How to measure sustainability?

This is a question that keeps popping out.

We actually know how to measure economic activities, growth, health, education, life expectancy, infant mortality, toxicity,… We can measure two of the pillars of sustainability (economy and environment) good enough, I would say. We can measure the health of an ecosystem, the danger of extinction of its biodiversity and so on.

Economist have lots of indexes to measure how a country is doing in terms of wealth and scientists are more accurate every day in detecting problems in ecosystems and wild environments. Also urban environments can be analysed in physical and economic terms.

The problem arises when measuring the social part, the third part of a holistic point of view about sustainability. How do you analyse traditions? How do you measure the happiness of the population? How do you categorise lifestyles?

I suppose that you could measure the happiness of the population. But how do you measure a subjective term as happiness? Maybe with depression or suicide rates or the grade of satisfaction with the government, social services and environment (cities in this case but natural as well in others).

Social Sustainability. burnaby.ca

Traditions

Traditional Festival of San Isidro, Madrid, Spain

I have been very interested in Social Sustainability recently. I have a really interest on how people and cities can evolve in a sustainable way and what makes a city socially sustainable.

I suppose that the fist idea would be: it depends. Depends on the kind of city, the kind of people living there (mono cultural, multicultural, cosmopolitan,…), the kind of environment that we found around the city, and so on.

I think a key issue would be to maintain and give to traditions the importance that they have and deserve. Traditions use to gather people and are linked to culture. They improve the sense of belonging among and keep a continuity along time that stays the same but  evolves at the same time.

As traditions I mean music, festivals, food, holidays and every activity that is repeated every year by locals.

In some cases these traditions sometimes become a tourist attraction and loose all its original meaning. As the Tomatina in Buñol or San Fermín in Pamplona, both in Spain. Old traditions become a product and they stop to be sustainable. Not only socially sustainable but environmentally as well.

Tomato Fight, Tomatina in Buñol, Spain. artsonearth.org

The affluence of people is so great in just a week that this small towns are not able to provide all the food or drinks (not only water but mainly alcohol) that they need, or to manage the waste that so much people produce.

In summary, these ‘in other times’ traditions are some how economically sustainable but the other two legs (society and environment) finish so damaged that it becomes a problem because people still want these festivals.

Sydney-Health issues

This post maybe goes far from the usual approach of sustainability, but under an holistic point of view, health should be included.

There is a triple bottom line when defining sustainability. A sustainable city has to have a sustainable economy that respects and maintains an equilibrium with its environment, but where a sustainable society would live. And there is under this social sustainability that health is covered.

Since we have arrived to Sydney there has been not many times that we have eaten outside home but the majority of the times we have done so, I have been sick afterwards something that never happened to me before. Then talking with a friend that has studied pastry in Sydney and has worked in many places around the city, I have started to be very concerned about food poisoning and lack of cleanliness of the restaurants of this city.

He has just stopped of eating in Sydney’s restaurants. He has worked from the Opera House catering to less fancy places and these are some of the thinks he has seen:

– People do not clean their hands, almost ever.

– Meat, fish and vegetables are together and mixing not only flavours but micro-organisms.

– Cockroaches and rats are really really common in kitchens.

– Refrigerators are rarely cleaned and are seldom working properly.

– Kitchens, store rooms, ovens, and so on, they just not clean them almost ever. Imagine what is going on there!

– People sneezes, coughs and touches their parts while cooking and this doesn’t seem to be a problem at all.

But not only he is saying this:

smh.com.au

 

ABC

Goodfood: Food poisoning rising, and rats and bugs in the kitchen,

NSW Food Authority: business standards, penalty notices, or Sydney worst food poisoning,

Sydney Uni

And I am wondering: the amount in fines is over 1 million but the fines are actually very low, so it looks like maybe for some restaurants is cheaper to pay the fines that to actually clean and for the government it is also a great source of income.

Two good Aussie websites about food safety: Food Authority NSW and Food Safety Information Council.

Yellow Pages

It is interesting how the connection of ideas flows sometimes. I was looking this article about a beautiful tree-house and I could not image where the article was taking me.

Image from inhabitat.com

Apparently Yellow Pages, only in USA, prints 500 million of directories a year and it has been estimated that these directories account up to a 5% of total landfill waste. That is crazy!

Some of us are so concerned about the construction waste and the consumption of energy in poorly designed buildings; but how easy would be to cut that 5% of waste? Or save the 9 million of trees harvested? Or all the clean water used along the production process?

Moreover, who really use those ‘books’? We have google now. I would propose that maybe older people keep receiving them, but after having asked for the new copy. I do not think that the majority of us use them any more, so let the people decide if they want them or not, and if they do, they just need to call and order a copy for free.

I believe that this would be a easy and quick solution but some people could argue: what would happen with all the jobs liked to that industry?

That is another story…Being sustainable is not easy!

Maybe a cradle to cradle thinking could help. Yellow pages as compost for our veggie patches?

Waverton Peninsula Reserve

Last weekend we went to take a walk to the Waverton Peninsula Reserve. This place was an oil storage facility owned by the company BP until 2002 when they shut it down and reconverted it into a park. This park connects with the other side of the peninsula where a coal loader has been closed down and abandoned.

Where the big oil deposits were

New landscape

All this area is within the Waverton Peninsula Strategic Masterplan, but so far only the park has been done.

Coal loader wharf now abandoned

 

Coal loaded area with not present use

During the walk I was thinking in the lecture we had weeks ago about contaminated sites and how industrial areas that have been absorbed by the city have to be decontaminated. These areas, because their industrial past use, have high quantities of very toxic materials and products. Usually all the complex, from the soil to the building roof, is contaminated (depending on the industry type) and needs to be cleaned before any further use can be implemented there.

When these kind of areas are reconverted in green areas or parks it is possible to use plants to absorb this harmful materials naturally and transform them into common vegetable material.

The problem arises when the site has to be built and there is not time for a natural absorption. Then, usually, the entire site is dug and the soil is disposed in a landfill.

This is the worst solution at many levels: bad for the site because this solution is very aggressive with it; bad for the landfill because usually the soil is not cleaned before the disposal.

Some history of the place.

Great views from these industrial facilities

*All the pictures owned by the author.

Oxford Street

Apparently Oxford Street is in decadency. In fact in almost two years that I have been living in Sydney, I have been there only once.

That happens in every city, some areas of the city loose activity and others gain it. But is it a ‘natural’ process or is it due to the actual tendency of business model?

Apparently the opening of the Westfield shopping center coincides with the closing of a huge amount of small shops and other business.

In a sustainable city we have to take into account not only energy, water or waste but the life within neighborhoods and their small economic activities that enrich the urban environment.

Cities are complex and the repercussions of economic decisions can affect in a degree as ‘killing’ an entirely neighborhood.

Green Star

For some time now I have been reading and listening different complains about rating tools. Some say that their point system is influenced by different lobbies (a kind legal corruption?) and some scholars argue that they have a big deficiency in assessing passive design and other problems.

I believe that they have been a good first step, a tool that general people can use and apply but, now that I am dealing at work with the process of Green Star, I really think that it has become a huge business. I do not remember the actual data but just to register a building to be assessed you have to pay tens of thousands of dollar. That is insane.

Also, the majority of the systems assessed are related to energy consumption (nothing new), so to achieve a good rating it is necessary to work hard with the engineers and convince them that a passive solution is a good solution and that, for instance, it can reduce the amount of HVAC needed.

I think that working side by side with all the consultants is a really good thing, but I am really disappointed for Green Star after dealing with it.

Life Style vs. Green

We have moved place this week because the owners wanted to sell the unit, so the last two weeks we have had open house during the weekends.

In these open house the real estate agent had always the same routine when she arrived: first, turn on all the lights in the house (and the open houses have been always at midday); second, open all the windows (good); and third, turn on the air conditioning at 17 degrees (while all the windows where open!). She argued that was to show the possible buyers the life style of the place.

So I am wondering, what is the point of building and creating all these sustainable environments if people want another life style, if people do not care about this?

Some time ago I read an article about that all these sustainable buildings built recently are actually not performing as they were designed because the people using and managing them have not the knowledge to take advantage of their eco-features and eco-design. So I really believe that we should start teaching building managers and management teams first but also, and as important, introduce in the school’s curriculum a ‘green’ content and its related life style.

The Earth is full

We are too many millions of people consuming, as Paul Gilding states, ‘The earth is full’.

The population growth is greater in the developing countries.

The ecological footprint is greater in the developed ones.

A domestic cat in Europe has a bigger footprint that a person in Africa.

It is so unfair to pretend that people on the developing world should apply sustainable models when the developed one is doing nothing.

Countries in Europe are moving backwards in terms of equity, welfare state, rights,…

This is a nonsense.

I think that the problem is so holistic that the approach should be holistic as well. Alex Steffen claims for a sustainable design that it is socially engaged. I think that we have already got past the environmental approach, we have to take the social part of sustainability into consideration.

At the end of the day everything is linked. A sustainable society lives in sustainable places in a sustainable way.

 

 

Globalized Architecture

One of the biggest problems in the built environment is that schools do not teach passive design, build for the place, local strategies, materials and techniques.

After the WWII architects around the world have designed and built similar architecture for very different environments and cultures, and I think that is wrong.

I think this project is a good example of a positive solar city but still is following this new globalized architecture. Lets start building for and with the place!

Good passive design, bio-climatic architecture within a place, a culture. Lets use local materials as far as we will be able, lets build for the people that is going to live and use that spaces.

The problem is that maybe people prefer globalized architecture.

Poo2Loo

Behind this bizarre video there is a great UNICEF campaign in India supporting poo-free streets. Here their web and Facebook. In addition, UNICEF has an international campaign to provide toilets not only in India. Here.

2.5 billion people around the world do not have access to a safe and clean toilet. In India, half of the population has to do it in streets and surroundings. This is not only a huge health issue,  but a security issue as well. Every year, thousands of girls (women and children) are raped, and sometimes murdered after, when they were going to the ´toilet´. Here one of the latest cases.

In developed countries the sustainability is now focused on how to consume or need less energy, and sometimes materials, but in other countries there are bigger issues, issues that involve health and security. Big developing countries, such as India or Brazil, where big cities are growing rapidly but where simple actions can have a life-changing result should be the main objective of international programs.

If we want a sustainable and democratic world we should start being democratic with the people living in it.

 

Image from facebook.com/poo2loo

Climate Change

Some people argue that Climate Change does not exist, they are called Climate Deniers and there are some interesting webs that list the most famous or important of them. Here and here for instance.

The problem is that these deniers are generally supported by big companies and industry lobbies that are directly related to great CO2 emissions. So it is in their convenience to misinform the general public.

Even if this influential and powerful group of people is trying to present studies and data to prove their beliefs, the reality is that all the new studies presented by the IPCC or the US Global Change Research Program, for instance, found that the Earth is warmer than before and that this will produce consequences in the global climate.

Global Change has released their findings in a report last month and some of their graphs just talk by themselves:

Global Temperatures and CO2 Concentration

Natural & Human influences on Climate Change

Past & Projected change in Global Sea Level Rise (1ft=33cm/4ft=1.20m approx)

Past & Projected Sea Ice Decline (RCP=Representative Concentration Pathways)

Acidification of Oceans

Its projected changes with a rapid emissions reduction:

Global Temperatures

Annual Precipitation

Its projected changes if the emissions increase in the actual trend:

Global Temperature

Annual Precipitation

I think that the findings are scary because I do not trust in a big change in a short-term and the consequences will transform our world, our life. We are going to live in a changing world full of challenges.

*All graphs and images from nca2014.globalchange.gov/report