Whole-Systems Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production
4 Programs that Promote Green Design and Infrastructure
4.1 Program Five: Build the Global Capacity of Online Resources in Green Design
4.1.1 Objectives
Support and develop easily accessible sources of information on green design.
Develop frameworks that are interactive and practically useful to the non-technical green-design practitioner.
4.1.2 Background
A growing number of companies are seeking to design products and processes that are non-toxic in their manufacture and use; use a minimum of materials and energy; and are part of a system that enhances rather than depletes the earth. McDunough-Braungart green chemistry principles, the principles of natural capitalism, and the guidelines for biomimicry (see sidebar) all offer whole-system design frameworks for the creation of cleaner, less polluting products and production systems in all types in all industries.
Sidebar: Biomimicry Principles Biomimicry encourages us to ask in response to all design problems, "What would Nature do here?" and to follow nature's ability to function in a closed-loop, nontoxic, sustainable manner. Below are some guidelines: Nature runs only on sunlight. (From Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. p.7. Janine Benyus, 1997. William Morrow and Company, New York, New York.) |
These frameworks encourage product designers and engineers to employ nature’s
principles of efficiency and zero waste. Biologists and ecologists that study organisms
and ecosystems are quite familiar with nature’s repertoire of intelligent designs and
strategies, but rarely do they get to share their knowledge with engineers and designers.
Furthermore, manufacturers in the developing world do not always have easy access to the
intelligent designs that do exist, those that can achieve ten- or hundred-fold resource
savings at lower cost.
The reason for these gaps is not so much a lack of information, but a lack of access to information. What is needed is a library that bridges this language chasm and makes literature and solutions based on the principles of natural systems accessible to designers and engineers.
An open library of designs for refrigerators, lighting, heating, cooling, motors, and other systems will encourage manufacturers, particularly in the developing world, to leapfrog directly to the most sustainable technologies, which are much cheaper in the long run. Manufacturers will be encouraged to use the efficient designs because they are free, while inefficient designs still have to be paid for. The library could also include green chemistry and biological solutions to industry challenges, for example enzymatic reactions that could be used in place of energy, and chemical-intensive processes or nontoxic paint pigments for cars and buildings. This library should be free of all intellectual property restrictions and open for use by any manufacturer, in any nation, without charge.
4.1.3 Anticipated Outcomes
 | Enhanced adoption of advanced, efficient product design, particularly in the developing world. |
| Reduction of energy demand (and corresponding reallocation of some grid and generation investments). |
| Enhanced adoption of smaller, decentralized, sustainable power sources due to reduced demand. |
| Reduction of human and ecosystem toxicity, and reduction in solid waste. |
4.1.4 Activities
4.1.4.1 Short Term
| From existing sustainability database projects, identify online databases of sustainability products and practices to support and to collaborate with in dissemination of green design information.28 All data should be linked to related UN database resources. |
| Support development of a reference catalogue of designs for environmentally sound products and production systems, resources for acquiring them, and best whole-systems design practices. |
4.1.4.2 Medium Term
| Carefully monitor adoption. |
| Build networks of manufacturers who are using the designs to share infrastructure costs associated with implementation and further refinement. |
| Encourage the use of tools such as the US EPA’s TRACI, which translates complex toxicological and life-cycle assessment data into information that designers and engineers can readily use to make business decisions. |
| Build networks of manufacturers using the designs to share infrastructure costs associated with implementation and further refinement. |
| Support initiatives by companies to work with their supply chains and customers to create new, innovative products and services through the use of life-cycle assessment data and the creation of multi-stakeholder partnerships to reduce toxicity and improve energy efficiency. |
4.1.4.3 Long Term
| Conduct long-term studies on the impact of the products; use this data to further refine designs and encourage adoption. |
4.2 Program Six: Green Designs and Retrofits for UN Buildings
4.2.1 Objectives
Demonstrate the benefits of green building design and energy-efficient end-use equipment to citizens, policymakers, and the construction industry through green retrofits of existing UN buildings and green construction of new UN buildings.
Increase the rate of diffusion of green technologies.
Reduce UN costs and environmental impacts.
Provide a healthy working environment for UN personnel.
4.2.2 Background
Showcasing innovative green technologies in high-visibility UN buildings encourages awareness and adoption of these innovations on a broader scale. Research in the area of innovation-diffusion demonstrates that more people adopt innovations faster if they are innovations that they can observe, obsere, and test before committing themselves to, and that have a perceivable relative advantage over existing technologies.29 By giving citizens a chance to see, test, and notice the advantages of a UN green building, the UN can help to accelerate adoption of such ideas throughout society.
The Many Benefits of Green Building:
From reflective roofs, CFLs, and super-efficient windows to flexible access floors, personal comfort controls, and photovoltaics, a wealth of new technologies is adding function, value, and high performance to today’s buildings.
Well-designed green buildings often cost no more to build than the alternatives (if not less) because resource-efficient strategies allow for the downsizing of more costly mechanical, electrical, and structural systems.
Green buildings save money throughout their life cycle. They are energy efficient, saving from 20 to 50% of energy costs through integrated planning, site orientation, energy-saving technologies, on-site renewable energy-producing technologies, light-reflective materials, natural daylight and ventilation, and downsized HVAC and other equipment. A raft of other resource- and money-saving devices that continue to pay throughout the building’s life cycle includes: natural landscaping, water-saving equipment, low-maintenance materials, salvaged construction debris, and smart building controls.
Green buildings generally provide higher-quality work environments, principally because of daylighting and the lack of off-gassing from toxic building materials. This, in turn, generally translates to greater employee job satisfaction and higher work productivity. Eight documented case studies show that productivity gains from green design can be as high as 16 percent.30
Short-term Results:
While building green from day one offers best chances for maximum efficiency and breakthrough levels of energy savings, retrofits can also yield excellent results. Installing daylighting and energy efficiency measures in one California office building yielded 75% energy savings and a 45% reduction in worker absenteeism.31 Analysis of a green retrofit of a 20-year-old Chicago building already in need of remodeling revealed that changing the renovation design to a whole-systems approach could dramatically improve comfort, quadruple energy efficiency, and cost about the same as normal renovations.32 Simply screwing in compact florescent lamps saves 75 to 80% of the electricity used by an incandescent bulb; reduces the labor of replacing them because they last 8 to 13 times longer; and places less of a load on a building's cooling system because of no heat from incandescent bulbs.33
4.2.3 Anticipated Outcomes
| A heightened awareness of the benefits of green buildings and energy-efficient equipment by UN workers and citizens who interact with showcased buildings. |
| Increased and accelerated adoption of green building technology by other members of society. |
| Tangible support for new efforts by UN efforts to encourage green building in developing countries, for example, by the UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre34. |
| Healthy working environment for UN personnel; increased staff productivity; reduced absenteeism. |
| Reduced capital costs of new buildings; reduced operating costs of existing UN buildings; reduced resource consumption and environmental impact of UN buildings. |
| Improved public relations, both internationally and with the buildings’ neighbors. |
4.2.4 Program Activities
4.2.4.1 Short Term
| Develop a policy for the greening of UN building, including energy efficiency in
buildings and equipment, green building materials, waste reduction, water efficiency, and
buildings’ relationships to surrounding neighborhood. The policy could include
green-building criteria, including: - more energy is generated by the building than used - water leaves the building cleaner than it enters - indoor air quality is healthy - building achieves a given rating on a standard green-building rating systems (such as LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a green building rating system from the U.S. Green Building Council). |
| Develop metrics and target a performance objective for each policy category. (e.g. electricity use per square foot). |
| Inventory existing UN facilities. |
| Implement rapid, low-to-no-cost retrofits in all UN buildings (e.g., compact florescent bulbs, water-saving faucets). |
| Pick several buildings to pilot extensive retrofits that will make the most visible statement. |
| Conduct integrated, whole-systems design workshop for each type of building to be retrofitted. Include building-users on workshop design team along with designers and engineers. |
4.2.4.2 Medium Term
| Retrofit targeted buildings. |
| Monitor results. |
| Develop longer-term retrofit program. |
| Develop green-building program for new building construction. |
| Continue to retrofit existing buildings worldwide. |
| Involve in each building retrofit process, key elements of local construction industry. |
| Coordinate retrofit and new-construction program with other UN programs to influence and train the construction industry in various countries. For example, conduct UN-sponsored technology seminars inside the retrofitted buildings. These efforts should continue into the long term. |
4.2.4.3 Long Term
| Provide green-building educational materials for building visitors and on UN websites |
| Develop educational materials comparing before-and-after retrofit costs and benefits. |
| Expand green design programs now being developed by UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre.35 |
4.3 Program Seven: Encourage Adoption of "Decentralized Infrastructure"
4.3.1 Objective
To encourage the adoption of "Decentralized Infrastructure" (defined below) to reduce or remove the need for costly and resource- and capital-inefficient centralized infrastructure.
This program involves a mix of prototyping, education, investment, and public relations.
4.3.2 Background
Centralized infrastructure such as power stations often require extremely large capital investments and many years to build. In many cases these same services can be provided via a mixture of demand-reducing end-use efficiency (such as insulation and efficient appliances) and local, small-scale resource provisioning (for example, solar panels). The resulting avoided cost represents a crucial but widely unrecognized source of capital, particularly for the developing world.
As an example, the manufacture of end-use, energy-saving technologies such as compact-florescent lamps (CFL) or super-efficient windows takes around a thousand times less capital than expanding the electricity supply. Furthermore, capital from demand reduction is returned ten times faster than it would be for building new electrical infrastructure. Combined with the lower capital requirements, a CFL plant is 10,000 times more efficient than expanded infrastructure.36
By reducing demand, power stations and other forms of infrastructure can be built smaller, closer to the end-user, or eliminated entirely. Shifting to a demand-reduction model can provide people with services they want and need in a manner that consumes fewer resources, is flexible and sustainable, and costs less. Historically, providing power and water to large and rapidly growing populations often necessitates huge development projects. These can be expensive, requiring money from multinational lending institutions; can generate tremendous environmental damage and displacement of people; can under-perform expectations; and, by the nature of their size, are inflexible to changes in demand. While the generation of much-needed jobs is often an attractive feature of such projects, in the long run they may be less sustainable than smaller, more efficient, flexible, and regionally appropriate modes of delivering the same services.
Two terms, "decentralized" and "distributed," are used (roughly) interchangeably to describe this form of infrastructure. The case for distributed electricity infrastructure is exhaustively demonstrated in Small Is Profitable by A.B. Lovins, et al.37
Decentralized infrastructure in developed countries
Developed countries can also leverage the benefits of distributed generation as a flexible, cost-effective alternative to replacing aging, centralized energy infrastructures. By reducing overall energy consumption, and thus reducing demand at "the end of the pipe" the distributed generation system mitigates the need to build new energy capacity. In situations that demand a reliable, uninterrupted supply of energy or water, such as data centers or hospitals, decentralizing and distributing the source of both improves source security, reduces the chance of interruption, and allows for better control over locally appropriate efficiency measures.
Decentralized Infrastructure Housing
Housing construction often requires six different kinds of centralized infrastructure (potable water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, electricity, gas, and communications) before construction can start. These costs are often externalized; that is, they are not included in the prices of the residences. In contrast, Decentralized Infrastructure Housing (DIH) provides all of these essential services, using such features as energy efficiency, photovoltaic generation, composting toilets, and a raft of other emerging sustainable technologies.
Obstacles
Because Decentralized Infrastructure Housing actually looks very different from conventional housing, adoption is problematic—despite the fact that actual quality of life for residents may be higher and total-systems development costs significantly lower.
Likewise, large, centralized development projects that supply energy and water often represent an enormous sunk capital cost that makes energy and water cheap to the end-user. In such cases, incentives to reduce energy consumption may be extremely low for government, utilities, and the individual citizen. Intervention, then, must happen at both the building level, and at the level of planning how infrastructure services are provided in the first place.
4.3.3 Activities
4.3.3.1 Short term
| Analyze and model (see program two, section 3.2) the costs and benefits of centralized infrastructure development versus programs that incorporate decentralized infrastructure for different nations, taking into account job generation, specific regional concerns, and net economic and environmental impact. |
| Gather regionally appropriate case stories and data describing the economic benefits of decentralized infrastructure and make them available via the Internet, particularly in conjunction with existing sustainable practice websites. |
| Develop education materials comparing decentralized infrastructure costs with centralized, capital-intensive ‘traditional’ systems. |
| Encourage development of policies favoring decentralized infrastructure in multinational lending organizations, and for groups that supply microloans. |
| Encourage use of decentralized infrastructure in aid and relief efforts that provide housing in the wake of displacement or disaster—for temporary, longer-term, and permanent shelter. |
4.3.3.2 Medium term
| Conduct UN-sponsored technology introduction and training seminars on decentralized infrastructure and Decentralized Infrastructure Housing (DIH). |
| Educate civil leaders and politicians (particularly finance ministers) on the possibilities of freeing up huge amounts of development capital with the adoption of decentralized infrastructure. Provide nation-specific projects and support regional champions in order to do so. |
| Develop large-scale training programs for energy-efficiency retrofits and decentralized infrastructure housing that teach skills and generate jobs.38 |
| Educate private-sector contractors and developers on DIH benefits. |
| Build UN-sponsored model homes with examples of decentralized infrastructure that ordinary people can tour, in order to gain public acceptance. |
| Support the construction of model projects that can be documented and evaluated to provide evidence for the success of the system. |
| Find opinion-leaders to endorse or use DIH to remove any stigma associated with a new kind of housing. |
| Particularly in developed countries, encourage the establishment of national zoning and building code standards that encourage, rather than hinder, decentralized infrastructure.39 |
4.3.3.3 Long term
| Establish a multilateral agreement to promote efficiency in energy and building materials and to phase out of universally inefficient materials and devices. |
| Establish multilateral agreements in support of appropriately sized development projects that supply resources efficiently and sustainably to those they are meant to serve; are flexible and modular; generate local jobs; have a reduced impact on the planet; and do not saddle the nation or region with unreasonable debt. |