Zach Pascoe

Tippett Srping’02

Env. Issues

ECO-LOGY

ECO-NOMICS

Overview of Presentation: Synergy and “the restorative Economy”

We have got to create new markets, create new technologies, create a real and ‘restorative economy’. One that flourishes, that sustains, and allows our planet and its humanity to grow and evolve. Author of “The Ecology of Commerce-A Declaration of Sustainability”, Paul Hawken believes that if “economic growth is founded on an ever increasing reliance on chemicals, toxins, poisons and energy by-products, then we will choke on the growth that is supposed to save us.” His point is thought provoking; Aren’t we seeing signs of this already? How can we even begin to tackle such daunting tasks? What can we do? Many companies and industries are already feeling the effects, and many companies are taking a proactive stance, changing and reinventing itself, as to sustain itself. “The ultimate purpose of business is not or should not be, simply to make money. Nor is it a system of making and selling things. The promise of business is to increase the general well being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy,” Hawken writes.

Ø Restorative Economy: an enduring society in which we will need a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative. Business will need to integrate economic, biological and human systems to create a sustainable method of commerce.

Ø Commercial succession: like ecological succession; changing from immature to mature systems, imitating, connected, designing systems that imitate nature and the its many dynamic functions and services. Business and economy Hawken points out, needs to function like ecosystems to an extent, corporations should become cyclical (alike nature) vs. linear (where does it end). Our humanity as we know it, are livelihoods are undeniably linked to the functions and services, as well as the well being and survival of all living and non-living things.

Many companies have come to the conclusion that is time to change!

Here are some examples that I believe tie synergy, ecology, economics, and sustainability together.

(EXAMPLE ONE)

3M: developed a program called Pollution Prevention Pays

· Designing out pollution from the manufacturing process, in the hopes of not only saving our environment, but also to make profit from the waste and profit from not having to mitigate the pollution.

· Reformulated products

· Redesigning equipment

· Recovering waste for reuse or recycling

· Over 15 years 3M results were: saved $537million, reduced air pollution by 120,000 tons, reduced waste water by 1 million gallons, and reduced solid waste by 410,000 tons.

Although, these numbers need to be put into perspective, and they are rather vague, they are impressive, and Its is a good example of making money from preventing waste.

(EXAMPLE 2) SYNERGY

Kalundborg, Denmark
“The synergy is remarkable because is happened “spontaneously” without government regulation or law as the prime motivating factor, and because some of the relationships between outputs and inputs were serendipitous or unplanned at the outset.”
“A prototype of industrial ecology and cooperation is in place right now in Kalundborg, Denmark”; a coal-fired power plant, an oil refinery, a pharmaceutical specializing in biotechnology, a sheetrock plant, concrete producers, a producer of sulfuric acid, the municipal heating authority, a fish farm, some greenhouses, local farms, and other enterprises work cooperatively together.

Asnaes Power Plant

(Recycling its waste

in the form of steam,

and heat,calcium sulfate)

Greenhouses and Residents

and Local Farms

Statoil Refinery

(Produces surplus gas(sulfur)

installed process to remove sulfur

excess gas, sold

waste heat)

FISH FARM

(Fertilizers, raw goods, fish sludge)

Novo Nordisk(RX)

(Developed a process to make

sludge generated in its fermentation

process useful)

GYPROC(sheetrock,

concrete)

KEMIRA(chemical company)

Coal Fired Utility

(fly ash)

Not only have they increased there profits, they are practicing almost imitating many systems and functions in nature ecosystem, thus deriving less pollution, less waste, and less mitigation. As Paul Hawken writes, “Companies must re-envision and re-imagine themselves as cyclical corporations, whose products either literally disappear into harmless components, or whose products are so specific and targeted into harmless components, or whose products are so specific and targeted to a specific function that there isn no spillover effect, no waste, no random molecules dancing in the cells of wildlife, in other words, no forms of life must be adversely affected.”