Sustainability and Design Ethics, Second Edition

Jean Russ

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429014758
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Environmental Law
• Index: Law

Sustainability as a concept remains just as challenging and important today as it was when the first edition of this book was published. The Second Edition of Sustainability and Design Ethics explores the ethical obligations of knowledgeable people such as design professionals, taking into consideration the numerous changes that have taken place in recent years. This book expands the growing discussion on the principles of sustainability to further include the role of businesses and governments and considers the general recognition that modern society has occurred at the expense of nature with significant social and environmental impacts.

Are there limits to the individual's ethical obligation? How do such obligations change or adapt to a world of sustainable design? As the shift toward sustainability proceeds, designers' ethical underpinnings will be confronted with a wider range of people and concerns whose interests must be weighed. The design professionals are likely to be among the lead in the shift toward sustainability because of the special knowledge and expertise provided to them by their education, experience, and distinctive position in society. The entire world of design is being reassessed and the guiding principles and ethics of design reflect this change.

New to the Second Edition:

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• Expanded international scope that includes a comparison of professional organizations in the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and China

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• Discusses how cultural differences between the West and China result in different underlying foundations for professional ethics

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• Revised analyses to reflect changes in regulatory and technical areas such as the inevitable rise of artificial intelligence in design

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• Updated arguments reflecting the need for sustainability and the designer's role and obligations

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• Updated references pertaining to the progress of sustainable design and development

Sustainability and Design Ethics, Second Edition is an attempt to explore the ideas and principles that might contribute to the thinking of thoughtful design professionals. The emergence of "green" design discussed in this book is used to evidence progress, but also to demonstrate the degree to which more is needed.

1

Why Does Prometheus Suffer?

Art is simply a right method of doing things. The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

Thomas Aquinas

In Greek mythology, Prometheus plays the important role of bringing the technical arts to humans in the form of fire. Dr. Albert Anderson revisits this story from Plato’s Protagoras in a paper entitled “Why Prometheus Suffers: Technology and the Ecological Crises”¹ and finds important parallels from the story of Prometheus and our contemporary concerns with ecological crises and sustainability. In the myth, the Titans, Epimetheus, and Prometheus (Epimetheus means “afterthought” and Prometheus means “forethought”) are given the task of distributing the means of survival to each living creature. Epimetheus asks Prometheus that he be allowed to do it, and with Prometheus’ agreement, he proceeds. Under Epimetheus, some creatures are given speed, some strength or cunning, and others flight, etc. When Prometheus returns to see how it is going, he discovers that Epimetheus has finished his task but there is nothing left to give to humans. He observes humans’ discomfort: hungry, cold, and defenseless, and he pities them. So, Prometheus steals fire from Olympus and with it the technical arts for humans. With these gifts, so Plato tell us, we acquired the ability to know things, to build, to engineer, and to use letters that allow us to “hold all things in memory.” However, these gifts are not distributed equally among all people and therefore some are good with trade work, others are good with smithing, others are skilled at war, and so on.

Zeus observes humans with their new capabilities and finds them to still be wanting; they are unorganized and without virtue. Hermes is directed by Zeus to go to Earth and to give people the civic arts “to bring respect and right among men, to the end that there should be regulation of cities and friendly ties to draw them together.” Hermes inquires if these civic arts should be distributed as were the arts stolen by Prometheus (one given the medical arts, another carpentry, a third farming, and so on). Zeus says, no, “Let them all have their share; for cities cannot be formed if only a few have a share of these as of other arts.”

Zeus punishes Prometheus by chaining him to a rock at the top of a mountain. Each day, Prometheus is visited by Zeus in the form of an eagle, who proceeds to tear at and devour his liver. Each night, he is restored, only to be tormented again the following day. Why does Zeus punish Prometheus? Prometheus suffers because of the problem created by giving men fire and technology but not the civic virtue to complement them. Zeus understood that if there is to be balance and good in society, then the civic arts must accompany the technical arts. Prometheus is punished because, as having the gift of forethought, he should have known that by stealing only the technical gifts, humans would become “A menace to themselves, to other creatures and to the earth itself.”

Professor Anderson asserts in his paper and in a new translation of the Protagoras dialogue² that our crisis is not one of technology but rather one of philosophy. Prometheus suffers because he had the capability to know better but did not act on it. We have tended to see and respond to ecological crises and environmental imbalance with an Epimethean philosophy, that is, as an afterthought rather than with forethought. What is required, perhaps, is a Promethean Philosophy of looking forward.

Sustainability and Design

Our society is in the process of recognizing that our relationship with nature and the environment must change. For some, it seems as if this recognition is terribly slow in coming, if indeed it is even coming along quick enough. For others, the pace and concerns driving it seem to be rushing forward, even threatening to the familiar old ways of our experience. Whether the rate of change is too slow or fast is probably best judged from some future perspective, but that significant change is underway, necessary, and widely acknowledged. Truly, some are in a position to better see the need and observe the pace of change. Many indigenous people and those with the training and interest to measure the losses to the diversity and quality of the environment have spoken out for decades, perhaps longer. As the data has accumulated and the observations have become more obvious and easier to detect, more of us have acknowledged that, indeed, our decisions and actions have significant and detrimental implications on the environment. The scope and scale of the problems are so large and daunting, many are uncertain about what they might do in the face of this knowledge. Design professionals of all stripes are among those best suited by education and profession to provide answers to the questions and solutions for the problems. However, defining just what sustainability is can be problematic. In some ways, it may be like quality, hard to define, but you tend to know it when you see it. Still, an alternative to business as usual is called for.

Unsustainable

“Sustainable America—A New Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity and a Healthy Environment for the Future” was published by the President’s Council on sustainable development in 1996.³ The report identified 10 goals of sustainable development, but the first three could be viewed as the most important: (1) health and the environment, (2) economic prosperity, and (3) equity. In this context, equity refers to social equity (equal opportunity) and intergenerational equity (equity for future generations). It is widely recognized that to meet these goals, we must change the way we behave. In a very real sense, economic prosperity has been pursued with less than commensurate attention to social equity and environmental sustainability. Indeed, at times, there is an outright antagonism between those advocating “progress” and those voices speaking for social equity and environmental sustainability. Adopting paradigms of sustainability will require us to reconcile our economic interests with our environmental interests and social inequities.

Unfortunately, since the start of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) in 1996, results have been uneven at best. President Obama tried to lift the council from its fairly moribund state in 2012 by committing the US federal government to various goals and initiatives, which resulted in some successes, but the actual results of that effort were spotty. Among the most important and visible steps toward sustainability has been the growth in wind and solar power generation, which resulted from federal and state support as well as from changes in the cost of solar equipment.

From the beginning, the Trump administration has worked against sustainability on most fronts. Appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency and Departments of Energy and Interior proudly and aggressively pursue an anti-environment and anti-sustainability mission requiring business and public interest groups to go to court again and again to protect gains made in the recent past. If there is good news in current events, it is in the pale hope for better days. A more substantive hope might be seen—after the 2016 election, the members of the Corporate Eco Forum convened a closed roundtable discussion and concluded that the current climate in Washington, DC, will not affect their moves toward sustainability.⁴ A total of 60% of businesses responding to a survey in 2016 indicated that the changes in administration would not impact their sustainability goals, and another third admitted that it would slow them down, but progress would continue.⁵

What Is Sustainability?

There is a conversation within the design and planning professions that has been underway in one form or another for more than two decades. The conversation revolves around several concerns. First, what is sustainability and how is to be “sold” to clients and stakeholders? Perhaps the most common definition for sustainability was crafted in 1987 at the World Commission on Environment and Development, often referred to as the Brundtland Commission, “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition captures the concept in broad strokes that are difficult to translate into action. In the final analysis, sustainability is complex, perhaps irreducibly so, but does it follow that sustainable design is also complex? The sustainable design is, in one sense, not an attempt to recreate nature from scratch but to mitigate the impacts of our actions on the existing system.

To some extent, the term sustainability has become almost meaningless. We may share a general sense of what we think we mean by sustainable, but there may be considerable difference of opinion when the details are to be thrashed about, and, of course, design is about details. Design is a process of bringing the imagined into reality. It is art and science, it is technical and creative, it is practical, and it is beautiful. It does not thrive or produce its best result when constrained by preset conditions. Ultimately, if the products of design are to be valuable, they must serve the interests of society. In this sense of “value,” the products of designers are a reflection of our more fundamental values. Professor Anderson was correct in his paper when he posited that the ecological crisis that he was concerned about was not a failure of technology but rather a failure of philosophy. In fact, we know how to design “sustainably” for the most part, but we do not do so for a variety of reasons. Even with those reasons, we now understand that if the product of our work treats nature as an afterthought, we do harm ourselves, others, and nature largely because we value other things more. If we intend to design the elements of a sustainable world, then we must first have the values that direct such work. The design will reflect our values. Perhaps, a Promethean ethic will be manifested after all; a sustainable society will have the underlying values that produce sustainability in its products and the built environment.

As the various definitions suggest that to become a sustainable society, we must balance the interests of the present with the interests of the future in such a way as to realize opportunity within the limitations of the environment. Environmental concern in the modern economy is commonly considered a luxury, less necessary, or even desirable when more fundamental (economic) outcomes are not being met. In this view, the environment and the economy are often viewed as adversarial by nature, environmental concerns are often portrayed in terms of the negative impact on economic concerns, and sustainability requires us to find a meaningful resolution between them. In point of fact, sustainability requires us to maintain a quality environment and a robust economy in other than the zero-sum approach of the past. A weak economy or a lack of opportunity invites environmental degradation, if only, because individuals will act in their own interests. When those interests are threatened or impacted, concern with the environment is reduced.

Abraham Maslow wrote that we are motivated to fulfill needs, starting with the most fundamental physiological requirements for air, water, and food and proceeding through needs for safety, love, and ultimately self-esteem.⁶ We tend to focus on the more fundamental needs and move on to higher needs only when the more basic desires are satisfied. In the end, we must understand that sustainability requires a healthy growing economy and a robust economy can exist only within a healthy and diverse nature. Modern developed societies are primarily economic constructs; in practice, we are homo economicus, perhaps more than we are homo sapiens.

The environment, or our current valuation of it, can be described in broad economic terms as capital and resources. If capital is wealth that we might invest to generate more wealth, then nature provides capital in the form of stocks of materials and services that can be used to generate wealth or from which we might draw utility. If managed sustainably, the supply of wood from forests, or fish from the sea, can provide a stream of products indefinitely. The forest also contributes oxygen to the atmosphere, pumps water into the air, and provides other important environmental “services.” Likewise, a functioning wetland provides a range of services, from water treatment to flood buffering. Healthy natural landscapes invite economic activity in terms of tourism and outdoor recreation in addition to the array of natural services they provide. Like economic wealth, the idea is to use the natural capital to generate greater wealth but never to spend the capital itself.

Wealth is generated by investing and managing capital, but it is also generated by consuming resources. Resources are consumed to make new wealth. Oil used as fuel is consumed; once used, it is no longer useful as a resource. When we harvest forests or fish at a rate that is unsustainable, we are treating our natural capital as a resource. Eating the seed corn as it were reduces the natural capital available, which by definition is an unsustainable act. Natural resources are generally only considered valuable in terms of how they might be consumed. There is often little incentive to manage resources in such a way as to ensure continued, albeit smaller levels of harvest or exploitation. This is especially true in the cases of unowned or public resources such as fisheries and forests. In competitive marketplaces, the individual often has little incentive to conserve or limit consumption to sustainable levels in the interest of the future or the community at large. Instead, in the absence of a future benefit that outweighs current satisfaction, the incentive is to take as much as possible. Finding a means to incentivize conservation and resource management is necessary to find a willing partner in the fisherman and logger. Various attempts to provide this incentive have met with some success around the world. For example, dividing a fishery into shares owned by commercial fishermen changes their relationship to the resource in a fundamental way. Earlier, the resource was not owned by anyone, and so, it was in the short-term interest of every fisherman to maximize his take. If the fishery is owned in shares and the fisherman is entitled to a predetermined share of the take, it is in his interest to have the fishery grow, so his share is larger. Early tests of this approach have shown promise.⁷

In the end though, sustainability expands our view of nature as capital to be invested and limits the use of nature as a resource whenever possible. This view of nature as capital or resource is at the heart of the rational argument for sustainable design. It is clear that resources are generally finite in nature. Even renewable resources can be considered as finite if the rate of consumption exceeds the sustainable yield, as it often does. Consumption, even at a nominal rate, by a growing population of more than 6.5 billion people, can quickly overwhelm the rate at which a given resource can replenish itself. Thomas Malthus anticipated in his essay “An Essay on the Principle of Population” that a growing population would increase at a rate faster than food supply.⁸ He observed that while populations might increase exponentially, the growth of agricultural production was arithmetic or linear. Within some time, the number of people would be greater than the ability of a society to feed them. He also observed that as populations grew, the availability of surplus labor would drive wages down. More recently, Jared Diamond has written how societies sometimes consume their resources to such a degree that it leads to or contributes to a failure of the society as a whole. In part, sustainability is about resource management and protection and moving some natur...