What We Usually Forget When Introducing Sustainable Alternatives.
What We Usually Forget When Introducing Sustainable Alternatives.
Market is full of new, "more sustainable" products and solutions. But the overall progress toward a sustainable economy is still almost non-existent. What's missing?
Did you know that half a century ago, plastic bag was considered a sustainable alternative to the paper bag?
Somewhat ironic, isn’t it?
Fast forward to today - look around and you can see alternatives marketed as sustainable everywhere. Alternative protein, biofuels, fungi, bioplastics, partially recycled materials… with the most pompous one probably being electrification - like switching to electric cars or heat pumps instead of directly burning heavily emitting fuels.
All of these alternatives, given that the claims they make are actually true of course, have their merit and their place in the (hopefully) future sustainable society.
But…
none of them solve the main problem. And that’s one of the reasons why in spite of the flood of such products on the market, most of the indicators of sustainability show no signs of improving.
Let’s first jump back in time and learn the lesson from the mentioned case of plastic bags, because we know how things unfolded there.
The issue of the day was deforestation, which was (still is) partially due to production of paper. Along came plastic, which was more durable, water resistant, stronger and… didn’t require trees being cut down. It seemed to be a good replacement.
But the problem with paper bags wasn’t really the paper. Therefore, changing the paper for something else did nothing to solve it.
The real problems were:
That economies of scale made paper production so cheap that wasteful single-use became the economically reasonable way of using it,
that businesses were economically incentivised to be wasteful because it meant more profits,
that consumption was on the rise,
that this caused a shift in culture where being wasteful became normal, acceptable and “economical”,
that wastefulness became convenient for people - and once you set a new standard for convenience, it’s very hard to convince people to do things that they find less convenient, because it’s considered “a step backward in progress”.
Now comes the big lesson.
In the bullet points above, change “paper” for “plastic”. The same statements are true today.
Changing paper for a “more durable, sustainable material” just moved the same problem somewhere else without solving it.
It may have saved a few trees, but it more than made up for it with causing problems elsewhere (like pollution, non-degradable waste, destruction of ecosystems due to oil drilling etc.).
Knowing this, what can we say about the possible future scenarios related to the sustainable alternatives that are being marketed today? Let’s focus on electrification.
Solar and wind energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels and prices will continue to drop. We’re witnessing massive growth of solar and wind capacity, promising to provide energy without greenhouse gas emissions.
But greenhouse gas emissions are not the only thing that matters. Electrification requires many resources. Lithium mining can lead to devastation of ecosystems - just recently, thousands of people protested against starting mining in Serbia. The huge social (and also environmental) cost of cobalt mining is well documented. Many materials in electronic components are toxic, leading to huge environmental and health costs of mounting e-waste. In recent years, deep sea mining has also gained a lot of attention, because rich deposits of minerals needed for electrification have been discovered there - but collecting those deposits will lead to complete destruction of fragile ecosystems.
This is the almost certain scenario with electrification:
Even if it ends up significantly reducing CO2 emissions, we’re going to have even more ecological catastrophes to talk about in future decades.
So, there is the same pattern - electrification eases the symptom that is currently acute (emissions of greenhouse gases), but doesn’t solve the problem. It just moves the symptoms somewhere else. What are the actual problems then? A few of them:
That cheaper and more accessible energy means people will use more of it,
that with rising global economic average, more people can afford to buy more stuff, which requires energy to produce,
that we’ve developed a culture of addiction to consumption and convenience,
that global economy is dependant on growth, which requires additional energy - if there is no growth, the financial system implodes - including most people’s pensions,
etc…
These are some of the main problems that make our society unsustainable. Whatever materials or modes of production you switch within that, it doesn’t matter - because the underlying system is on a trajectory that is incompatible with a finite biosphere.
So, what should we do?
While we do need to urgently develop ways to treat the acute symptoms of these problems (like climate change or biodiversity collapse), we must not live in the illusion that these are solutions to the problem.
In parallel with electrification or any other evolution of current technologies, we must put even more of our innovation juice into the more difficult part - changing the economic system. We must answer questions like:
How to transition to an economy that doesn’t depend on growth?
How can we develop systems where power dynamics don’t play such a defining role?
How can developed countries give back the sovereignty to their ex-colonies (because we enjoy our rich standard because of their blood and we still keep them colonised through debt and control over resources), while avoiding massive ecological damage due to their economic development?
How can we reverse the trend of rising consumption and fake convenience through different social values?
And many more like this…
Most of our innovation should be in these domains, not in technological ones. Technology is the easiest part - it’s evolving rapidly while the real changes needed are almost nowhere to be seen.
Stay tuned as we discuss these questions further.
And stay bright.
Ram