Little Green People; The Conscious Consumer; Green Building and the Responsibility of Industry

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

The Green Building Revolution
by Jerry Yudelson
ISBN: 9781597261791
There has been a quiet revolution going on around the world for the past few decades, and it seems to have been successful at organizing itself into a larger movement with the potential to transform, ultimately, the way we consume energy. The movement has a cross-section of society for its membership including, architects, engineers, builders, developers, politicians, and consumers, all of them working together to create more efficient buildings. Green buildings use less energy and water than old ones. The movement has spread to include Federal legislation that requires new buildings to conform to green standards. This book describes many examples of how commercial buildings, schools, universities, public buildings, health care institutions, public housing developments, and neighborhoods are being designed to use fewer resources. The author of this book believes that the trend of building green is one that should be continued for the simple fact that it is more efficient, cleaner, and longer-lasting. The book includes photos, tables, and charts to help visualize some of the concepts being presented. This revolution has already begin to transform our world in significant ways that will last well into the twentieth century.

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Human beings have been building structures ever since their beginning, but not until the dawn of the industrial age did the concentration of concrete, steel, wires, and consumable goods that we call urban centers become unhealthy for the natural environment around and in which they are built. This is not good for all living things, even human species.

The buildings we construct around us have a profound impact on our lives. The natural environment that is created in urban centers can almost be considered its own distinct biome. In these cities, human beings interact more with machinery than they do with the natural world. Is it any wonder that the natural environment is suffering from neglect?

The economy that we have created on this planet is based around consuming resources, and this is sustainable only if the demands of the market do not outweigh the given restraints of the global economic system. Industry has a heavy burden to carry creating widgets and gadgets of every make and model; this is what has come to be known as productivity.

The current level of productivity, though, has become hazardous to the health of people across the globe. In America, the only reason that the EPA has not regulated emissions from industry is that its hands are tied by a pro-fossil fuel administration in the White House. In response to a non-responsive government, many states have enacted their own legislation to begin cleaning up the industries in their respective states.

First on the list of culpability in relation to energy consumption and pollution discharge are commercial buildings. While there are more residential units in totality, there just are more intense and dirtier things going on at the factories and industrial centers around he world.

We use a lot of electricity here in the United States, and commercial buildings are responsible for the bulk of it. Commercial buildings use 40% of all the energy used domestically; they consume 40% of the raw materials; they release 40% of all of the CO2 emitted; and are accountable for producing 30% of the waste and using 15% of all of the water. Commercial buildings consist of all of the buildings used in the manufacturing, storage, and distribution of products of any kind. This part of society is the sector that green building tries to clean up the most.

In pursuit of this goal of cleaning up the commercial sector, LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, was created. This is the quiet revolution that was being referenced earlier.

The rating system for buildings falls into three categories, which include silver, gold, and platinum. Without getting into all of the technicalities here about the ratings, the simple explanation is that projects receive points for including certain design concepts and building materials. Point totals fall into a range for the given categorical ratings.

What do you get points for, you ask? Projects receive points for things like sustainable site selection, efficient use of water, use of renewable energy systems, using fewer materials of higher quality, and using design to enhance environmental performance. Architects in regions of the country that have adopted LEED regulations as the preferred method for new and existing construction projects need to be LEED certified in order to perform professionally.

Many people who used to ask why build green, are finding their answer in the resale value of LEED certified buildings. Owners of individual homes as well as commercial buildings are finding that structures that are built upon the environmental principles contained in the LEED rating system hold their value over the long-term. In fact, most buildings that are built without the LEED rating system become obsolete in the sense that they are worth more torn down; because of this fact, many financial institutions are not financing projects that do not use LEED.

This is another example of how market-based principles can provide solutions to some of our environmental problems. Inefficient buildings are becoming a thing of the past because of basic market principles. Environmentally friendly buildings are becoming mainstream because of simple economics.

The trend of building green can not only be seen in commercial buildings, but also in certain manufacturing processes that are going green because of simple economic factors.
Manufacturers are learning to recycle wastewater because the price of fresh water is increasing as it becomes more scarce. Manufacturers are also learning to capture CO2 for reuse or resale or for sequestering because the price of polluting the atmosphere is becoming too expensive. Many manufacturers are beginning to leek to renewable energy to power their facilities so they can have a reliable, consistently priced energy source on which to base operations.

Even the most conservative commercial building managers and manufacturing operators can find cost saving opportunities in digitalizing electricity demand so that the utilities can handle the peak loads more fluidly by being able to control consumption remotely. This is a relatively simple and inexpensive way to streamline energy use before optimizing energy efficiency. Several companies are perfectly positioned to capitalize on this movement in the manufacturing and commercial sectors of industry. These companies work mostly with building operators to retrofit existing structures to use energy more efficiently and save bottom line money.

As the efficiency movement continues to go mainstream, costs will continue to come down and more options will continue to come online. For now, there are several ways for existing building managers to improve the efficiency and lower the costs of operation. Around $150 per barrel of oil, it becomes viable to retrofit. At $100 per barrel, the status quo remains.

We have reached a critical time and have achieved a critical mass. The price of oil at $150 has showed us a critical ceiling where current manufacturing processes become inefficient, and many businesses and industries run the risk of losing future financing opportunities, or worse, diminishing bottom-line revenue unless they drastically change the way that they go about using revenue and consuming natural resources. The companies that do this now, before the price of oil makes it mandatory, are the ones that will be positioned to capitalize on a manufacturing and commercial industry based upon environmental principles and social responsibility.

Of course, many new buildings are being built using LEED standards, but many existing buildings are in desperate need of being retrofitted, and even with the price of oil at $100, they are having a hard time competing because of the cost of operating inefficient manufacturing processes. Ultimately, these buildings will need to be retrofitted or they will not be able to stay in operation. If not now, then at least by 2010. 2020? Inevitably, sustainability will replace commercialism out of necessity, so, the question to pose to any serious investor out there is centered around the timing. Is now the time to start investing in sustainable business and renewable energy, not only for the small investor, but also for the longer term, wealthier ones?

Redesigning industry and basic domestic infrastructure is a generational project; one that is well overdue. The money that will be poured into retrofitting infrastructure for efficiency and into new construction projects that use renewable energy will be unprecedented. Commercial buildings represent just one sector of the larger human society we have created. The water infrastructure, the electricity transmission system, and our interstate roads all are in desperate need of being updated. The innovations in the green building industry are spreading into virtually every aspect of the business community, and there are numerous opportunities for an investor to capitalize on investing in the these areas.

Just think of the possibilities of turning all America’s roadways into solar power generators. The potential exists to create a truly monumental shift in how the human species interacts with the planet as a whole and utilizes the forces on it in more harmonious, less destructive ways. Capitalism can sustain itself; it does not care what we sell. Why don’t we just sell more environmentally friendly products?

The industry leaders of the future will not only have to bear the traditional financial responsibilities to shareholders that we have today, but they will have become the leaders of tomorrow because of their social and environmental commitment to policies that allow them to grow by using less resource-intensive manufacturing processes with cleaner waste streams. Zero waste systems are the way of future; the optimal production process utilizes all waste as an input into another production process.

Those leading companies are already in the market today; they are making money for investors that are savvy enough to see the beginning of this hundred-year trend. All trends are hard to make out as they start, but just as the nineteenth century, English philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge escaped the industrial smoke-filled tumult of England’s industrial age, with the right perspective, this trend is quite obvious. Even if oil goes to $30, there are still other factors that are driving the move toward renewable energy and sustainable business.

Some of the companies who saw this trend in the 1970s when the drive for renewable energy began are leading the renewable energy industry today, but many renewable energy companies were quickly shot down when oil recovered and prices came down. Is this pattern of boom and bust ultimately what sets the precedent for the current renewable energy push, or were the failures of the 1970s part of a learning curve that has ultimately provided a set of perfect market conditions for the sustainable movement to once and for all go mainstream over the course of the next few decades?

Businesses are beginning to realize that they cannot generate consistent revenues without taking on the responsibilities that go along with industrial-sized resource consumption, not in a future that is wired. Information spreads around the globe too fast today, and consumers can organize themselves like never before. It makes every business sense in the world to adopt some set of environmental principles into the business strategy. This would be why we are seeing so many companies greenwashing their same old day-to-day activities to appear more environmentally friendly. The grain ethanol industry is a perfect example investigation that uncovered the greenwashing that was hiding the unsustainable nature of the whole endeavor. Now let’s apply the same criticism to the petroleum, coal, and natural gas industries; are they really sustainable, even in the short-term?

Many states are beginning to offer incentive packages to homeowners and commercial building managers to put energy efficient technologies in place. At the same time, the EPA is reporting that our traditional methods of developing energy are going to have to be taxed in the near future because of the environmental and social costs associated with continuing to burn them at the level we are burning them. These crossing trends offer investors a unique opportunity to be a part of the transition to an innovation economy.

___________________________web recommendation
U.S. Green Building Council
www.usgbc.org
The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit organization that is responsible for certifying sustainable businesses, homes, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods. USGBC is dedicated to expanding green building practices through its LEED Rating System. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a voluntary, consensus-based national rating system for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. LEED addresses all building types and emphasizes state-of-the-art strategies in five areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials/resources selection, and indoor environmental quality. It is mandatory in many regions of the country to be LEED certified in order to be considered a professional in the given field.

Little Green People; The Conscious Consumer; Market-Based Solutions to Environmental Problems

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

The Natural Wealth of Nations, Harnessing the Market for the Environment
by B. Sohngen
ISBN 0-393-31852-4.
This book introduces an important and exciting new development in the fields of environmentalism and economics. In it, the author tries to prove that government subsidy programs often cause more environmental problems than they fix. Whether or not he is correct, he further argues that by changing economic policy to include market-based incentives for businesses to use the environment less destructively, both investors and the environment benefit. One of the largest myths associated with market-based incentives is that they deflate productivity and reduce revenue, but the reality is that by changing economic policy to include market-based incentives for the environment, more jobs and wealth are created. It was industrialization that first automated the manufacturing process and, ultimately, removed the human-being from the equation; now, it is time to remove the subsidies and place human ingenuity back into the manufacturing process. After abusive subsidies are removed from the fiscal landscape, the playing field then can become fertile for technologies that cause less environmental damage. It is easy for environmentalists to get up on their high horses while they wait and preach morality in an effort to aid their cause, but according to Sohngen, this is unnecessary. With the correct fiscal policy, the market will correct itself and put a proper value on the resources that human beings need for survival. As long as subsidies continue to be abused aiding less efficient industries in their effort to compete in the economy, the skies will be grey with smog, the rivers clogged with filth, and the oceans will continue to acidify. If the global society chooses to make the bold choice of putting a price on our most valuable resources—the forests, oceans, air, rivers, and land—then there is no limit to the level of innovation that will spring forth from the human population in an effort to create an economy around the principles of stewardship.

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While the mix of environmental principles and economic analysis is just beginning, the initial synthesis is already showing signs that environmental economics may one day soon replace the system set up by the founding fathers of American capitalism. Sometime in the near future, the crossover from a single financial bottom-line to one that includes social and environmental factors as well will happen simply from the fact that environmental economics is better for the human species overall in the long-run.

Traditionally, capitalism has always based itself upon the mental construct of a world with limitless resources; in fact, for the founding fathers of American capitalism, the continent still had yet to be explored. Timber, minerals, water, agriculture, and opportunity all seemed in abundance, and whose limit could not be imagined, so it was not contemplated. The abundance of resources here has carried America through the Civil War, World War I and II, and on into the Digital Age. Seemingly, the expansive vision put forth by America's founding economists has reached maturity here in the twenty-first century, and forces are pushing on capitalism to change some of its fundamental assumptions around the ideas of limits. Should capitalism have risks?

In the past, businesses had one responsibility to the shareholders. Today, in addition to financial obligations to shareholders, businesses are being asked to maintain professional responsibilities to the social communities and in the environments where they do business. The fact that this is occurring is a sign that human populations have consciously realized that they have reached their limits in terms of the amount of resources that the planet can supply.

Some business are fighting back against the triple-bottom line, though, claiming that environmental economics is a fancy way to keep the impoverished regions of the world in a perpetual state of desperation. They claim that environmental economics stifles economic growth and the ensuing prosperity that comes with it. They throw words like eco-imperialists and socialism at the environmentalists, but really, many of these types of economists simply need a friend.

The impoverished of the world continue to suffer because of the current economic policies; they don’t suffer more from caring for the environment. To think that the impoverished people of the world would be better off if only their governments would burn more fossil fuels, deforest more of their land, allow them to eat more genetically modified food, and generally deplete and destroy their little section of the global real estate is a crazy idea. They might be better off in the short term, but we are currently realizing what happens when China, India, the Middle East, South America, and parts of Indonesia all go through a significant growth period simultaneously; we begin to see the finite limit of the resources on planet earth. This is an astounding achievement, and it offers us a perspective never even dreamed about by capitalism's founders.

The impoverished people of the world would benefit from free energy like solar or wind; why wouldn’t they? Beside the high initial costs of installation, solar and wind generate electricity for next to nothing. Therefore, the fossil fuel industry has to actively lobby and campaign against renewable energy because limitless, cheap energy is a threat to their established respective monopolies. In their micro-cosmos, solar, wind, fuel cells, geothermal, and ethanol signal the end of their reign on top of global energy and financial markets.

The renewable energy industry is just beginning to put together lobby groups in Washington D.C. to actively try and push their agenda through the channels of congress. Clean coal, although not really a renewable energy, is number one with nearly $2 million spent on ‘educating’ congress. In all, the top renewable energy industries spent less than $10 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. In contrast, the oil industry spent $110 million on lobbying and $22 million in direct campaign contributions. It is obvious who has the power of congress’ ear. To blame ethanol for higher commodity prices across the board is foolish, and to blame environmental economics for poverty is ridiculous. Pollution and corruption breed poverty. Environmental stewardship combined with economics creates wealth socially, environmentally, and financially.

The major example of a market-based solution to an environmental problem is the carbon market. The environmental problem here is that the atmosphere and the oceans have too much CO2, and this is bad for ecosystems across the planet. A carbon tax, in this case, is good for the environment because it would limit pollution, but it is not necessarily initially good for business. It adds an additional cost of operation to those industries that have been the slowest to upgrade their lines of production and are still polluting the environment. For businesses that have adapted to the many cleantech innovations that have made their way into the market over the last several years, they will be positioned to benefit from a carbon market.

The carbon market essentially adds a cost where there formerly was not a cost. Currently, it is virtually free for businesses to dump as much CO2 into the environment as part of their manufacturing process as they like. With a carbon market, these types of firms would have to buy up carbon credits to keep up with their polluting practices, if they could afford it. It is an important milestone when a society decides to put an economic value on the environment so that using it has a cost, i.e. a carbon tax, cap and trade, whatever you call it. Without it, certain ecosystems of the world will continue to fall into a state of complete collapse. Are we willing to play such a game of global roulette with the odds stacked against us?

What constitutes excessive carbon pollution, though? Which industries are the worst polluters? Is it worse for the environment to make tires or cement? What are the marginal costs of disposable diapers? Why do people with children get tax breaks? These are all fine questions, but it is easy to see how the issue can get complicated quickly by calling some of America’s longest held beliefs into question. The idea that subsidies help bring the cost of manufactured goods down may not be accurate. In their purest form, carbon markets are better than subsidies because they allow investors to make money while the market makes the environment cleaner.

There is no question that solar is part of the renewable, cleantech solution. Solar power is approaching grid parity, and so, is becoming an attractive solution to businesses looking to retrofit or upgrade or are just coming online now. Solar power requires a large investment upfront, though, but then develops lower and lower operating costs the longer the system is in use. The high cost of initial installation acts as a barrier to entry, but the market came up with a streamlined solution.

Third party power purchase agreements, or PPAs, help solar projects get started by providing the financing. Many businesses do not want to hassle with the technicalities of operating a renewable energy system onsite, so they hire a third party to finance, manage, and operate the renewable energy components. This way, they can not only buy electricity at a set cost for fifteen years, but also position themselves in case CO2 becomes regulated sometime in the future. The sad fact of the matter is that many solar projects would not go ahead without an incentive plan of some sort, but are subsidies for innovation better than subsidies for pollution?

Any discussion of subsidies and renewable energy these days must include the topic of ethanol, even though the conversation around it can become highly volatile. The reason for the volatility is not necessarily clear, but it seems that people have begun to see the entire ethanol industry as being propped up on subsidies. Critics argue that the ethanol industry can not stand on its own, and that it is actually contributing more CO2 to the system than it takes out.

No one wants to see people go hungry, but what is the alternative…more respiratory disease? The problem for environmentalists is not that we are running out of oil; their problem is that there still is more oil to be found. Are climate change and global warming really a better alternative to higher food prices in the short-term? So, we pay a little more upfront for a more environmentally integrated society; this seems like a rational investment.

The whole food vs. fuel debate seems ultimately like another distraction from the main issue, that is, that fossil fuels are in the process of being replaced. It is way past time that certain market-based solutions were implemented in order to try to regulate some of industry’s most egreggious behavior regarding the environment. The ethanol distraction, as it is coming to be known, is part of a broader campaign that is being used by the oil industry to confuse and conquer their enemy, in this case, renewable energy in general.

It makes no difference to the oil industry that ethanol made from grain is being replaced by ethanol made from wastes of all types; no food is necessary at all anymore. In fact, algae shows the most promising potential in terms of energy produced and in taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, but none of this matters to the oil industry except that ethanol is set to begin eating into Big Oil's profits.

Some economists argue that Europe’s carbon market has not allowed them to meet most of their Kyoto obligations, but images from the Olympics this year in Beijing show what unregulated climate policy does in terms of the amount of pollution.

There are two emerging carbon markets closer to home here in North America. The Western Climate Initiative, WCI, and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI. Potentially, these carbon markets could ultimately save taxpayers money by making the corporations who are responsible for the polluting, pay. The funds from the carbon markets are then transferred to spur more innovation in low carbon technologies.

Economics can become the environment’s best friend, and it is an exciting time to be a part of the transition. Financial markets are the most powerful force in the world, even more powerful than elected governments. To have the people in those markets operating under environmental principles is a major benefit to all living things and humanity’s quality of life in general, not to mention will provide a robust economy ensuring healthy returns for years to come.

________________________________________web recommendation
United States Society for Ecological Economics
www.ussee.org
The United States Society for Ecological Economics provides a place for economists, scientists, politicians, and people who care for the well-being of this planet and its inhabitants, so they might learn from each other on a regular basis and develop solutions to our most pressing economic, social, and environmental problems. “Ecological economics is a trans-disciplinary field of inquiry that facilitates understanding between economists, ecologists, and many others interested in real solutions to environmental problems and the integration of new ideas to create a sustainable world.”

Little Green People; The Conscious Consumer; Zero Waste Systems, the Natural Way

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Upsizing: The Road to Zero Emissions.
by Gunter Pauli.
ISBN-13: 9781874719182
Over the past few years, the term zero emissions has come to define a growing trend in manufacturing. More and more business models are beginning to implement a reuse strategy into their plan. The waste that is produced on-site is woven back into the production process as a feedstock, or it is sold to another business to use in their manufacturing or production process. This book suggests the revolutionary idea of turning trash into cash. Many industries produce waste of all sorts; there is manure, CO2, solid waste, agricultural waste, …you get the picture, the list goes on and on. These items were considered useless by business in the past and were discarded. In fact, businesses pay money to have waste shipped ‘away’, but all of that is changing. Waste management and landfill operators are now sitting on a goldmine of opportunity; so are cattle farmers, waste treatment plants, and industrial polluters. These waste streams can be reused to produce other usable materials and gasses, and they already are. The zero-waste industry is already up and running at today’s landfills and water treatment facilities, even on some industrial livestock farms. The author of this book is also the founder of the Zero Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI), which ‘examines how the adoption of the Zero Emissions concept not only radically reduces pollution and waste but can contribute significantly to the generation of income and jobs, specifically for those that need them most, the rural poor in less developed countries’.

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Zero Waste is an evolved concept; it is not an easy term to understand at first because it involves a paradigm shift in the way we think about virtually everything. What is trash? What do we throw away? What happens to ‘it’ once it is ‘away’?

In the beginning, so to speak, garbage was collected and brought to landfills where it was buried and left to rot. This level of operation seemed sustainable until human population figures in the twentieth century grew beyond the capacity of the landfills to receive all of society’s garbage. So, recycling programs sprang up all over and certain materials were plucked from the garbage and thrown back into the manufacturing stream as a feedstock for another product; a second life, so to speak. This method of operation really got people thinking about redesigning our consumption cycles to be more in line with natural systems.

Since the recycling movement began in the later half of the twentieth century, global population has exploded and the recycling movement has evolved into the zero waste initiative. If nature can do it, then so can human society. In fact, society can not sustain itself without it.

Zero waste is essentially recycling on steroids. Under zero-waste principles, products are designed for reuse. That’s right, the product is designed for disassembly and recycling purposes so that when it reaches the end of its use-cycle, it can be disassembled easily and re-entered back into the manufacturing process. Think about what this can do for the appliance and electronic industries alone. Computers are only beginning to allow us the opportunity to design products in a virtual world for optimal environmental efficiency before they are ever created and run ‘pilot’ runs in virtual worlds. Zero waste is not a company or an industry; it is a theory that tries to redefine how we manufacture, distribute, and use everyday products from televisions to hand soap.

Many businesses and organizations are beginning to form alliances and partnerships in order to clean up the production process. Landfill operators are beginning to team-up with utilities and ethanol refiners in order to harvest the methane and solid waste that is otherwise just sitting in the garbage.

What about all of that cow manure and other agricultural waste? Well, ethanol refiners not only can process cow manure and biomass, but can also turn human waste into clean burning fuel for our cars and generators. We don’t have to use food for ethanol production; our waste is sufficient.

What these types of businesses are learning early on is that waste can be a valuable feedstock. Through the redesign of the processes they use and the products they produce, businesses can create a more profitable bottom line by not wasting materials and energy. Zero waste is not only sustainable; it is profitable.

In nature there is no such thing as waste; all matter is reused and recycled back into the fabric of life. Most processes are simple; photosynthesis involves sunlight to break apart water and carbon dioxide and rearrange it into oxygen and energy. The forces in nature have the potential to supercede all of our needs in terms of energy consumption. If only we learned how to harness the power of the natural world, we would never have to drill or mine another fossil fuel. Until that day arrives, we need to learn how to take more of our cues from the simple processes of nature’s beauty.

The linear model of producing waste, where waste accumulates in landfills and where products are designed simply for consumption, is not natural. In the natural world, one organism’s waste is another organism’s food. Why would our industrial processes violate the natural laws upon which all of its other feedstocks are based?

The paradigm shift we are talking about is the move from linear thinking to cyclical thinking. Instead of designing products for consumption and disposal, why not design them for reuse and durability? This simple change in the way we produce goods will allow our current economic systems to sustain itself. In the long-term, zero waste principles are the only way human society can sustain their projected growth in global population. Without waste recycling of some kind, humans will poison themselves out of living space.

Right now, landfill waste emits something like the equivalent of one-fifth of all of the coal burned in U.S. power plants. When organic matter decomposes, it releases methane gas, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Why let a gas that potent go to waste? To harvest this waste gas and process it into a clean burning natural gas that can be burned to generate electricity is a potent example of how a waste product can be turned into a commodity.

Another term for the philosophy of zero waste is called cradle to cradle thinking. Under this way of thinking, products are designed for use from their conception, through their ends, and into the life of another product. It is all very Buddhist in its reflection of product reincarnation, but it has the real potential to not only create capital where there formerly was none, but also clean up the environment in the process.

The sad state of the world is that we give incentives to industries that harvest virgin resources. Added to that, our air, water, and soil are polluted everyday by these same companies dumping their waste into the environment, essentially burdening the taxpayer twice in order to have their own future compromised by some short-sighted politician acting on behalf of these industries…but, hopefully, we will continue to learn from our mistakes.

Waste-to-energy offers investors excellent opportunities for growth in the future. The industry already has an inconceivable feedstock in the nation’s landfills, not to mention the dairy farms and wastewater treatment facilities. The consistency of feedstock is already established and the technology for processing it is nearing utility-scale. Without a doubt, cellulosic ethanol is part of the zero waste solution, as is capturing landfill gas.

While the concept of initially viewing garbage as a valuable resource may require some fancy thinking, the concept by itself is very simple. The math is even simpler. More people will inevitably produce more waste, and our current global levels of waste are choking out the life on this planet. If we do not make bold moves toward producing less waste, we will place the balance of life on earth in jeopardy. It is up to us to make the bold decision, and trust that society will come around to reward our initial investment.

_________________________________________________web recommendation
International Sustainable Development Foundation
www.isdf.org
ISDF tries to imagine a world where communities and nature thrive in harmony. The ISDF currently focuses on three initiatives: The Zero Waste Alliance, The Green Electronics Council, and The China U.S. Center for Sustainable Development. All three of these initiatives try to implement sustainable practices on a local level. Sustainability knows no borders, so ISDF operates with governments, businesses, universities, research institutions, and non-governmental organizations from all over the world. Designing mechanical systems around natural principle makes more sense than the other way around.