Sustainability Documentary — Transcript

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1. 0:40Within the space of just a few decades the term sustainability has made an extraordinary rise to fame
2. 0:48Going from the fringes to the mainstream as it has become one of the defining features of 21st century reality
3. 0:56Today the term sustainability
4. 0:59Encompasses a whole paradigm shift to our understanding of the world and our place within it
5. 1:04this new paradigm of sustainability is set to have a
6. 1:08Fundamental and pervasive effect on how we manage and design systems in the 21st century as it will affect all
7. 1:16aspects of our economy
8. 1:19this short film explores the ongoing transformation in the structure of our economies as a new form of
9. 1:26sustainable economy emerges
10. 1:59The environment represents the whole ecosystem that a society depends upon for various services such as water
11. 2:06Materials food and energy when we refer to the environment
12. 2:10We are really talking about a combination of natural ecosystem and human economy. What is called a socio ecological?
13. 2:19system
14. 2:21the nature of socio ecological
15. 2:23Systems has changed fundamentally over the course of human history as we have developed new technologies
16. 2:30institutions and tapped into new energy sources the
17. 2:34Development of the practice of agriculture some 8,000 years ago
18. 2:38Represented the first fundamental change in this dynamic as we created systematic processes for harnessing natural
19. 2:46resources based around the technology of farming
20. 3:08At this point in history humans were dispersed across the continents and the Neolithic Revolution was ongoing
21. 3:16The Neolithic Revolution was a fundamental change in the socio ecological
22. 3:20systems of the time where the shift from hunting and gathering to
23. 3:25Agriculture led to permanent settlements the establishment of social classes
24. 3:30the eventual rise of urban living and large
25. 3:34civilizations
26. 3:37Before the modern era people were very much aware of their environmental limitations
27. 3:43interactions within socio ecological
28. 3:45systems were local in nature
29. 3:47the majority of traditional societies are the net result of a long process of
30. 3:53coevolution between a group of people and their natural environment which created strong
31. 3:59limitations to what was physically and biologically possible and what was not the majority of people were
32. 4:06Small-scale subsistence farmers most of the agricultural production was for home consumption
33. 4:13Agricultural techniques were adapted to local
34. 4:16environmental conditions the amount of land that each family could cultivate
35. 4:20was limited by the large amount of human or animal labour that was necessary for agriculture for
36. 4:28Thousands of years agrarianism formed the foundations to many civilizations that rose and fell around the world
37. 5:36The rise of the modern era some 500 years ago in Europe
38. 5:42Created the context for a whole new dynamic in the relationship between humans and their natural
39. 5:49environment
40. 5:51With a shift from a dominant pre-modern religious vision of the world
41. 5:55To a modern scientific view came a whole new way of seeing the natural environment
42. 6:01This new scientific knowledge got directly applied to the engineering of our physical environment
43. 6:08Giving rise to the explosive technological change. That was the Industrial Revolution
44. 6:15The Industrial Revolution that started in the late 1700s
45. 6:19represented a radical
46. 6:21dislocation between society and the ecosystem
47. 6:26Agriculture changed in Europe when the Industrial Revolution made it possible to use machines
48. 6:31Instead of human and animal labor for work such as plowing fields and harvesting crops
49. 6:37Starting with mechanization the chain of effects can be traced through as machines gave farmers the ability to cultivate
50. 6:45larger areas of land
51. 6:48farm sizes and worker productivity
52. 6:50increased
53. 6:51Dramatically as mechanized agriculture is more efficient on a larger scale
54. 6:56The mass of society moved from working the land into the newly industrializing urban centers
55. 7:03where large markets for goods and labor came the new
56. 7:07Organizational structure prevailing over their daily subsistence and a new way of life that was divorced from local
57. 7:14ecosystems emerged a
58. 7:17Major part of this changing dynamic was the harnessing of new energy sources that were greatly more
59. 7:23Powerful than anything humans had used fuel their economies before the large-scale
60. 7:29combustion to the energy sources of coal oil and gas
61. 7:33Enabled the transition to new mass
62. 7:36manufacturing processes as they shifted from manual to mechanical
63. 7:41these initial changes in technology economy society and ecology set in motion a series of changes such as
64. 7:49Increasing economies of scale CO modification and urbanization that through interconnected feedback loops
65. 7:55Continues to this day in many countries around the world
66. 8:06Although it is apparent that the Industrial Revolution
67. 8:09Assured in an unprecedented global human impact on the planet. It has since been dwarfed by the extraordinary
68. 8:17Exponential growth of human economic activity that began in the mid 20th century
69. 8:23many of the processes of change that began with the Industrial Revolution
70. 8:27Reached a take-off point in the mid-to-late 20th century as almost all indicators for economy and ecosystem
71. 8:35Started changing at an exponential rate from population growth to loss of species to energy consumption
72. 8:43this great acceleration of economic activity has given birth to a new geological era that scientists call the
73. 8:50Anthropocene as human industrial activity has become the primary driver of changes within earth systems
74. 8:58the Anthropocene represents a new form of socio ecological
75. 9:02System one that is truly global in nature
76. 9:06With an unprecedented scale of alteration to Earth's core systems such as overall
77. 9:12biodiversity climate or ocean acidity
78. 9:23After 1950 changes in major earth systems became directly linked to changes largely related to the global
79. 9:31economic system
80. 9:33This is a new phenomenon a truly profound
81. 9:37transformation in our socio ecological systems one that we are far from understanding the consequences of
82. 9:43Within the course of just a few decades
83. 9:46We have transitioned from being a small world on a big planet to being a big world on a small planet and extraordinary
84. 9:54transformation a switch from making limited ad hoc interventions into
85. 9:59Ecosystems to becoming the primary drivers of change within the biophysical processes of the entire planet
86. 10:08These changes and their potential consequences are being made most
87. 10:12Explicit to us through the changes and climate that we are currently witnessing
88. 10:17through human industrial interventions the feedback mechanisms that stabilize and regulate Earth's systems have been
89. 10:25Significantly degraded both within local ecosystems and increasingly on the global level
90. 10:32the breaking of these stabilizing negative feedback loops increases
91. 10:36Destabilizing positive feedback that makes the system more unstable and thus generates more extreme events
92. 10:43What scientists call global weirding?
93. 10:48We have benefited for over 10,000 years since the beginning of the Holocene
94. 10:53from Earth regulating itself to create an environment conducive for human economic activity the
95. 11:01Anthropocene is a recognition that this stable geological era has ended that
96. 11:06because of human intervention in the biosphere
97. 11:09It can no longer stabilize itself within the same equilibrium that has benefited societies in the past
98. 11:16That the global economy is now the primary driver of change within ecosystems
99. 15:58sustainable results
100. 16:01This is to a large extent why sustainability presents such an intractable challenge to our existing institutional framework
101. 16:09Traditionally we take a very analytical approach to management
102. 16:13We break system's down into their parts
103. 16:16Analyze the parts and try to optimize them thinking that if all the parts are working then the whole will be working in
104. 16:23relatively simple systems this kind of
105. 16:25reductionist approach can work but in something as complex as an entire economy or
106. 16:31global supply chain
107. 16:32it comes to be more how the parts are interrelated into the whole that comes to matter if
108. 16:38We wanted to try and make a supply chain more efficient
109. 16:41We can only get so far by getting each business to optimize their activity in isolation
110. 16:47Before we need to look at the coordination across the whole supply network
111. 16:53Often when we focus solely on the parts
112. 16:55We simply shift problems to the whole organization and because of that we stay getting the same overall
113. 17:02ineffective outcomes and
114. 17:04unsustainable results
115. 17:07The Industrial Age management methods and institutional structures that we inherit today are designed to take an analytical approach
116. 17:15Braking problems down solving the parts and then putting them back together
117. 17:20sustainability is though a complex and holistic challenge that is not amenable to this method although
118. 17:27Optimizing for the parts may be important in many circumstances. It is really designing and managing for the whole system
119. 17:34That is ultimately required to achieve the end result of overall
120. 17:39sustainability
121. 17:40whether we are talking about sustainability with respect to the natural environment or with respect to social institutions an
122. 17:48Unsustainable system is one where the value and integrity of the whole organization is being systematically
123. 17:55depleted all
124. 17:57Organizations require both effective parts and effective overall structures for integrating those part
125. 18:04Into a functioning Hall when the integrity of the hall becomes reduced then the system becomes unsustainable
126. 18:25When the social capital within a society the trust within the social bonds of the community
127. 18:31Becomes depleted it is only a matter of time before an event occurs creating a crisis. That would have easily been
128. 18:38Resolved given a normal level of trust within the community and this is the essence of sustainability
129. 18:45It is not a thing
130. 18:47It is the value and integrity of the whole organization that is required to maintain it over time
131. 18:54Whether this is the value of the social bonds within a society
132. 18:57or the species diversity that forms the food web within an ecosystem a
133. 19:03Sustainable system is one that is integrated into a functioning whole organization
134. 19:08We traditionally focus on the parts in an organization because they are much easier to touch
135. 19:14quantify and manage while the value in the connections that interrelates them into an effective whole
136. 19:20Typically cannot be touched or broken down into individual discrete parts and is often much more difficult to quantify
137. 19:28Making it difficult to manage through our traditional methods
138. 19:32This value of the whole is nonlinear meaning it is distributed out across the whole
139. 19:39Organization it is not one species that maintains the diversity within an ecosystem. It is all of them
140. 19:46It is not the closely knit bonds between people of a similar background that maintains a resilient multicultural society
141. 19:52It is more the distributed weak ties between people of different
142. 19:57Backgrounds that ensures the overall integrity of the community. It's a resilience and sustainability
143. 20:04it is this integrity of the whole ecosystem or society that represents the
144. 20:10Infrastructure or fixed capital that supports and enables it to operate effectively and provide people with the derivatives
145. 20:17they value and
146. 20:18In managing such capital one cannot look at and measure one single connection or one single creature
147. 20:26One has to look at all of them. This is the nature of nonlinear phenomena
148. 20:31it is because these resources within an ecosystem economy society or culture that ensure the functioning of the whole and its
149. 20:39Sustainability are distributed that traditional centralized management methods are ineffective
150. 20:45whenever we manage for the parts without managing for the whole we eventually deplete the integrity that
151. 20:51supports the whole and end up with unsustainable
152. 20:55outcomes
153. 21:00At the beginning of the modern era we inherited a natural environment and a set of social and cultural institutions
154. 21:07That evolved over millennia without our full understanding or appreciation of them
155. 21:14With the accelerated growth during the 20th century we came to affect the structure and makeup of these whole systems that were
156. 21:22Providing the natural and social capital supporting our modern economy
157. 21:27So much so that today they are no longer
158. 21:30Self-managing. The requirement today is in understanding these macro structures how they work their value and
159. 21:38Developing organizational structures that can appropriately manage them
160. 21:43sustainable development is a form of development where we manage both on the level of the individual technologies and
161. 21:50Organizations but also on the level of the system as a whole
162. 21:54This is why achieving a sustainable form of global economy will take us into a new world of complexity
163. 22:02Because we have to look at account for and manage whole interconnected socio ecological
164. 22:08systems in order to achieve overall sustainable outcomes
165. 22:15What gets measured gets managed and managing for the whole means accounting for the whole what is called full cost accounting
166. 22:23our traditional approach to
167. 22:25Macroscale environmental management has been exercised through a top-down centralized model driven by government
168. 22:33institutions and based on a paradigm of environmental conservation
169. 22:37But this is no longer relevant in an age when industrial activity has become an embedded part and central driver of change
170. 22:46within virtually all ecosystems around the planet
171. 22:50Ecosystems management can no longer be an ad hoc solution patched into the side of the economy
172. 22:57This new context requires that it become a central part of what the economy is and does and this requires
173. 23:05accounting for and
174. 23:06incorporating both social and natural capital in market structures
175. 23:12economies function as distributed management systems
176. 23:15Through the negative feedback loops of the market they manage whatever it is that people value can quantify and exchange
177. 23:24Until very recently. We have only really valued the derivatives of ecosystems the water food minerals
178. 23:31Etc in terms of their utility to which we could ascribe a financial value
179. 23:37through industrialization
180. 23:39Industrial and financial capital has grown and ecosystems have become degraded
181. 23:45Today the limits and scarcity are not in lack of human engineered systems
182. 23:49but in natural capital in the industrial age
183. 23:53We had a scarcity of people and capital but an abundance of natural capital
184. 23:58Today, we have an abundance of people and goods but scarcity of natural capital
185. 24:03so it is now not industry and people that need to be
186. 24:07Economized but natural capital that we need to be using more efficiently and creating an economy to do that
187. 24:15completing the process of industrialization means people's value change subtly but importantly at
188. 24:21This stage in economic development. The scarcity is no longer in the derivatives of ecosystems
189. 24:27But instead the functional integrity of those ecosystems
190. 24:32This integrity of the ecosystem can't be fully measured in terms of monetary utility rather
191. 24:38It requires a different kind of capital called natural capital
192. 24:43using economic and business models to manage ecosystems means firstly
193. 24:49understanding those ecosystems and the value of their integrity and
194. 24:53Then developing accounting and exchange mechanisms based around this
195. 24:58ultimately, this means building a new dimension to the economy a new value system for the quantifying exchanging and
196. 25:06accounting for natural capital this process of incorporating the inherent value of
197. 25:13ecosystems into economic metrics has already begun and will likely
198. 25:18intensify in the coming decades
199. 25:20Since economies are always about people and what they value
200. 25:24as the context changes as those values change and as the nature of the resource that needs to be
201. 25:31Economize changes, so does the economy adapt?
202. 25:35But this adaption won't simply fit into our current economic model
203. 25:38It will require that Industrial Age economic structures evolve into a more complex
204. 25:45multi-dimensional form
205. 27:56Managing for the whole means managing for the connections between things a
206. 28:01central part of the rise of environmental awareness over the past few decades has been a growing recognition of the linear model to our
207. 28:09existing economy
208. 28:11Indeed today. This linear model is probably the most often identified and criticized
209. 28:17structural feature to our existing industrial economy driving
210. 28:22unsustainable results
211. 28:23This linear economic model is captured in the popular description of the economy as a process of take make and dispose
212. 28:32But as the economy has grown and reached planetary limits
213. 28:36inputs are appearing more limited and outputs have become increasingly detrimental to ecosystems as
214. 28:43Limits are increasingly met the emphasis is shifting from gross throughput of material and energy to the internal organization
215. 28:51Through which those resources are utilized
216. 28:55This new form of economy is called the circular economy
217. 28:59Built on the idea of feedback. Loops that things don't just disappear
218. 29:03Materials and energy go on existing after we use them and this can be a massive source of value
219. 29:10The circular approach is a concept that has risen to prominence and takes its central insights from living systems
220. 29:18It considers that our systems should work like organisms
221. 29:22Processing nutrients that can be fed back into the cycle
222. 29:26From this perspective a sustainable economy is one without dead ends with solutions in a sustainable
223. 29:34economy built on closing loops between different energy and material flows and
224. 29:39converting them into cycles
225. 29:45This nonlinear lifecycle view to products and processes
226. 29:49Necessitates a more complex holistic view of the systems we design and manage
227. 29:55One that looks for the synergistic connections works with feedback loops and whole systems instead of discrete one-off products
228. 30:04Developing a truly circular economy requires diversity and the interconnecting of different systems
229. 30:11Systems and processes that are all the same consume the same resources and produce the same outputs
230. 30:17Without the capacity to cycle them between the different elements
231. 33:01They are scent of eyes to produce less while delivering more functionality
232. 33:05The end result is an alignment of the interests of the end-user with producer and sustainable outcomes for the overall
233. 33:13system
234. 33:15Services are really about access
235. 33:17The idea that people want access to services instead of simply the ownership of products
236. 33:23This is why the services economy goes hand in hand with networked information technology
237. 33:30information technology and online platforms enable us to easily and cheaply
238. 33:36Coordinate the exchange and temporary usage of resources
239. 33:39Thus working to make access easier and cheaper than ownership in
240. 33:44This way extra capacity can be created through more effective
241. 33:49organization instead of actually producing more products a
242. 33:53sustainable economy would be one that is able to focus its innovation and
243. 37:36The end result is a short term efficient system
244. 37:40But one that no longer has the diversity and mechanisms for generating overall transformation
245. 37:46Thus resulting in a linear lifecycle and unsustainable
246. 38:31and we do not currently have
247. 38:34coherent solutions to as
248. 38:36A famous person once said we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them
249. 38:44traditional thinking
250. 38:46institutions and management methods that created the sustainability crisis will not solve it as
251. 38:52such the development of truly sustainable global economy would involve a transformation in the deep structure of
252. 39:00post-industrial economies to exhibit new functional capabilities
253. 39:05One thing is for sure though the development of our socio ecological
254. 39:10Systems will continue to evolve rapidly in the coming decades
255. 39:14Building this new form of sustainable economy will be a massively disruptive
256. 39:19Transformation and there will be many surprises and pitfalls along the way with many widely divergent outcomes
257. 39:27remaining possible
258. 42:08You