Positive development – building a new vision of progress
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Positive development is a vision of progress to replace conventional ‘development’ in which progress is an illusion and incremental green improvements are futile. Buildings and the urban fabric are an ideal application of positive development and a great practical example of the long-overdue strategy of actually aiming to make things better rather than just less worse. The potential is huge – to upgrade humanity’s response to all major challenges to the necessary scale and speed. For example positive development would aim for net-negative emissions not just cutting emissions. Waste can be designed out, not just reduced. Nature can be expanded, not just destroyed less rapidly. This is outlined in the wiserearth ‘solution’ Let’s try forward gear!. There is more about the strategy in this article, Positive Development, a ‘turn-around’ strategy for growth and civilisation, which is part of the peer-reviewed study Seven Policy Switches for Global Security proposing achievable switches in policy to make positive development actually happen.
Here is an introduction to positive development in human settlements. The ‘files and photos‘ tab has two pdfs written by Prof Janis Birkeland; A about eco-services and B about building fabrics. The web link above has other related articles by Janis.
Janis’s great book, ‘Positive development: from vicious circles to virtuous cycles‘ includes a case study of the economics needed to implement positive development world-wide.
Environmental Issues/Principal Impacts
• The world already exceeds its ecological carrying capacity due to the use of the conventional systems of development in place today (e.g. fossil fuel driven, centralised planning).
• Even if the human population does not continue to grow, our systems of development would not be sustainable, because the
environmental and economic costs of conventional development outweigh the benefits over time.
• Green buildings are not sustainable as they replace nature. Design aimed to mitigate the negative impacts of existing
unsustainable systems is not good enough. We need to go beyond even green design to eco-positive design.
• Positive Development is possible, by increasing the ecological base and public estate (shared space).
Opportunities
• Look for eco-retrofitting opportunities before considering new construction.
• Use natural systems to clean the air, water and any unavoidable waste or pollution produced by the development to ensure
what comes out of a building is healthier than what went in (e.g. humans, water, air).
• Avoid contributing to the heat island aff ect and mitigate the existing urban microclimate caused by surrounding properties.
• Ensure zero operating energy and greenhouse gas emissions over the life cycle of the project.
• Minimise embodied energy and waste in construction by, for example, using organic materials where possible.
• Use passive solar systems for heating, cooling and ventilating.
• Avoid sites likely to be prone to floods, earthquakes, severe storms, droughts, bushfires, and so on.
Aims
• Find ways to increase natural capital beyond original (pre-settlement) site conditions (e.g. using living roofs, walls, balconies,
facades and/or atria) for multi-functional benefits.
• Draw upon aquaculture, permaculture, living machine, algae-tecture, hydroponic systems and so on.
• Ensure on-site and nearby indigenous ecosystems are healthier, more bio-productive, greater in size, and more resilient after
development than before.
• Integrate eco-services with existing urban infrastructure and building structures for spatial and structural efficiency.
• Integrate human and natural functions or eco-services to optimise space for positive environmental gains.
• Design to improve relationships between individuals, society and nature by, for example, providing green public space and
amenities, and access to the means of survival (e.g. food security in urban areas).
• Design the structures to be adaptable, deconstructable and even reversible (e.g. compostable, recyclable).
Comments (1 – 9 of 9)
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Am so glad to see more people shifting on from talking about the risks … this is a time for BIG positive VISIONS!
I love this saying from Dee Hock: In times of extraordinary change
the problem doesn’t lie in NOT realising all we can dream but
in NOT dreaming all we are capable of realising.
How can we JOIN up positive development initiatives?
In what ways are these proposals significantly different from the Transition Movement initiative?
(and is this a good enough question for finding where the edges of both
can join so as to synergise instead of diluting effort and so
effectiveness?)
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The pdfs are tucked away in the ‘files and photos’ tab which takes you to another page. The website link on this page was a bonus pdf which, as you say, has now moved on. Have replaced it with a new link to many other papers by Janis Birkeland.
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Alas! The resource link above now leads to a login page …
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Utopia sounds like fun – count me in! Positive development is just a practical strategy for escaping the dystopia of existing strategy. The pdfs in the files tab are full of examples. Capitalism, security and wealth are dangerous and misunderstood creatures that evolve together with us so if we tell ourselves that we’re in their grasp then we might lose the chance to get a grip on them. See how you like some proposals for fixing these things, Seven Policy Switches for Global Security. Switch 4 is about ‘defence’ spending.
I wonder if awareness raising about future risks is enough. Isn’t that what the environment movement has been doing for decades? |
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Hi all. The essential type of Utopia as outlined in this article appears very realisable if only the political will were there. Unfortunately, the dictatiorial and capitalist systems have got such a hold on us that the greatest emphases are on security and wealth. If only defence budgets were concerned with ensuring national safety not by investment in armies and weaponry but in developing strategies for sustaining the viability of all animal and plant life as we know it on planet earth. One would think that with all the natural phenomina that are continuously causing such catastrophies to people all over the world, we would eventually realize how powerles we are to fight nature and that what is needed is to respect, harness and utilise it. Gold may be regarded the most valuable commodity but when push comes to shove, we still cannot eat, drink or take shelter in it.
What we need is a world-wide P.R. campaign headed by physicists and other ecological experts to force home what is facing future generations if we continue to get our priorities wrong.
Ecopoet
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This comment was removed by a WiserEarth editor for the following reason:
removed as asked by author |
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Thanks Michael. As you say, it’s a philosophy (of how we can be in the world); it’s also a strategy (to replace the default strategy of fragmented incrementalism – making impacts less worse somewhere than they might otherwise be, even if they get worse elsewhere). Incrementalism explains where we are today but it’s not noticed as a culprit due to the shrinking ambitions of our time and most people’s preference for a culprit that lies beyond themselves. More here, Positive Development, a ‘turn-around’ strategy for growth and civilisation and in the solution you mention. This page presents Janis’ brilliant work as a tangible example of positive development with buildings and the urban scene. Your every experience of synergy is an example.
My suggestion for institutionalising this everywhere is a short list of things to change: Seven Policy Switches for Global Security. Not the only things to change but if these were being done then the others would make sense enough to happen. Today there is much that we think should be happening but isn’t because the scene isn’t yet set. And the ‘actors’ are all running around following different pages of different scripts.
Very glad of your comments on any of this on the pages about it. James |
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“Positive development would aim for net-negative emissions not just cutting emissions. Waste can be designed out, not just reduced. Nature can be expanded, not just destroyed less rapidly. This is outlined in the wiserearth ‘solution’ Let’s try forward gear!.”
Nicely said. How can we ensure that this philosophy is institutionalized? |
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Thanks for the pdf format copies of the two papers by Janis Birkeland. These papers include “examples of actual and notional solutions” for eco-design and positive development. I hope to see updates as some of the notional solutions are tested in real-world settings.
One of Janis Birkeland’s recommendations is, “Look for eco-retrofitting opportunities before considering new construction.” I think there is a lot of wisdom to that; the energy embodied in building materials may exceed the energy used to heat and cool buildings that are constructed with those materials.
In some situations, new construction may be the better long-term solution. I’m thinking about my own situation. The neighborhood in St. Louis where I live consists mainly of single-family detached houses. Each house is on a lot that is approximately 33 feet wide and 120 feet long from the street in the front to the alley in the rear.
Single-family homes are inherently energy inefficient. With a multi-family building, dwellings would have a shared roof and walls, so the space heating and cooling costs would be much less per unit. Many houses in my neighborhood, such as my own home, are built with brick walls, which makes retrofitting them with insulation more difficult than frame houses.
There is another consideration that makes me pause before proceeding with insulating the brick walls of our house and installing a more efficient furnace. It’s not just the issue of energy efficiency of single-family compared with multi-family buildings. It’s also the issue of land efficiency.
A five-story building on four lots could contain as many housing units as twenty single-family houses on twenty lots. This would leave sixteen lots that could be preserved as green space for flowers, play area, vegetable gardens, and fruit and nut trees. We could grow a LOT more food in that combined green space than home owners can grow in the tiny yards that are left over after a house and a detached garage have been built on one of our little lots.
For long-term sustainability, maybe redesigning and rebuilding our cities to convert neighborhoods such as mine from mostly single-family housing to multi-family housing with green space is a better solution. I don’t know. I’m still in the research and thinking about it phase.