Green+ Malaysia's Premier Eco-friendly, Sustainable and Green Business Magazine

COLUMN
about energy efficiency or renewable
energy.
MATTER AND WASTE
It is a matter of fact that industrialized
nations have become throw-away
societies. We label ourselves as ‘consumers’
as if this is what our purpose
in life is. Media and marketing do not
just advertise products, they redefine
your “wants” as “needs”. Obsolescence
is built in to product design so that a
replacement product will have to be
purchased in a few years. This not only
consumes large amounts of material
and resources but rapidly exhausts
landfill capacity. How can attitudes
toward purchases be changed from
choices based on immediate cost
to choices that consider the quality,
durability and carbon footprint of the
product? Take for instance, a plastic
pop bottle cannot become another pop
bottle upon recycling. It will be turned
into a product or material of lower quality
with fewer possible uses. Eventually,
a product that has been downcycled like
this loses its ability to be recycled hence
becomes a waste.
The idea of ‘waste’ needs to be
discarded. From the aspect of regenerative,
the output of the system of human
consumption must become input for
another process. This is popularized by
the term “Cradle to Cradle” concept by
William McDonough. In order to be able
to achieve zero waste, all material needs
to be categorized as either biological or
technical. Technical materials, or nutrients,
consist of non-toxic synthetic
materials that can be continuously
recycled without losing their integrity
or quality. Biological nutrients are
organic materials that can be returned
to the natural environment to decompose
once they are no longer useful to
humans. These two categories needs
to be kept separated from source so
that objects and their components stay
circulating continuously within their
stream.
ECONOMIES AND GOVERNANCE
Our current economic paradigm is
based on flawed theories. It fundamentally
ignores the ecological foundations
upon which all systems on earth are
based. Its sole focus is financial capital
– ignoring natural capital, human capital,
social capital, and built capital. Can
a system that simply measures one
output – Goss Domestic Product GDP
accurately measure the well-being or
progressive growth of a society? For
example, the disparity between rich
and poor within a nation has a strong
correlation to the health of the entire
population. The less of a gap there is
Biji Biji initiative, a social enterprise which focuses in product design of upcycled material, has been
constantly finding creative ways to reuse trash through various prototype development and production.
between those on top and those on the
bottom, the healthier all citizens are.
The regenerative aspect seeks a
holistic alternative instead of the traditional
economics. The true “Genuine
Wealth” as proposed by Mark Anielski,
an ecological economist, measures five
capital assets: human, social, natural,
built and financial. The findings conclude
that the localization of the economy is
an effective way of circulating resources
within the community, thus impacting
several of different types of capital
simultaneously. Governments should
facilitate policy to be flexible enough to
encourage continual adjustments as
we learn from the implementation of
new strategies as described above to
address the environmental, social and
economic issues facing society.
Driving all these to happen
While the amplification of regenerative
WWW.MESYM.
COM Malaysia
Environmental
Sustainability
Youth
Movements,
an integrated
virtual platform
crowdsourcing
on
environmental
movements
within Malaysia,
organizes
monthly
documentary
screening
which tries to
bridge various
stakeholder
to a casual
discussion.
design written into six different
aspects spanning across three major
themes, the conversation on
regenerative design is still relatively
novice and its academic definition is
still on the argument board. However,
each of the regenerative principles
themselves are quite broad and
there are many ways of being true to
them through design. These may be
discovered as our worldviews evolve
to see problems in a new light, or as
the application of certain design ideas
fails – perfection should not get in the
way of greatness – let’s start by doing
something, which we have already,
by riding on the green building wave,
and improve it as we go. One thing
is certain, that our current economic
model and built environment
progress does little or none
progress to the overall well-being of
society.
green+.2014, november-december 33