On sustainability…

可持续发展...

Which of the following items will take

the shortest time to degrade in a landfill:

Aluminum can

Styrofoam cup

Cigarette butt

Disposable diaper

Which of the following items will take

the shortest time to degrade in a

landfill:

Aluminum can

Styrofoam cup

Cigarette butt

Disposable diaper

Tasty mushrooms from dirty diapers

A little story

Conservation comes after breakfast

The most difficult question of my life

What is sustainability?

Sources of GHGs emission

33%

28%

20%

11%8% Electricity

Transportation

Industry

Commercial &Residential

Agriculture

Overall…

~Approximately 40% GHGs relate to

subsistence activities

~60% of GHGs can safely be attributed to

business related activities

Business and environmental sustainability

Environmental concerns Business activities

That’s is super-wicked, eh!

On super-wickedness

• Urgency

• Lack of central authority

• Logical fallacy

(Levin et al. 2007; Panwar et al. 2016)

Why should businesses care for the

environment?

• Moral obligation

~It is the right thing to do

• The iron law of responsibility

~If you do not regulate yourself, others will

• License to operate

~When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well…. at least fake it

• The business case

~Good businesses are patronized, bad ones are penalized

Wide array of sustainability oriented

actions

Sourcing Manufacturing Selling

Sourcing stage- raw material

choice

e.g.,

Concrete vs. wood

Wood vs. certified wood

Glass vs. Plastic

LCA is a useful tool to make this choice

Manufacturing stage

Energy efficiency

Clean energy

Waste reduction

Selling stage

Green logistics and retailing

Sustainability vertigo

Panwar et al. 2016

Sustainability impasse

Why that impasse!

Restraint/regulation Radical Innovation

Thomas MalthusRestraint

Regulation

Robert SolowRadical innovation

Deregulation

Restraint is intuitive, why not side

with that?

A Solovian belief …

“…the world can, in effect, get along without

natural resources, so exhaustion is just an

event, not a catastrophe.”

How the restraint paradigm manifests in the

business world?

Conscious consumerism

Conscious business practices

Intervening mechanisms

How the restraint paradigm manifests?

Conscious consumerism

[Refuse/ Reduce/ Reuse/

Recycle/ Upcycle]

Conscious business practices

Intervening mechanisms

How the restraint paradigm

manifests?

Conscious consumerism

Refuse/ Reduce/ Reuse/

Recycle/ Upcycle

Conscious business practices

[Workplace austerity, business model changes]

Intervening mechanisms

How the restraint paradigm manifests?

Conscious consumerism

Refuse/ Reduce/ Reuse/ Recycle/ Upcycle

Conscious business practices

Workplace austerity, business model changes

Intervening mechanisms

[Regulations, standards]

How the innovation paradigm manifests?

Remedy oriented actions

“Eco-effectiveness” oriented actions

How the innovation paradigm manifests?

Remedy oriented

[Un-do the harm]

“Eco-effectiveness” oriented

How the innovation paradigm manifests?

Remedy oriented

“Eco-effectiveness” oriented

[Zero waste, cradle to cradle design, bio mimicry, circular

industrial system]

Malthusians say…

• Innovation is terrific but not the panacea

• Solovians are delusional in their denial of the earth’s carrying

capacity

• Solovians risk lulling the public—and businesses-- into failing to

reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as is required

Solovians say…

• Focus on restraint can delay our collision with

the earth’s carrying capacity but not allow us

to innovate our way over it

• Malthusians are dreary and depressive: resist

possibilities contained in innovation

Interaction between restraint and innovation

paradigms: A Malt-Solo duet

When restraint fosters innovation

Corporate fuel efficiency

(CAFÉ ) standards

Interaction between restraint and

innovation paradigms: A Malt-Solo duet

When innovation fosters restraint

A shower that forces you

to leave when you’ve

wasted too much water

Making Malt-Solo duet rhythmic

• Abundance of risk capital

• Reducing the time between technology breakthroughs and mass commercialization

• Moore’s law analog for clean tech

• Overcoming Jevon’s paradox

• Social pressure and/or incentives for individuals and companies

Enough about businesses …

How about us, i.e., consumers?

Why customers in this conversation?

Let us learn something from FSC story (Buyer be fair Youtube)