explain how the 4 system conditions are a definition of sustainability and how they can be used to audit your own impact on the environment at home or at work.  They also help to give a baseline from which to improve and you can use them to show what a sustainable future would look like at work/home/the world - depending on what you audit against.

The funnel

Before we detail the 4 system conditions lets have a look at drivers for change globally.  Using the funnel metaphor we can present to a group the drivers of change.  A funnel shows that we are heading for a squeeze due to declining resources and increasing demand.  We need to find a way to navigate this squeeze and return to a place where the edges of the funnel are parallel lines when demand and supply are equal or potentially when demand is less than supply as shown by the dotted lines).  In this funnel it is showing some global drivers of change.

We can also do this for a given industry.  Here is an example of some drivers for change in a veterinary clinic:

You could also create a funnel for your own home or any other business.  At the end of the day there is no right or wrong here, its just a visual way of saying, look we need to make changes.

Four system conditions

In order to be sustainable we need to adhere to the 4 system conditions, as shown in the image below

Image from http://www.naturalstep.org/ 

In other words

• In system condition 1 we are not taking more from the earths crust that is being replaced (consider oil and minerals)
• In system condition 2 we are not making substances that poison the earth (consider chemicals and disinfectants
• In system condition 3 we are not breaking natures systems (consider deforestation for product production)
• In system condition 4 we are ensuring people are able to meet their needs (refer back to Max Neef's 9 Human Needs and consider whether this is being meet locally, nationally, internationally)

Now that you understand a definition of sustainability that is measurable, you can take an area of your life and audit it against these conditions.  Consider where you are meeting the system conditions and where you are violating them.
For example -

• You may always select paper from sources that use FSC paper (recognised as sustainable) which is a positive on system condition 3
• Perhaps you always select disinfecting products that have proven no effect on environment (and are VOC free)  which is a positive on system condition 2 
• Perhaps you drive a gas guzzling V8 - this is a violation on system condition 1, and so on

To review an example of a system conditions audit, you will find one embedded in this presentation relating to a generic veterinary clinic.  

Key message:

When we adhering to the four system conditions then our society will be sustainable.  The 4 system conditions are not taking more from the earth than can be replace, not making products that damage the environment, not breaking natural systems and making sure everyone's needs can be met.  

Challenge:

Audit your life or an aspect of it against the 4 system conditions and identify a measurable change you could make.
For example: you might want to reduce your driving miles from 12,000km to 10,000km over the next 12 months - this has an impact on improving your sustainability in terms of decreasing carbon outputs, but if you walk or bike instead of take the car, it can also have unexpected effects of increasing fitness and reducing stress. Your set target could be re-evaluated annually too.  

What other ones have you come up with? Please tell us! 

Next week: I will present a summary of your survey results, from the beginning of the year sustainability survey you completed.  

Relating the fundamental human needs to the environment

Image Source

Last week we reviewed the 9 fundamental human needs, pictured above, which we had introduced at the block course.  Hopefully many of you had a chance to take some time out to see that your needs were being met, or if they weren't to look at ways to allow them to be met.  

What I want to do this week is link those needs to the environment.  The human need of sustenance (food & water), shelter, mental and physical health cannot be met without a healthy environment.  And I think you will all agree that if we don't have good food, clean water, shelter and good health then the odds are very poor indeed.  

Many people currently think of sustainability like this model pictured below. This model puts equal emphasis on environment, social and economic factors and unless all three of these are balanced, then the result won't be sustainable.This is a weak model for sustainability because  it does not ensure that the need of sustenance will be met by a healthy environment. If the environment is not looked after, or similarly unhealthy economic can make sustenance more difficult to attain.  

Image Source

In order to really ensure that our needs can be met we should work on the model of strong sustainability.  In this model the environment is of most importance because if we don't have a strong and healthy environment or if we continue to not adhere to the 4 system conditions (which will be detailed in next weeks post) required to maintain a healthy environment, then the people on this planet will not be able to keep going, and as the money system is created by the people, this too will collapse.  

Image source

You can read more about weak and strong sustainability at this link

These are tools that you need to understand which you can use in conversations on this subject when you are wanting to implement change in your business (or any other area).  We will explore more tools in the coming weeks before looking at industry specific problems and working through potential solutions.