Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2020 The Necessity for Sustainable Development in Indonesia: A Governmental Analysis and Carbon Neutral Coliving Recommendation Michael Wirth Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses Part of the Environmental Studies Commons Recommended Citation Wirth, Michael, "The Necessity for Sustainable Development in Indonesia: A Governmental Analysis and Carbon Neutral Coliving Recommendation" (2020). CMC Senior Theses. 2378. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2378 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Necessity for Sustainable Development in Indonesia: A Governmental Analysis and Carbon Neutral Coliving Recommendation Submitted to Giorgi Areshidze, Ph.D. by Michael Wirth for Senior Thesis Spring 2020 May 11th, 2020 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Sustainable development is the core of this thesis. We span a variety of different topics throughout our discussion, ranging from a governmental analysis of Indonesia to philosophical discussions about the necessity of community in coliving spaces. Ultimately, our argument is unified by a common sentiment to promote sustainable practices. This thesis divides itself into four key body chapters. The first two are centered around the Indonesian government, with particular attention paid to current emissions and sustainable developments within the country. The latter two make a stark shift towards discussing the increasing prevalence of coliving spaces. The connecting thread between these two broad themes is the propensity for a carbon neutral coliving space to offer a solution to Indonesia’s high emissions and poor sustainable developments. In Chapter 2, we accentuate the natural richness of Indonesia, its critical role in the broader environmental health of our planet, and how preserving such natural richness is in the Indonesian government’s best interest. Our argument in Chapter 2 exposes how the exceptional tourist growth in Indonesia will only be maintained if the natural wonders of the country are maintained as well. Thus, we are able to successfully make an argument for the implementation of sustainabile practices based on economics. The reason for doing such stems from the sad fact that pointing to systematic global warming and the deterioration of earth’s most essential ecosystems has been an ineffective argument in motivating sustainable developments. Chapters 2 and 3 connect in their shared discussion about the challenges associated with tourism development, international institutional support, and the disenfranchisement of indigenous populations. We specifically shed light upon the combatting national and local interests within the country. 1 2 Chapter 3 further concretizes the necessity to transition away from primarily heavy fossil fuel consumption to the implementation of renewable energies. To do so, we employ the economic argument that immense coal usage within Indonesia results in immense negative externality costs to the nation. In doing so, we make the obvious point that coal is an extremely pollutive energy source that not only damages our planet but results in significant negative health effects for Indonesian citizens. Chapter 4 marks a significant transition away from an Indonesian focus to analyzing trends associated with travel and the increasing nomadic lifestyle among younger generations. We point to the fact that Millennials are universally less likely to be homeowners for a variety of reasons that are both economic and cultural. This discussion serves as a precursor for the latter half of Chapter 4, which is a comparative analysis of three coliving companies, and Chapter 5. In our comparison of existing coliving companies, we explore what are the successful components of two of the largest existing companies at the moment: Roam and Outsite. Furthermore, we briefly explore the philosophy of the yet to be developed company Comunita and their prioritization of sustainability. Finally, Chapter 5 serves to outline the components of a sustainable coliving space acknowledging the cultural importance of the location where it resides. This begins with an exploration into passive design strategies, a high-performance building envelope, and the incorporation of on-site renewable energies. This discussion pertains to the equatorial-tropical environment of Indonesia and includes a framework for how a coliving space ought to include existing architectural traditions of the location where it will be constructed. These chapters, in sum, serve to offer a humble example for the Indonesian government to begin its incremental path towards sustainability. Furthermore, they serve to exemplify 2 3 increasing globalization, how coliving spaces align with that trend, and how the incorporation of sustainable practices are a logical preference in their development. 3 4 Chapter 2: Natural Richness of Indonesia Driving Exceptional Tourism GDP This chapter serves to develop an understanding of the necessity for promoting sustainable developments within Indonesia. To develop a fundamental understanding of such, this chapter will be broken down into three parts: (1) we will explore Indonesia’s impressive natural wonders and how they are critical to our planet’s health; (2) outline their exemplary tourist growth while acknowledging global tourist motivation to extrapolate the fundamental importance for Indonesia to implement sustainable development practices to continue to drive tourism growth; (3) analyze their economic competitiveness to determine the feasibility of implementing sustainable development practices. Together, these three focal points emphasize the necessity for a transition to renewable energy use and utilization of future sustainable development practices. Indonesia’s Biodiversity and Global Climate Influence Indonesia impressively stands as one of the world’s most diverse countries in terms of wildlife and geographic diversity. Fully exploring the biodiversity and natural wonders of this nation would require an extensive analysis beyond the scope of this research. Nonetheless, a brief overview of the natural wonders of the nation will set the scene for why sustainable energy practices are in the best interest of our global health. Furthermore, they will serve as a precursor for our argument as to why the Indonesian government ought to prioritize sustainable development goals for grander developmental purposes. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic country–in other words, a country comprised of a series of islands. They have over 17,000 islands which boast the natural richness and biodiversity of the nation. In fact, the Ran organization acknowledges them as one of the richest biodiverse countries in the world, with vast tropical rainforests and the possession of significant 4 5 energy and mineral resources.1 The country contains a variety of natural wonders: including the world’s largest mangrove forests, volcanoes emerging from tropical islands, sea reefs housing the world’s greatest diversity of coral fish, and extensive rainforests. Now, we could analyze how each of these natural wonders contributes to our planet’s healthy ecosystem, however, we will only perform a surface-level analysis of the Indonesian rainforest to accentuate the necessity for preservation from a global perspective. The rainforests in Indonesia are considered the third largest in the world behind the Amazon and Congo Basin. Indonesia only covers 1 percent of the land area on Earth, yet it’s rainforests, incredibly, contain “10 percent of the world’s known plant species, 12 percent of mammal species. .and 17 percent of all known bird species.”2 These rainforests are more than just a magnificent home to some of the most diverse animal and plant populations across the globe, as they are critical for our planet’s greater health. Rainforests are commonly referred to as the lungs of the world: the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Study found that all tropical rainforests contain roughly 25% of the world’s carbon.3 In turn, these forests convert this carbon into breathable oxygen. To emphasize the importance of carbon storage and oxygen production from rainforests, it is estimated that the entire deforestation of the Amazon would emit an amount of carbon into the atmosphere equivalent to 140 years of global human-induced carbon emissions.4 Not only are rainforests the lungs for the Earth, but they are fundamentally necessary for regulating our climate through water circulation: more than half of the Earth’s rainwater is stored among rainforests and recycled throughout the globe with cloud circulation. Without the process 1 See Indonesia’s Rainforests: Biodiversity and Endangered Species 2 Ibid. 3 See Trust, R. 4 Ibid. 5 6 of rainforests recycling massive quantities of water, disease and famine would multiply because of perpetual droughts.5 Preserving the Indonesian rainforest is necessary for maintaining our planet’s healthy ecological systems. However, the message that such natural components are necessary to preserve earth’s health and combat global warming has been ineffective. Thus, the environmental argument need not rely on human fear of natural biodiversity deterioration, but rather an institutional argument exemplifying the economic and