Whole-Systems Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production
3 Programs that Support Whole-Systems Approaches to Sustainability
3.1 Program One: Incorporate systems thinking into UN program design and delivery
3.1.1 Objectives
Develop capacity within the UN to use whole-systems, integrated problem-solving to design its programs.
Develop capacity within the UN to teach these problem-solving techniques to its various clients.
3.1.2 Background
For generations, engineers, scientists, and managers prepared themselves to solve complex problems by becoming increasingly specialized—by reducing problems to their constituent parts and focusing their attention on each part. As a result, for instance, architects design a building, mechanical engineers devise its heating system, lighting designers draw up plans for illumination, and interior designers plan the resulting spaces. This separation of design functions and professions often results in inefficient design, construction delays, oversized heating systems, higher costs, and unnecessary environmental impacts.
Sidebar: Operation Cat Drop Lack of whole-systems thinking can result in more important consequences than poor building design; it can also result in serious unforeseen problems. In Borneo in the 1950s, the World Health Organization (WHO) attempted to solve the problem of malaria afflicting the Dyack people. Their simple solution was to spray DDT to kill mosquitoes. The operation was considered a success until the thatch roofs of most houses started falling down. It was determined that the DDT also killed wasps that had previously preyed on thatch-eating caterpillars. Without the wasps, the caterpillars were rampant and ate the roofs of the village houses. WHO then discovered a worse problem: the DDT built up in the food
chain, poisoning insects that were eaten by lizards which, in turn, were eaten by cats. As
the cats died, rats proliferated, and the area was faced with outbreaks of sylvatic plague
and typhus. WHO eventually enlisted the Royal Air Force to parachute 14,000 live cats into
Borneo. If WHO had considered the implications of spraying DDT from a whole-systems
perspective, this entire fiasco might have been avoided and a more appropriate solution
sought. -Natural Capitalism, p. 155-156 |
Whole-systems thinking, an alternative to counter-productive, linear problem-solving, was
described at length in section 2.3.
Whole-systems ideas have specific and practical design and problem-solving applications. For example, Rocky Mountain Institute conducts intensive workshops based on integrated whole-systems thinking. It has used its technique in scores of circumstances for design or redesign of buildings, land parcels, communities, petrochemical plants, food and industrial processing facilities, and even refugee shelters. Results have included attractive, functional, and profitable design, plus significant reductions in energy consumption, cost, waste, environmental impacts, and resource inputs.
3.1.3 Anticipated Outcomes
 | Lower cost, more effective, and more efficient UN programs with fewer unintended consequences, including environmental impacts. |
| Understanding among UN personnel and leaders of the value of integrated, whole-systems design. |
3.1.4 Program Activities
3.1.4.1 Short term
| Test the value of integrated, whole-systems design in one department of the UN (the capacity-building branch of the UNEP, for example) by contracting appropriate organizations to: |
| conduct intensive workshops with UN personnel to help design or redesign certain selected UN programs, |
| teach selected UN personnel whole-systems problem-solving techniques, and |
| teach UN personnel to teach whole-systems problem-solving techniques to
selected UN clients. |
3.1.4.2 Medium Term
| Expand the use of whole-systems design and training to additional UN programs, based on tests conducted in the short term. |
| Integrate whole-systems design into the development of UN programs. |
| Integrate the teaching of whole-systems thinking into appropriate client-delivery programs. |
3.1.4.3 Long Term
| Require the use of integrated whole-system thinking in the design and delivery of all UN programs. |
3.2 Program Two: Support the Widespread Use of Integrated Economic and Environmental Modeling Tools.
3.2.1 Objectives
Foster the further development of predictive models that promote the understanding of the interactions between the economy and the environment.
In particular, focus on simulation tools to support decisions that have large environmental effects: government policy, investment, and product design.
Promote research into using computer models to help design, support, and monitor other environmental programs, particularly those that operate together across different levels of the investment, production, consumption, and waste system.
3.2.2 Background
Computer simulation of environmental problems supported and informed the strategies that scientists and policymakers developed to combat the erosion of the ozone layer. Such models today encourage political action on greenhouse gas emissions by forecasting the effects of global warming.16
Computer modeling is one essential tool for breaking through what is superficially "known" about systems to understand the dynamics of the system itself. This kind of preconception-challenging approach can improve the quality of mental and social models. It is by changing these models that real change is effected.17
Computer modeling of our economic and environmental systems can demonstrate the benefits and feasibility of sustainable consumption and sustainable production. Accurate and widely accepted models can provide a basis for implementing system-wide changes and can help target programs for maximum effect.
Widespread Deployment of Existing Tools
The current generation of economic/environmental modeling tools are under-used. Many product designers do not have access to environmental assessment tools, the training to use them properly, or a legislative requirement to produce impact statements. Small and/or poor governments do not have indigenous computer modeling expertise or the resources to develop it, yet must still make decisions about the impact of environmental programs.
Targeted Development of the Next Generation of Tools
The current generation of simulation tools model a single dimension of complexity each: one tool models macroeconomics and another, new products. There is a need for a new generation of tools that performs simulations like these across domain boundaries—tools, for example, that can help a product designer see the waste management or capital requirements of his organization’s products, or help an economist to make the case for decentralizing the electrical infrastructure of a nation by modeling the economic gains.
In particular, there is a need for tools that can model the combined effects of actions at different levels. Most environmental problems are being simultaneously addressed at financial, educational, cultural, and technical levels. Effective modeling tools need to be able to simulate program effects on each of these levels and sum the effects into a picture of the whole system. Tools like these could help design a new generation of environmental intervention programs that focus on multiple levels of action within a single modeling and monitoring framework.
An Overview of Current Modeling Programs:
Macroeconomic Modeling: Support for Governments and International Agencies
The GEM-E3 model, developed by the European Commission, analyzes the macro-economy and its interactions with energy systems and the environment. This system models each nation individually, with data reflecting taxes, consumption, investment, and import/export activity. The model is sufficiently specific to allow fine-grained analyses of policy options and effects.18
For example, this model was used to compute the likely economic impacts of different CO2 emission-reduction strategies in Switzerland. The results indicated the secondary economic benefits of using a domestic carbon tax rather than buying CO2 permits on the international market.19
Industrial Life-Cycle Analysis: Support for companies
The "Economic Input-Output Model for Environmental Life Cycle Analysis" by the Carnegie Mellon University Green Design20 combines a variety of U.S. government data on environmental impacts and economic interdependencies. Researchers can use the model to calculate the total cumulative environmental and economic impact of economic activity in some 485 different economic areas, such as "Commercial Fishing" or "Air Freight."
For example, the EIOLCA simulation reports that $1 million of spending on "book printing" (one of its 485 economic categories) will release 4.3 million metric tons of CO2. All the different emission sources for each economic category are shown individually, so it is clear that "paper production" and "transport" account for almost half of the emissions in the book printing process.
Product Life-Cycle Analysis: Support for Product Designers
Product life-cycle analysis tools, such as the SimaPro21 system, help designers understand the impact of their products.
SimaPro, for example, maps a product as a set of inputs (such as 0.4 kg injection-molded plastic, 0.1 kg steel, 300w power consumption) that are individually rated for environmental impact using pre-defined assessment tables. The system produces a simple analysis of a proposed design. In this instance, it shows that the major environmental impact of this product will come from its power consumption over the lifetime of the product.
3.2.3 Anticipated Outcomes
| Enhanced awareness and use of product-design and life-cycle-analysis tools throughout industry. |
| Broader awareness of simulation as an important step in environmental decision making processes. |
| A more refined match between available tools and needs for simulation services. |
| Accelerated development of decision-support tools to help design and model environmental initiatives and impacts at all levels. |
3.2.4 Program Activities
3.2.4.1 Short term
| Study opportunities to extend the use of economic/environmental modeling tools across governments, private enterprise, and education. |
| Index available tools and create a map of needs and the tools needed to address them. |
| Collect information on unmet needs for simulation services, paying particular attention to needs which can be met with existing tools (for example, identify governments without the resources to use models like GEM-E3 to help them design their own policies). Also gather requirements for a new generation of simulation systems. |
3.2.4.2 Medium term
| Design and implement support programs to help deploy simulation tools for sustainable production and sustainable consumption programs. For example, train designers in life-cycle assessment technologies. |
| Support the use of models like GEM-E3 for study of technological and policy changes in the private sector. For example, GEM-E3 can report the effect of investment programs and cleaner production systems on environmental impacts. |
| Support the development of simulation models of UN environmental and development programs within the context of systems like GEM-E3 in order to help refine program goals. |
3.2.4.3 Long Term
| Support the development of tools that model international, regional, national, and private-sector actions in the economic/environmental system within a single simulations framework. Integrated models should be developed to coordinate programs at all of these levels. |
3.3 Program Three: Refine, Standardize, and Consistently Apply Sustainability Metrics to Programmatic Interventions
3.3.1 Objectives
Increase the efficient and effective use of quantitative program assessment to assist sustainability activities.
Require that UN-funded projects estimate their total environmental benefit and measure this against the appropriate metrics. If results vary significantly, investigate.
Fully use current metrics where available and, as a secondary goal, create new metrics that can more accurately and succinctly measure sustainability.
3.3.2 Background
Measuring the effect of environmental programs requires data. Quantitative measurements of the relative severity of our environmental impact can help greatly with mitigation efforts, as was evidenced in the highly-effective global action to phase out CFC production. Similar success has been achieved, though far less spectacularly, in the political effects of studies on greenhouse gas emissions.
The integrated-systems approach requires that researchers understand the projected outcomes of particular actions and have the ability to measure these projections against the results, so that when the two do not correspond, researchers can determine why, and use this feedback to continually refine the intervention system. This approach requires metrics and data.
Researchers and policymakers are at the very earliest stage of this kind of precision in understanding and managing environmental problems. Although there are innumerable sustainability programs, initiatives, proposals, and agendas, the difficulties of assessing the concrete results of any action on the status of the entire system has contributed to the limited success of efforts in the field. Two emerging metrics, one for companies and the other for products, offer new data to help assess program impacts.
The Global Reporting Initiative
The GRI22 is an important milestone in the journey towards providing accurate, public sustainability data for companies. Though it has reached only an early stage of development, the GRI has widespread support and may well succeed in making sustainable-business information as reliable and available as financial data.
The Integrated Product Policy
Another promising initiative is the European Union Integrated Product Policy.23 The IPP is a well-designed program with a broad set of goals. It proposes whole-systems interventions in order to increase adoption of green products in the marketplace.
One of the IPP initiatives provides life-cycle analysis for a broad spectrum of products. Two promising projects, the External Environmental Effects Related to the Life-Cycle of Products and Services24 and the parallel Information Database on Environmental Aspects of Products And Services25 will provide a large, available, standardized pool of sustainability information about products and the consumption of products.
Using GRI, IPP and similar data
Though these new sources of data are all in the early stages of adoption, they are an encouraging development that should be supported. As the GRI, IPP, and similar metrics are more widely used, national/international and sector/sub-sector sustainability indices can be computed, giving us a sustainability metrics that are as easy to quote as a nation’s GNP.
In the measurement of metrics, it is important to consider the appropriate use of scale. Aggregate national data from individual countries, for example, rarely reflects the considerable gap between rich and poor that often exists within a nation’s boundaries, nor does it reflect the wide variations in pollution, resource scarcity, or quality of life. Aggregate national data can therefore lead to misguided policy decisions or might overlook "hot spots" that could best benefit from intervention. It also may lead to less accurate information being included in predictive models.26 In countries where decisions on environmental policy are made at the state, county, province, or town level, national aggregate data may not provide the level of information necessary to make the best decisions. Local data gathering may be less prone to reporting error than when the host nation collects and reports the information.27
By engaging local people in gathering information for metrics (through, for example, Rapid Rural Appraisal techniques), more accurate, finely grained information can be gathered and translated into models and decision-making. Such techniques can also provide more accurate information to feed into predictive models used to map regional, national, and global trends.
Future programs (and networks of programs) can set specific targets in terms of the indices computed from this new metric data. In keeping with an emphasis on setting numerical goals for the performance of systems of programs, such indices can be used to review resource allocation and retarget sustainability efforts into areas with the greatest results. The number of programs that can be assessed in this way will grow as more and better data become available.
However, there are some situations where an over-emphasis on metrics can be counterproductive, such as:
| when measurement creates time delays or barriers to timely, appropriate action, as in the precautionary principle; |
| when the intervention targets have outcomes that are too difficult or expensive to measure (for example, some kinds of public awareness programs); |
| when metrics cannot provide the same level of discrimination as the judgment of an experienced professional. For example, the success of some educational initiatives for indigenous peoples is often measured in gradual shifts in attitudes or openness to new ideas. |
In these instances, the correct measuring instrument is not a metric, but a wise and experienced human being. The cultivation and training of such individuals is also a goal of this program (see also Program One, section 3.1).
3.3.3 Anticipated Outcomes
| Greatly increased understanding of the effectiveness of sustainability interventions. |
| Resulting refinement and innovation in programs. |
| Creation of data to support effective whole-systems intervention using coordinated networks of programs. |
| Greater public awareness of sustainability indices. |
3.3.4 Program Activities
3.3.4.1 Short Term
| Index data sources for easy accessibility and use. |
| Monitor emerging publication standards and encourage their use. |
| Identify environmental problems for which new metrics, or better application of existing metrics, would provide concrete benefits. |
| Promote the use of goal-oriented intervention-program design, and gather data on "missing metrics" or metric failures from program evaluations. |
3.3.4.2 Medium Term
| Begin work on information technology aspects of data access and exchange. |
| Gather data that indicates problems or gaps in current metrics. |
| Encourage funding bodies to direct funding to programs whose success or failure is measurable based on available indices. |
| Build public awareness of sustainability indices and research concrete actions to support and integrate indices with such initiatives as consumer labeling. |
| Facilitate the creation and standardization of new metrics by forming networks among interested researchers. Attempt to avoid clashes of standards by early integration. |
3.3.4.3 Long Term
| Integrate full use of environmental benefits measured against appropriate metrics into funding cycles. |
| Encourage the adoption of metrics-based legislation where appropriate. |
Support the consolidation of sustainability metrics as a part of business life
3.4 Program Four: Create Awareness of "Sustainable Investment" Practices as the Necessary Complement of Sustainable Production and Consumption Practices.
3.4.1 Objectives
| Develop the model and practice of sustainable investment as a complement to sustainable production and sustainable consumption models and practices. |
| Foster the understanding of sustainable investment as an important missing ingredient in transitioning economies to sustainability. |
3.4.2 Background
Sustainable investment is the natural parallel of sustainable consumption and sustainable production. The precise definition of sustainable investment may take years to establish, considering that both sustainable production and sustainable consumption are still being defined. However, the eventual definition of sustainable investment should certainly include multiple-bottom-line reporting, environmental impact analyses of investment portfolios, and the development of concepts like zero-emissions capital management.
A UNEP DTIE Sustainable Investment program would not replicate efforts already being made by the UNEP Financial Initiatives program, or by initiatives such as the GRI. Rather, the SI program would focus on applying work from these initiatives to support existing Sustainable Production and Sustainable Consumption Programs. An SI program would work to form a three-way partnership between investment, production, and consumption approaches to sustainability. It would help connect the financial world with the needs of Sustainable Production and Sustainable Consumption Programs and attempt to build awareness of such issues in the investment sector.
3.4.3 Anticipated Outcomes
| Development of parallel sustainability concepts for investment, consumption, and production. |
| Support of sustainable investment as a peer to sustainable production and sustainable consumption concepts and practices. |
| Greater effectiveness of other interventions through better understanding of this vital area. |
3.4.4 Program Activities
3.4.4.1 Short Term
| Research starting a UNEP DTIE Sustainable Investment program. |
| Hold a conference to define the purview of such a program, raise awareness, and recruit support. |
| Foster awareness in the sustainable consumption and sustainable production communities about their relationship with sustainable investment. |
3.4.4.2 Medium Term
| Start a UNEP DTIE Sustainable Investment Program. |
| Integrate sustainable investment into combined activities of SC and SP programs on an equal footing. |
| Work closely with initiatives like GRI and green development groups to support SC and SP programs with investment. |
3.4.4.3 Long Term
| Fully integrate sustainable consumption, production, and investment approaches in sustainability programs. |