Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 89, pp. 870-872, February 1992 Colloquium Paper

This paper was presented at a colloquium entitled "Industrial Ecology," organized by C. Kumar N. Patel, held May 20 and 21, 1991, at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. The transition to a sustainable society JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH World Resources Institute, 1709 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20006

ABSTRACT Transitions in dealing with the root causes of fisheries on which their future depends because no alterna- environmental problems are advocated to achieve environmen- tive is open to them. The world's deserts are advancing, while tal sustainability. These transformations include (0) a demo- its forests, with their immense wealth of life forms, are in graphic transition, (ii) a technology transition that includes the retreat. On average, an acre and a half of tropical forests "green" automobile, (Wil) an economic transition to one in disappears every second; four species are committed to which prices reflect full environmental costs, (iv) a transition in extinction every hour. social equity, and (v) an institutional transition to different For the first time, human numbers and impacts have grown arrangements among governments, businesses, and peoples. so large that they are eroding on a global scale the natural Businessmen and environmentalists are urged to work together systems that support life. in the next decade to make the environment a personal issue, Moreover, these challenges promise to multiply in the to call for government action, to recognize the environmental future. World population is projected to double in the life- challenges, and to commit to accountability in order to leave a times of today's children. World economic activity is pro- legacy of hope to the twenty-first century. jected to be five times that of today in 60 years. Imagine, just as a simple thought experiment, what would The concepts of industrial ecology and industrial metabolism happen if climate-altering gases, industrial waste, and other offer important insights both for further academic investiga- pollutants increased proportionately with the 5-fold expan- tions and for practical applications. sion in world economic activity projected for the middle of We certainly need to change course. I am convinced, after the next century. These increases would, indeed, occur if this 20 years of working on environmental issues, that present growth merely replicates over and over today's prevailing approaches will not accomplish the job, because they do not technologies, products, and lifestyles. More of the same will focus enough on underlying problems at the root of our thus not work; it will merely make difficult problems into environmental troubles. The approaches of the 1970s have impossible ones. Fundamental changes are needed. bought us time but not much more. Unless we find innovative At the World Resources Institute we have thought hard ways to meet the challenges of the 1990s, we will lose the about what these changes should be and how we can imple- battle for the planet. ment them-and we have arrived at a set of essential tran- Why are new approaches so urgent? Consider our cen- sitions. These large-scale transitions-or transformations- tury's exponential growth trends. Since 1950, world popula- are essential for human society to approach sustainability. tion has doubled to over 5 billion. The output of the world The transitions I will mention briefly seek to deal with the economy has quadrupled. Economic activity on the planet root causes of environmental problems. These transitions today is greater by a factor of four than when I was a boy of recognize that the solutions to underlying causes lie mostly 10. It took all of human history to build a world economy that outside the established "environmental sector." And I doubt produced about $600 billion in output in 1900. Today, the that any of these transitions can succeed without the active world economy grows by this amount every 2 years. support and leadership of both the technical and the business For over a billion of us, principally those of us in the rich communities. countries, this growth has brought material wealth unimag- (i) The first transition will not surprise you. It is the need inable by earlier generations. But it has also brought pollu- for a demographic transition to population stability before tion, waste, and consumption of the planet's resources on an world population doubles again. Population pressures al- unprecedented scale. ready exacerbate virtually every environmental challenge we The buildup in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other face. It is hard enough to imagine a workable world with 10 gases from fossil fuel use now threatens far-reaching climate billion people, mostly living in the already stressed develop- change. Seven of the hottest 10 years on record have been in ing world, much less a world of 14 billion people. Cutting the last decade. Other gases-principally the chlorofluoro- birth rates requires making many changes that will alleviate carbons-are depleting Earth's ozone layer, which shields us poverty, raise the status of women, make family planning from the sun's UV radiation. And over large areas of the service universally available, improve health care, and pro- globe, air pollutants are escaping urban-industrial areas and vide old age support. Developing countries that set out on invading the countryside, seriously damaging aquatic life, such a course should be able to count on help from nations forests, and crops. and businesses that have the resources to help. Meanwhile, in the poorer countries, the legions of the poor (ii) The second transition is more directly relevant to this and resource-dependent have swollen dramatically. A billion colloquium. It is a transition in technology to a new gener- people in the developing world live in hunger and poverty, ation of environmentally benign technologies-to technolo- often destroying the fragile base of soils, water, forests, and gies that sharply reduce the consumption of natural resources and the generation ofresidual products per unit of prosperity. The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge We need a worldwide environmental revolution in tech- payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" nology-a rapid ecological modernization of industry and in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. agriculture. The prescription is straightforward but im- 870 Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 Colloquium Paper: Speth Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89 (1992) 871 mensely challenging: the only way to reduce pollution and management that greatly improve efficient use of raw mate- resource consumption while achieving expected economic rials and reduce both waste and environmental pressures; and growth is to bring about a wholesale transformation in the other computer and telecommunications applications that technologies that today dominate manufacturing, energy, can strengthen satellite remote sensing, monitoring instru- transportation, and agriculture. We must rapidly abandon the mentation, and environmental management through artificial twentieth century technologies that have contributed so intelligence. abundantly to today's problems and replace them with twen- Most important, perhaps, is producing and marketing the ty-first century technologies designed with environmental "green" automobile. There is probably no product that sustainability in mind. causes so much environmental damage as today's car. From Today, everyone speaks positively of "environmentally an environmental point of view, we will need cars that are sustainable development." What this means in the context of super-efficient users of fuel, and the day is approaching, pollution is technology transformation. It is a transformation perhaps faster than we know, when we must move beyond that must be made in the decades immediately ahead and vehicles that operate on fossil fuels. Both hydrogen- and must begin today. And, for it to succeed, this transformation electric-powered vehicles are possible, and both hydrogen must have leadership from America's research and develop- and electricity can be made from renewable energy sources, ment and business communities. In several ways, the green- such as photovoltaic cells and wind power. ing of technology is your job. (iii) The third needed transition is an economic transition The needed fusion of economic and environmental objec- to a world in which prices reflect the full environmental costs. tives requires technologies that meet two criteria, both linked The revolution in technology just discussed will not happen to the concept of industrial metabolism. First, the needed unless there is a parallel revolution in pricing. Most of us live technologies must be able to transform industry and trans- in market economies. The corrective most needed now is portation from materials-intensive, "high-throughput" pro- environmentally honest prices. Doing the right thing envi- cesses to systems that use fuel and raw materials highly ronmentally should be cheaper, not more expensive, as it so efficiently, rely on inputs with low environmental costs, often is today. generate little or no waste, recycle residual products, and It has been said that the planned economies failed because release only benign effluents. The need, in short, is for prices did not reflect economic realities. It might also be said technological systems that are more and more environmen- that the market economies will fail unless prices reflect tally "closed"-that is, detached as much as possible from ecological realities. Getting the prices right would require, for natural systems. starters, that we get rid of subsidies. Today, many countries Second, because the first criterion can't be fully met while subsidize the consumption of forest resources, automotive human annual consumption of nature's land-based photosyn- transport, energy, and water, and the use of pesticides, to thesis approaches 40%, technological innovations must help mention a few. societies move toward living off nature's income rather than Beyond subsidy elimination, we should impose environ- consuming nature's capital. An honest accounting of the mental user fees, levying taxes on pollution and the use of costs of such "capital depletion" would show that few virgin materials. Doing so would also raise government societies are doing anything of the sort today. revenues, so pricing reform can go hand in hand with tax For any economic system-firm, industry, nation, or com- reform that shifts some of the tax burden away from "good" munity of nations-environmental damage over time is in one things, such as earning income and investing, and on to such sense a function of the consumption of inputs from environ- "bad" things as pollution and waste. mentally unsustainable processes, the generation ofpollution (iv) The fourth transition is a transition in social equity to and postconsumption waste, and other factors. This damage a fair sharing of economic and environmental benefits both won't stabilize and decline until pollution per unit of output within and among countries. Over much of the world, the and materials consumption per unit of output-factors that greatest destroyer of the environment is poverty-because are at their core technological-decline rapidly enough to the poor have no alternative. If we want to do something outweigh growth in economic output. "Technological trans- about the environment, then we must do something about formation for environmental sustainability" is thus a process poverty. The developing world desperately needs both cut- that reduces environmental damage per unit of output fast ting-edge technology and major new financial resources enough to greatly outpace production increases. dedicated to sustainable development. The business commu- Bringing about this transformation will not be certain, nity is essential to filling both needs. quick, or easy. Many adverse trends in global environmental (v) None ofthese transitions is possible without a fifth-an quality are evident. Nevertheless, the current moment offers institutional transition to different arrangements among gov- special potential, in part because of technological develop- ernments, businesses, and peoples. These institutional ar- ments in such fields as biotechnology, information services, rangements are urgently needed to enlist the tremendous and advanced materials. These advances could create a new potential of the private sector in what must be an unprece- technical base for long-term environmentally sustainable dented cooperative effort to bring about this environmental development. revolution in technology. Some of the following technologies are possible now or In the past, government support of new technologies soon should be: manufacturing processes and motors that cut through such mechanisms as research and development energy needs in half; gas turbines that cogenerate electricity funding, procurement, and research consortia has led to great and heat 50% more efficiently than today's power plants; strides in aerospace technology, computers, defense, and solar thermal and wind systems that are producing electricity medicine. Similar mechanisms could also advance environ- today at prices competitive with nuclear power and photo- mentally sustainable technologies while promoting U.S. voltaic power that promises to be competitive within a competitiveness. Large areas of important "generic" re- decade; manufacturing processes that make detoxification search-widely applicable research that is too far removed possible and waste elimination profitable; new microbial and from marketable products to garner sufficient industry sup- other bioengineered products that can substitute for chemical port, but too "applied" to interest most academic laborato- pesticides and fertilizers, help treat effluents and other waste, ries-remain underfunded. We must all work to make envi- promote vegetation growth on impoverished soils, and in- ronmental objectives a truly major part of U.S. discussions crease the potential of biological sources of energy; minia- and actions on competitiveness, technology policy, and re- turization, microprocessors, and computer-aided design and search and development funding. Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 872 Colloquium Paper: Speth Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 89 (1992) Beyond technology cooperation, environmentalists and and forge modes ofcooperation that work upstream to design business leaders must make a common cause of reforming a sustainable system for the future. current regulatory approaches. Many environmental laws Let me summarize by stating what I would urge the favor old technologies over new ones and prescribe cumber- business and technical communities to do: (i) Make the some administrative procedures that impede innovation. environment a personal issue, not someone else's issue. (ii) Relying on "best available technology" standards has tended Move beyond compliance to leadership-leadership in going to entrench existing technologies at the expense ofnew ones, beyond standards and leadership in developing the technol- although that result was certainly not the original intent. ogies and products of the future. (iii) Call for government Regulations often focus on only one medium (air, water, or Develop proposals for land) rather than across the whole spectrum and tilt toward action, rather than waiting for it. "end-of-pipe" pollution controls instead of prevention op- government, because governments need this leadership to tions. Regulations also fail to incorporate incentives for support research and development for a green future, elim- beating the minimum standards they set. Foremost among the inate subsidies, and make prices reflect environmental costs. policy tools needed to facilitate innovation is the greatly (iv) Recognize and address the great environmental chal- expanded use of performance-based standards and economic lenges ofthe day. Today, the two biggest challenges are the instruments. Public disclosure requirements, along the lines need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shifting to ofthe Toxic Release Inventory required under Title III of the sustainable energy strategies, particularly in industrial coun- U.S. Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, can tries, and the need to reverse the deterioration of the natural also increase public demands and corporate incentives for resource base, particularly in the developing countries. (v) environmental protection. Commit to accountability. Bring outside environmental ex- One exciting thing to me is that these transitions give perts and leaders onto corporate boards and committees, business leaders and environmentalists a common agen- make complete environmental disclosures, and have envi- da-an agenda that sees technology as part of the solution ronmental accounts independently audited. and not just part of the problem, an agenda that recognizes Ifwe pursue these approaches, the 1990s can be an exciting the need to replace old stocks in the economy with ecolog- period in which different approaches are launched, new ically modem capital equipment and consumer durables, an partnerships are created, and the full power of modern agenda that stresses market-based approaches and economic technology is applied to achieving sustainable development. incentives, and an agenda that requires environmental and If that happens, we can leave a legacy of hope-our most business leaders to move away from adversarial approaches important gift to the new century. 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