ABSTRACT

As society comes to terms with the environmental implications of its economic and industrial practices, the role of technology is being increasingly scrutinized. The emergence of modern socio-technical systems has marked a new phase in human creativity and scientific accomplishment, but has simultaneously resulted in the disruption of ecosystems from the local to the global level. In order to the meet the needs of a rapidly expanding human population, a fundamental reorientation of both the principles of technology development and the institutional arrangements that govern the delivery of goods and services is required. While some observers believe that technology can be harnessed and directed in ways that minimize degradation of ecosystems, it is often difficult to determine what constitutes an "environmentally sound" technology. While the explicit consideration of environmental objectives and constraints in product and process development can lead to "green" technology solutions, in reality, the question of what is green depends on how environmental problems are defined. As problem definitions change, solutions also change. Here we discuss three alternative paradigms that highlight the different roles that technology can play with respect to the environment: "Environmental Protection," "Resource Management," and "Eco-Development." The paradigms suggest different criteria for defining green technologies. In each case, technological innovation will likely have the least impact on the environment if it is used to address problems in a holistic or systems fashion.

Modern social systems have clearly broken away from the patterns of ecological stability that existed during the 2 million years when humans lived in small nomadic bands. [2] But realistically there can be no turning back. While some believe that our capacity for technical and economic progress is virtually boundless, the fact that human activities are now resulting in materials flows commensurate with those of nature should give one pause. Human releases of elements such as mercury, nickel, arsenic, and vanadium are now several times those of nature, and for lead the amount released is nearly 300 times as great as natural processes. [3] Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are increasing at a rate 30 to 100 times faster than observed in the climatic record; methane concentrations are increasing 400 times faster than historically. [4]

As society comes to terms with the environmental implications of its economic and industrial practices, the role of technology is being increasingly scrutinized. Is technology simply a vehicle for satisfying a growing list of human wants? Is technical innovation to be deployed regardless of its ecological impacts? Is it enough to develop new environmentally sensitive technologies under current economic incentives, or does there need to be a shift in the fundamental assumptions underpinning economic behavior (e.g., do we really want products or simply the services that products provide)? Can technology be used as a means for reducing rates of consumption while still providing for people's needs? Can we fulfill our obligations to future generations by simply substituting technological capital for rapidly disappearing natural capital?

These questions are not easily answered. It is clear, however, that the value structures and ethical frameworks of modernity will determine whether technological innovation is used for the protection or destruction of natural ecosystems. Technology has at once been the source of many environmental problems, but also a means for safeguarding environmental quality. [5] The emergence of concepts such as "green engineering" or "green design," reflects the underlying confidence of many observers that technology can be harnessed and directed in ways that minimize disruption of the environment. [6]

While the explicit consideration of environmental objectives and constraints in product and process development can lead to "green" technology solutions, in reality, the question of what is green depends on how environmental problems are defined. As problem definitions change, solutions also change. Indeed, one's philosophical view of the relationship between human activity and the environment strongly conditions one's understanding of the role of technology and the environmental "problems" that technology can potentially address. Here we discuss three alternative paradigms that highlight the different roles that technology can play with respect to the environment: "Environmental Protection," "Resource Management," and "Eco-Development." [7]

Paradigm 1: "Environmental Protection"

In this paradigm, the environment is recognized as an economic externality [8] that must be safeguarded through laws and regulations. Tradeoffs are seen between industrial competitiveness and protecting the environment (e.g., employment vs. protecting endangered species), and cost-benefit analysis is offered as a means of balancing the two. This view is fundamentally anthropocentric, with the principal concern being the effect of pollution on human health and welfare.

The "problem" in this case is that human society produces too much waste. This conception leads to policies that focus on reducing the quantity or toxicity of waste: e.g., waste prevention, recycling, or waste treatment. Consequently, technology should be used to reduce the quantity and toxicity of wastes requiring disposal; e.g., making products more recyclable, light-weighting, eliminating hazardous materials, etc. Progress is measured in terms of increasing the efficiency of energy and materials use; that is, reducing the quantity of energy and materials required per unit of production. This view does not concern itself explicitly with whether the physical flows of energy and materials through the economy are ecologically "sustainable."

Paradigm 2: "Resource Management"

In this view, the environment is recognized as an economic externality that must be internalized in measures of economic performance and policy decisionmaking. The earth is seen as a closed economic system, and therefore the main challenge is to "economize ecology." If those who use resources and generate pollution are made to pay the true price of those environmental services, this will lead to sustainable industrial development. Advancing technology is seen as an integral part of achieving more efficient use of energy and materials. Technologically advanced countries should aggressively transfer new, more efficient technology to developing countries, and assist them in stabilizing their populations.

The "problem" in this paradigm is that human society is managing its resources poorly, generating pollution that threatens to undermine the ecological productivity upon which the economy depends. The solution is to "get the prices right" through taxes on resource use and pollution, or perhaps tradable permits to pollute within sustainable limits. Such economic incentives are seen as providing more flexibility than regulations, so that industry can respond in the most cost-effective way.

This view assumes that environmental services can be monetized, and that functioning markets for these services can be created. It does not address uncertainties in the valuation of these services or in the correct determination of the relevant ecological thresholds or global carrying capacities. It is primarily anthropocentric, since it is concerned with the stock of "resources" available for human use, but extends its concern to quality of life of future generations as well as the present generation. Sustainable development is defined as maintaining a nondecreasing stock of human plus natural capital, implying some substitutability between the two [9]

In the resource management paradigm, technology development would involve choices that conserve resources as well as reduce wastes. Emphasis would be on the materials inputs in products, e.g., avoiding the use of materials that are toxic or become dispersed in the environment. In principle, the prices of material inputs would reflect their demand on environmental services, thus providing the correct signals to technologists and designers. The resulting price changes would cause reorganization of the production system toward cleaner technologies and discarded materials would have a higher value, thus encouraging recovery and recycling.

Paradigm 3: "Eco-Development"

The eco-development paradigm stresses the coevolution of human society and ecosystems on an equal basis. The earth is seen as a closed ecological system and therefore the principle challenge is to "ecologize the economy." This view is less anthropocentric than the resource management view, emphasizing that nature has an intrinsic value that is independent of the value placed upon it by the human economy. Thus, this view has a moral or ethical dimension that implies a transformation of societal attitudes toward nature (not assumed in the previous paradigms).

The "problem" in this case is that the scale of human economic growth is inconsistent with the long-term coexistence of humankind with nature. Sustainability is defined as nondecreasing stocks of human and natural capital maintained independently; i.e., no substitutability between technology and natural resources is assumed. [10] In the face of uncertainty about ecological thresholds and the world's carrying capacity, the "precautionary principle" applies: new technologies or development projects must demonstrate that they are consistent with sustainability as defined above before they are adopted. Progress is measured not in terms of efficiency, but in terms of the health of regional ecosystems as well as human health. [11]

Policy objectives under this paradigm would include moving toward a closed materials cycle. The economy would rely principally on renewable sources of energy and materials, extracted at rates that would not affect ecological health. Nonrenewable resources would be recovered and recycled indefinitely. Instead of tradable pollution permits, tradable permits might be issued for the extraction of a fixed quantity of nonrenewable materials. The production/consumption system would be restructured to optimize the utilization of goods to satisfy essential human needs, rather than the ownership of goods to satisfy frivolous "wants." Green products and technologies would avoid use of materials that are toxic to humans or ecological systems, substitute renewable for nonrenewable materials, and ensure that nonrenewable materials could be readily recovered for recycling.

Implications of the Paradigms

These three paradigms illustrate the different assumptions that underlie the environmental policy debate. They reflect different views of humanity's place in the natural world, and of its obligations to future generations as well as other species. Present U.S. policy is most closely approximated by the environmental protection paradigm, while many environmental groups espouse the eco-development perspective. Resource management is viewed by many policymakers as the most practical approach toward reconciling economic activity and environmental quality.

These paradigms also suggest different criteria for defining green technologies. In the environmental protection view, a specific technology or product design may be considered green if it results in less waste generation than a previous technology. The same design may be rejected from the eco-development perspective because it uses nonrenewable materials that are not recycled and do not biodegrade. Thus, green technology development within each succeeding paradigm involves satisfying a correspondingly broader set of criteria for compatibility with the natural environment. [12]

The First Steps: The Importance of Systems Thinking

Regardless of the particular paradigm that is adopted by society, technological innovation will likely have the greatest environmental benefit if it is used to address problems in a holistic or systems fashion. From an environmental perspective, it is simplistic to view technologies or products in isolation from the production and consumption systems in which they function. The greatest environmental gains lie in changing the overall systems in which technologies or products are manufactured, used, and disposed, rather than in modifying technological components or changing the composition of products per se.

Technical solutions are usually context dependent. For example, "reformulated" gasoline could be considered to be "greener" than current gasoline formulations, since it reduces emission levels of various pollutants. However, a "zero" emissions vehicle such as an electric car represents an even greener solution. The use of mass transit could be regarded as environmentally preferable to electric vehicles, and the environmental impacts associated with mass transit could perhaps be reduced by placing a greater reliance on telecommunications. Thus, there are different levels of solutions possible, with each succeeding solution having a higher degree of organizational complexity, and a more formidable set of institutional and economic obstacles. Here, the most environmentally desirable solution involves changing transportation systems rather than specific technological components (e.g., a more efficient internal combustion engine).

A true systems view implies a unified consideration of production and consumption activities: supply side and demand side requirements need to be treated in an integrated way. This implies a new way of looking at products, as well as new patterns of industrial organization. The opportunities for linking technology development and product design with system-oriented thinking have not been fully explored, but examples are beginning to appear in different sectors of the economy. For instance, pesticide use has declined dramatically where farmers have adopted integrated pest management schemes involving crop rotation, and the use of natural predators. [13] Due to the success of these new methods, chemical companies are no longer simply supplying pesticides to farmers, but are also providing expertise on how to use those chemicals in conjunction with better field design and crop management. In effect, services (i.e., knowledge) have been substituted for chemicals.

Similarly, in the energy supply sector, many utilities are providing energy audit services, and are promoting customer use of energy-efficient equipment, instead of constructing new generating plants. Energy, after all, is not used for its own sake, but rather for the services it provides, such as heating, lighting, and transportation. [14]

The examples of integrated pest management in the chemical sector, and demand-side management in the utility industry, can be applied in a more general way to other industries. When a technology or product is viewed as an agency for providing a service or fulfilling a specific need, the profit incentive changes; income is generated by "optimizing the utilization of goods rather than the production of goods." [15] The notion of thinking about a product in terms of the function it performs, is a logical extension of total quality management philosophy. The aim of total quality management is to satisfy customer needs. Customers usually don't care how their needs are met, as long as they are indeed met. Thus, it should not matter whether a customer's requirements are satisfied by a specific product, or by a service performed in lieu of that product. Systems thinking therefore offers the possibility of reducing resource consumption rates while still meeting the needs of consumers. [16]

Looking Ahead

Given the complexity of the environmental problems we are facing, it is unlikely that we will be able to discern the long term implications of the decisions we make now. This is particularly true of our technological decisions. For example, there was never a clearly articulated societal goal to become reliant on fossil fuels; this reliance came about because petroleum was able to satisfy specific technical and economic constraints that emerged at particular points in time. In light of the environmental and national security concerns associated with fossil fuel dependence, this choice of a primary energy source now seems to have been less than optimal. This example seems to follow a more general pattern of technology evolution. Recent work provides intriguing evidence that once a particular technology path is chosen, the choice may become "locked in," regardless of the advantages of the alternatives. [17]

Technological trajectories are shaped by a variety of economic, social, and political forces. Such trajectories usually cannot be changed without encountering opposition from well entrenched interests. Reconciliation of these conflicting interests requires the articulation of broad social goals by political leaders, and historically has been achieved only in times of crisis. Thus, harnessing and channeling technology in productive and ecologically sound ways will no doubt prove to be a formidable undertaking given the inertia of our political and economic systems.

Notes

[1] The world economy is consuming resources and generating wastes at unprecedented rates. In the past 100 years, the world's industrial production increased more than 50-fold. See W.W. Rostow, The World Economy: History and Prospects (Austin, TX: University of Texas

Press, 1978), pp. 48-49.

[2] Clive Ponting, "Historical Perspectives on Sustainable Development," Environment, Vol. 32, No. 9, November 1990.

[3] See James Galloway, et al. Atmospheric Environment 16(7):1678, 1982. Also see Robert U. Ayres, "Toxic Heavy Metals: Materials CyclOptimization," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 89, No. 3, Feb. 1, 1992, pp. 815-820.

[4] See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Changing By Degrees: Steps to Reduce Greenhouse Gases, OTA-O-482, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1991).

[5] For example, advances in agricultural science have greatly improved food production around the world, but at the same time the use of pesticides, an integral part of modern agricultural methods, have led to a number of environmental and human health problems. On the other hand, new pollution control technologies have greatly reduced environ-mental emissions, while new manufacturing technologies have improved materials and energy efficiency. From 1972 to 1985, for instance, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States grew by about 40 percent, but energy consumption remained basically flat. Nearly two-thirds of this decline in energy consumption was due to the intro- duction of energy efficient technologies; the remaining third was due to structural shifts in the composition of the economy (i.e., a shift away from heavy manufacturing towards services). See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Energy Use and the U.S. Economy, OTA-BP-E-57 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 1990).

[6] See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Green Products By Design: Choices for a Cleaner Environment, OTA-E-541 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1992).

[7] The discussion here is based on the taxonomy developed by Colby. A set of five paradigms, ranging from "frontier economics" to "deep ecology" is used describe the relationship between economic development and the environment. One extreme, frontier economics, focuses on economic growth and emphasizes free markets and unbridled exploitation of resources. The other extreme, deep ecology, focuses on harmony with nature and emphasizes drastic reductions in human population and the scale of human economies. Here we describe the technology implications of the three middle paradigms. See Michael E. Colby, "Environmental Management in Development," World Bank Discussion Papers 80, Washington D.C., 1990.

[8] Economists use the term "externality" to refer to spillover effects that are not accounted for by the marketplace. For example, air or water pollutants that are byproducts of an industrial process are environmental externalities. Firms do not have the incentive to reduce or eliminate such pollutants unless economic penalites such as emissions taxes are applied, or unless the firms are required to do so by regulation. See William D. Nordhaus, "The Ecology of Markets," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 89, pp. 843-850, February 1992.

[9] Human capital in this sense refers to "knowledge" or technological capital. This notion of substitutability has been called the criterion of "weak sustainability." See Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, "For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future." Beacon Press, Boston, 1989.

[10] This has been called the criterion of "strong sustainability." Ibid.

[11] Even though advanced industrial societies are becoming increasingly efficient in their use of materials, a phenomenon known as "demate- rialization," in the eyes of some, greater industrial efficiency by itself is not a sufficient response to environmental problems. Indeed the absolute quantities of materials consumed and wastes produced are increasing; they are just not increasing as fast as GNP.

[12] Moreover, within each paradigm, technologists will likely be confronted with a variety of difficult tradeoffs. For instance, there are typically many environmental tradeoffs associated with the use of a specific material. As an illustration, the new class of high temperature superconductors, which potentially offer vast improvement in power transmission efficiency and have other promising applications, are quite toxic; the best of the superconductors is based on thallium, a highly toxic heavy metal. The fact that products that use toxic materials can perform socially useful functions, or even have comparative environmental benefits, underscores the need for a flexible approach to environmental questions. For additional discussion of this issue see Green Products By Design, op. cit., footnote 6.

[13] See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Beneath the Bottom Line: Agricultural Approaches To Reduce Agrichemical Contamination of Groundwater, OTA-F-418 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 1990).

[14] But to encourage decision making on a system-wide basis, utilities need to be allowed to benefit financially from investments in efficient end-use equipment. Recent changes in regulatory frameworks have played a key role in moving utilities in this direction. See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Energy Technology Choices: Shaping Our Future, OTA-E-493, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1991).

[15] Walter Stahel, The Product-Life Institute, Geneva, Switzerland; Personal Communication. For more on this idea see Orio Giarini and Walter Stahel,"The Limits to Certainty: Facing Risks in the New Service Economy," (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989).

[16] In an ultimate sense, a true systems philosophy involves consideration of many different perspectives, and not simply an economic or technological perspective. Humanity is now confronted with a series of global problems--rapid growth and migration of populations, crushing poverty, intractable religious and ethnic conflicts, and widescale ecological damage--that in one way or another are linked together. "None of these problems can be fully addressed without considering all the others." See "The Most Vital Challenge," Statement by the Baha'i International Community at the Plenary Session of The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janiero, June 4, 1992.

[17] See W. Brian Arthur, "Positive Feedbacks in the Economy," Scientific American, February 1990.

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