NEXT PAGE -->
|
Updated Daily!
| * * * IN-HOUSE RESOURCES * * * |
|---|
September 9, 1999
The Meaning of Sustainability--Part 1 THE NATURAL STEP
The Natural Step (TNS) is a Swedish invention, a set of simple guidelines for judging whether human activities are "sustainable" or not. These simple guidelines have been adopted by several national governments (Sweden, Poland, Hungary, perhaps others), and a world-wide movement has sprung up promoting the four main principles of The Natural Step.
Until recently, it has not been easy to learn about The Natural Step (TNS) because many of the organizations and individuals who promote it survive by conducting fee-based workshops in which they reveal the details of TNS. Therefore, The Natural Step has sometimes felt almost like a cult -- to really learn what's going on, you must lay down your money and become an insider by attending a workshop.
However there is a small natural step web site (www.naturalstep.org) which includes a bibliography, and New Society Publishers recently issued a book called THE NATURAL STEP FOR BUSINESS; WEALTH, ECOLOGY AND THE EVOLUTIONARY CORPORATION.[1] By reading the book and the material on the web site and following some of the links (and reading items from the bibliography), you can get a good idea about TNS, its promise, and its present limitations.
The Natural Step was invented by a pediatric oncologist, Karl-Henrik Robert, with assistance from a physicist, John Holmberg. Robert, a respected Swedish cancer researcher, realized in the mid-1980s that humans are destroying the natural environment and lack fundamental principles for deciding what kinds of changes are needed. He said then,
"Up to now, much of the debate over the environment has had the character of monkey chatter amongst the withering leaves of a dying tree.
"We are confronted with a series of seemingly unrelated questions: Is the greenhouse effect really a threat, or will it actually prevent another ice age? Is economic growth harmful, or does it provide resources for healing the environment? Will the costs of phasing out non-renewable energy sources outweigh the benefits? Can communities, regions, or countries accomplish anything useful on their own, or must they wait for international agreements?
"In the midst of all this chatter about the 'leaves' very few of us have been paying attention to the environment's trunk and branches. They are deteriorating as a result of processes about which there is little or no controversy; and the thousands of individual problems that are the subject of so much debate are, in fact, manifestations of systemic errors that are undermining the foundations of human society."
The Natural Step was designed to guide people -- particularly business people -- who want to reverse these "systemic errors."
In 1989, Robert and Holmberg began searching for fundamental guidelines to define "sustainability," based on first principles of science. They put their ideas on paper and circulated them among the Swedish scientific community. After dozens of drafts, broad agreement was reached on four principles, which now lie at the heart of The Natural Step. Advocates of The Natural Step refer to these as "The Four System Conditions."
SYSTEM CONDITION #1: In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity will not be systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust.
Discussion from the TNS web site: In a sustainable society, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, and the mining of metals and minerals must not occur at a rate that causes them to systematically increase in the ecosphere. There are thresholds beyond which living organisms and ecosystems are adversely affected by increases in substances from the Earth's crust. Problems may include an increase in greenhouse gases leading to global warming, contamination of surface and ground water, and metal toxicity which can cause functional disturbances in animals.
In practical terms, the first condition requires society to implement comprehensive metal and mineral recycling programs, and to decrease economic dependence on fossil fuels.
The fundamental scientific principles underlying this first "system condition" are the first and second laws of thermodynamics: matter is neither created nor destroyed, so nothing ever disappears; and, the disorder (entropy) in a system spontaneously increases, so everything tends to disperse. Because physical materials never disappear and always tend to disperse, we must be reluctant to extract materials from the deep Earth. Instead, we must receycle what we've already got.
[Physical materials must be recycled about as efficiently as we presently recycle gold. There are no large buildups of waste gold anywhere in the biosphere because we recycle gold efficiently, and that should become our model for recycling. The mining of new materials from the Earth's crust must essentially cease, or must diminish so drastically that mining is hardly noticeable as a human activity any longer. --P.M.]
SYSTEM CONDITION #2: In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity will not be systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society.
Discussion from the TNS web site: In a sustainable society, humans will avoid generating systematic increases in persistent substances such as DDT, PCBs, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), such as Freon. Synthetic organic compounds such as DDT and PCBs can remain in the environment for many years, accumulating in the tissues of plants and animals, causing profound deleterious effects on creatures in the upper levels of the food chain. Freon, and other ozone depleting compounds, may increase the danger of cancer due to added ultraviolet radiation in the troposphere. Society needs to find ways to reduce economic dependence on persistent human-made substances.
[This will require us to develop materials that nature can recycle. Most of the common materials that were available to our grandparents met this requirement: for example, wood, leather, glass, cotton, silk, and iron. Disposal of these materials can occur without poisoning the biosphere or its inhabitants because nature degrades them and turns them back into raw materials. Starting in the 1920s, but really gearing up after World War II, humans created enormous quantities of materials that nature has little or no capacity to degrade and recycle. Nylon, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are typical examples. We will have to stop using such materials, and they will have to be replaced by materials that nature can readily degrade.--P.M.]
SYSTEM CONDITION #3: In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity must not be systematically impoverished by physical displacement, over-harvesting, or other forms of ecosystem manipulation.
Discussion from the TNS web site: In a sustainable society, humans will avoid taking more from the biosphere than can be replenished by natural systems. In addition, people will avoid systematically encroaching upon nature by destroying the habitat of other species. Biodiversity, which includes the great variety of animals and plants found in nature, provides the foundation for ecosystem services which are necessary to sustain life on this planet. Society's health and prosperity depends on the enduring capacity of nature to renew itself and rebuild waste into resources.
SYSTEM CONDITION #4: In a sustainable society, resources are used fairly and efficiently in order to meet basic human needs globally.
Discussion from the TNS web site: Meeting the fourth system condition is a way to avoid violating the first three system conditions for sustainability. Considering the human enterprise as a whole, we need to be efficient with regard to resource use and waste generation in order to be sustainable. If one billion people lack adequate nutrition while another billion have more than they need, there is a lack of fairness with regard to meeting basic human needs. Achieving greater fairness is essential for social stability and the cooperation needed for making large-scale changes within the framework laid out by the first three conditions.
To achieve this fourth condition, humanity must strive to improve technical and organizational efficiency around the world, and to live using fewer resources, especially in affluent areas. System condition #4 implies an improved means of addressing human population growth. If the total resource throughput of the global human population continues to increase, it will be increasingly difficult to meet basic human needs as human-driven processes intended to fulfill human needs and wants are systematically degrading the collective capacity of the Earth's ecosystems to meet these demands. [End of discussion of system conditions.]
The Natural Step is a business-oriented approach to sustainability. Karl-Henrik Robert says, "Business is the economic engine of our Western culture, and if it could be transformed to truly serve nature as well as ourselves, it could become essential to our rescue." The new book, THE NATURAL STEP FOR BUSINESS, offers four lengthy case studies of business firms that have adopted The Natural Step as the framework for changing their relationship to the natural environment. The four firms are, IKEA, the world's largest retailer of home furnishings, with headquarters in Sweden; Scandic Hotels, headquartered in Sweden but operating 120 hotels throughout northern Europe; Interface, Inc., a Fortune 1000 carpet manufacturer with headquarters in Atlanta; and the Collins Pine Company, which owns 300,000 acres of forests in Washington state, Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania. The firm prides itself on its sustainable forestry practices.
The case studies give considerable detail about how these firms became aware of their unsustainable behavior, and how they integrated The Natural Step into their business practices. It is indeed an instructive and valuable little book that offers hope for any company that intends to survive very far into the 21st century.
The Four System Conditions of The Natural Step do not answer all questions about sustainability. For example, degradation of the natural environment through the use of genetic engineering has, so far, "fallen through the cracks" of TNS thinking. This oversight has allowed Monsanto Corporation to engage in a preposterous greenwash by claiming that it has a close affinity to The Natural Step. Worse, Paul Hawken, who brought The Natural Step to the U.S., has publicly praised Monsanto for its visionary approach to business. All of this has tarnished the image of the Natural Step among U.S. environmentalists and made the whole effort suspect. This is unfortunate because TNS has real promise.
As Karl-Henrik Robert has said, "We are racing toward world-wide poverty in a monstrous, poisonous garbage dump. The only thing that can save us from the consequences is the restoration of cyclical processes in which wastes become new resources for society or nature." This simple prescription and the four system conditions go a long way toward defining sustainability. However, there are a few additional concepts that could be added. More next week.
--Peter Montague
THE BAD SEED
Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis has been maneuvering for more than a decade to dominate the world's supply of seed for staple crops (corn, soybeans, potatoes) -- a business plan that Monsanto's critics say is nothing short of diabolical. Monsanto says it is just devilishly good business.
Monsanto has spent upwards of $8 billion in recent years buying numerous U.S. seed companies. As a result, two firms, Monsanto and Pioneer (recently purchased by DuPont), now dominate the U.S. seed business. Monsanto specializes in genetically modified seeds -- seeds having particular properties that Monsanto has patented.
The U.S. government is very enthusiastic about these new technologies. From the viewpoint of U.S. foreign policy, genetically modified seeds offer a key advantage over traditional seeds: because genetically modified seeds are patented, it is illegal for a farmer to retain seed from this year's crop to plant next year. To use these patented seeds, farmers must buy new seed from Monsanto every year. Thus a farmer who adopts genetically modified seeds and fails to retain a stock of traditional seeds could become dependent upon a transnational corporation. Nations whose farmers grew dependent upon corporations for seed might forfeit considerable political independence. The Clinton/Gore administration has been aggressively helping Monsanto promote ag-biotech, bypassing U.S. health and safety regulations to promote new, untested gene-altered products.
A key component of the U.S./Monsanto plan to dominate world agriculture with genetically modified seeds is the absence of labeling of genetically engineered foods. All U.S. foods carry labels listing the ingredients: salt, sugar, water, vitamins, etc. But three separate executive agencies -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -- have ruled that genetically-modified foods deserve an exception: they can be sold without being labeled "genetically modified." This strategy has successfully prevented consumers from exercising informed choice in the marketplace, reducing the likelihood of a consumer revolt, at least in the U.S., at least for now.
Earlier this year, opposition to genetically modified foods exploded in England and quickly spread to the European continent. (See REHW #649.) Burgeoning consumer opposition has now swept into Asia and back to North America. The NEW YORK TIMES reported last week that, "the Clinton Administration's efforts have grown increasingly urgent, in an attempt to contain the aversion to these crops that is leaping from continent to continent."[1]
** Recently Japan -- the largest Asian importer of U.S. food -- passed a law requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods.[1] A subsidiary of Honda Motor Company immediately announced that it will build a plant in Ohio and hire farmers to supply it with traditional, unaltered soy beans. Soy is the basis of tofu, a staple food in Japan.
Subsequently, the largest and third-largest Japanese beer makers, Kirin Brewery and Sapporo Breweries, Ltd., announced that they will stop using genetically modified corn by 2001. Other Japanese brewers are expected to follow suit.
** The Reuters North America wire service reported Sept. 1 that South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have all now passed laws requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods. Reuters says the U.S. government has publicly protested against such labeling laws and has privately lobbied hard against them, unsuccessfully.
** Grupo Maseca, Mexico's leading producer of corn flour -- recently announced it will no longer purchase any genetically modified corn. Corn flour is made into tortillas, a Mexican staple. Mexico buys $500 million of U.S. corn each year, so the Grupo Maseca announcement sent a chill through midwestern corn farmers who planted Monsanto's genetically modified seeds.[1] About 1/3 of this year's U.S. corn crop is being grown from genetically modified seeds.
** Gerber and Heinz -- the two leading manufacturers of baby foods in the U.S. -- announced in July that they would not allow genetically modified corn or soybeans in any of their baby foods.[2] After the baby food announcements, Iams, the high-end pet food producer, announced that it would not purchase any of the seven varieties of genetically modified corn that have not been approved by the European Union. This announcement cut off an alternative use that U.S. farmer's had hoped to make of corn rejected by overseas buyers.
** As the demand for traditional, unmodified corn and soy has grown, a two-price system for crops has developed in the U.S. -- a higher price for traditional, unmodified crops, and a lower price for genetically modified crops. For example, Archer Daniels Midland is paying some farmers 18 cents less per bushel for genetically modified soybeans, compared to the traditional product.[1]
** The American Corn Growers Association, which represents mainly family farmers, has told its members that they should consider planting only traditional, unmodified seed next spring because it may not be possible to export genetically modified corn.[1]
** Deutsche Bank, Europe's largest bank, has issued two reports within the past six months advising its large institutional investors to abandon ag-biotech companies like Monsanto and Novartis.[3] In July, 1998, Monsanto stock was selling for $56 per share; today it is about $41, a 27% decline despite the phenomenal success of Monsanto's new arthritis medicine, Celebrex.
In its most recent report, Deutsche Bank said, "...[I]t appears the food companies, retailers, grain processors, and governments are sending a signal to the seed producers that 'we are not ready for GMOs [genetically modified organisms].'"
Deutsche Bank's Washington, D.C., analysts, Frank Mitsch and Jennifer Mitchell, announced nine months ago that ag-biotech "was going the way of the nuclear industry in this country." "But we count ourselves surprised at how rapidly this forecast appears to be playing out," they told the London GUARDIAN in late August.[3]
In Europe, the ag-biotech controversy is playing out upon a stage created by an earlier -- and ongoing -- scientific dispute over sex hormones in beef.[4] About 90% of U.S. beef cattle are treated with sex hormones -- three naturally-occurring (estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone) and three synthetic hormones that mimic the natural ones (zeranol, melengesterol acetate, and trenbolone acetate). Hormone treatment makes cattle grow faster and produces more tender, flavorful cuts of beef.
Since 1995 the European Union has prohibited the treatment of any farm animals with sex hormones intended to promote growth, on grounds that sex hormones are known to cause several human cancers. As a byproduct of that prohibition, the EU refuses to allow the import of hormone-treated beef from the U.S. and Canada.
The U.S. asserts that hormone-treated beef is entirely safe and that the European ban violates the global free trade regime that the U.S. has worked religiously for 20 years to create. The U.S. argues that sex hormones only promote human cancers in hormone-sensitive tissues, such as the female breast and uterus. Therefore, the U.S. argues, the mechanism of carcinogenic action must be activation of hormone "receptors" and therefore there is a "threshold" -- a level of hormones below which no cancers will occur. Based on risk assessments, the U.S. government claims to know where that threshold level lies. Furthermore, the U.S. claims it has established a regulatory process that prevents any farmer from exceeding the threshold level in his or her cows.
In a 136-page report issued in late April, an EU scientific committee argues that hormones may cause some human cancers by an entirely different mechanism -- by interfering directly with DNA.[5] If that were true, there would be no threshold for safety and the only safe dose of sex hormones in beef would be zero. "If you assume no threshold, you should continually be taking steps to get down to lower levels, because no level is safe," says James Bridges, a toxicologist at the University of Surrey in Guilford, England.[4]
Secondly, the EU spot-checked 258 meat samples from the Hormone Free Cattle program run jointly by the U.S. beef industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This program is intended to raise beef cattle without the use of hormones, thus producing beef eligible for import into Europe. The spot check found that 12% of the "hormone free" cattle had in fact been treated with sex hormones. EU officials cite this as evidence that growth hormones are poorly regulated in the U.S. beef industry and that Europeans might be exposed to higher-than-allowed concentrations if the ban on North American imports were lifted. "These revelations are embarrassing for U.S. officials," reports SCIENCE magazine.[4] Nevertheless, the U.S. continues to assert that its hormone-treated beef is 100% safe.
Thus we have a classic scientific controversy characterized by considerable scientific uncertainty. This particular scientific dispute has profound implications for the future of all regulation under a global free trade regime -- including regulation of toxic chemicals -- because the European Union is basing its opposition to hormone-treated beef on the precautionary principle. The U.S. insists that this precautionary approach is an illegal restraint of free trade.
The EU's position is clearly precautionary: "Where scientific evidence is not black and white, policy should err on the side of caution so that there is zero risk to the consumer," the EU says.[6] The Danish pediatric researcher, Niels Skakkebaek, says the burden of proof lies with those putting hormones in beef: "The possible health effects from the hormones have hardly been studied -- the burden of proof should lie with the American beef industry," Skakkebaek told CHEMICAL WEEK, a U.S. chemical industry publication that is following the beef controversy closely.[6]
It appears that European activists have seized upon hormones in beef, and upon Monsanto's seed domination plan, as a vehicle for opposing a "global free trade" regime in which nations lose their power to regulate markets to protect public health or the environment. The NEW YORK TIMES reports that a Peasant Confederation of European farmers derives much of its intellectual inspiration and direction from a new organization, called Attac, formed last year in France to fight the spread of global free trade regimes.[7] The Confederation has destroyed several McDonald's restaurants and dumped rotten vegetables in others. Patrice Vidieu, the secretary-general of the Peasant Confederation, told the TIMES, "What we reject is the idea that the power of the marketplace becomes the dominant force in all societies, and that multinationals like McDonald's or Monsanto come to impose the food we eat and the seeds we plant."
What began as consumer opposition to genetically-modified seed appears to be turning into an open revolt against the 25-year-old U.S.-led effort to impose free-trade regimes world-wide, enthroning transnational corporations in the process. If approached strategically by ALLIANCES of U.S. activists and their overseas counterparts (and it MUST NOT be viewed as merely a labeling dispute) genetic engineering could become the most important fight in more than a century.
--Peter Montague
NEXT PAGE -->
|
| * * * IN-HOUSE RESOURCES * * * |
|---|