Mohawk Group was excited to collaborate with Jason McLennan who is considered one of the world’s most influential individuals in the field of architecture and the green building movement today. He is the recipient of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize (the planet’s top prize for socially responsible design). Jason has been called the ‘Steve Jobs’ of the green building industry, a “World Changer” by GreenBiz magazine, and the Award of Excellence winner for Engineering News Record, making him one of the only individuals in the architecture profession to have won the award in its 52-year history.

This collaboration’s fresh take on the original Lichen Collection offers an additional bark texture to join the popular stone one, serving as ground textures for the lichens that grow together in place. The multi-hued, multi-textured lichens that thrive on bark and rock formations once again inspire us in Lichen Community collection. The refined Micro Bloom and Macro Bloom palette includes warm and cool background textures with more neutral and tonal accent colors, which can help to define communal spaces and create unique large-scale installations. 

Featuring Duracolor Tricor carpet fiber, Lichen Community delivers unsurpassed stain resistance, colorfastness, durability, color clarity and enhanced soil performance. Duracolor fiber has set the standard of high-performance commercial carpet since 1992. With enhanced soil hiding and removal capabilities, Duracolor Tricor builds upon a fiber tested and trusted to perform in the most demanding environments. 

When creating Lichen Community, Mohawk Group did not stop at ensuring the product was high performing; they wanted a product that looked good in all applications. That’s why, for a seamless design, Lichen Community was designed without transition strip requirements when used with any of Mohawk Group’s 4.5/5mm LVT products. This feature ultimately reduces installation time, costs, and makes installation easier with its new EcoFlex ONE backing.

This state-of-the-art backing system delivers modular carpet that leads the industry in durability, cleanability, performance, and sustainability. EcoFlex ONE is an advanced flooring solution that improves every aspect of comfort and acoustics while eliminating moisture testing—all with a lighter environmental footprint that is Beyond Carbon Neutral. Tested, proven, and certified, EcoFlex ONE is the holistic solution for human-centric environments.

Mohawk Group has a history of leading the flooring industry in sustainable products, becoming the first flooring manufacturer to receive a Living Product Challenge Petal Certification for the Lichen Collection in 2017. Since then, Mohawk Group has expanded its Living Product portfolio to include the entire line of carpet tile products manufactured in Glasgow, VA, USA. These products are all net-positive in both carbon and water.

Now as an expansion of the Lichen Collection, the newly released Lichen Community embodies Mohawk Group’s commitment to dematerialization and a more restorative, carbon neutral future. Leveraging our Pattern Perfect technology, the Lichen Community Collection is beyond carbon neutral. Boasting an additional five percent carbon offset for a net-positive impact, we continue our legacy of innovative products and technologies that will lead us to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Mohawk Group’s commitment to sustainability did not stop at the Lichen Collection. As of January 2022, all Mohawk Group floor covering products – including our carpet tile, broadloom, woven, LVT, and other resilient surfaces – are going Beyond Carbon Neutral, meaning an additional five percent carbon offset beyond neutral, for a net-positive impact on the environment to build a regenerative, climate-positive future to create a better tomorrow for people and the planet.

Editor’s note: Enjoy this excerpt of an article written by ILFI founder and board member Jason F. McLennan. You can find a link to the entire article at the bottom of the page.

Just because a machine can do a job better than a person, should we let it? People have been asking this question since the term “Artificial Intelligence” (A.I.) was coined by a handful of computer scientists presenting a proposal to a conference at Dartmouth in 1956. By 1976, computer scientist and MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason focused a cautionary lens on the relatively new science and its potential negative impacts on society. Weizenbaum called for societal consensus that machines not replace humans in work that benefits from empathy—a state that a computer would be unable to simulate. Drawing on the work of other contemporaries looking at specific instances in which A.I. would be inappropriate, Weizenbaum named customer service representatives, therapists, eldercare workers, soldiers, judges, and police officers as roles that ought to be fulfilled by humans. This critique was in turn criticized for its vagueness and as such deemed dangerous, threatening to slow the rate of innovation and usher in authoritarian government control.¹ This debate continues in the background even today, but has been overshadowed by the relentless march forward in technological innovation, which has thus far outpaced the ethical conversation. As A.I., supercomputers, and technological advancements cross threshold after threshold, it is time that we, as a society, answer a fundamental question: What are people for?²

Technological innovation has already established the ability to replace human labor. Brute force tasks, previously held by both humans and other animals, were the first to be automated with inventions like the steam engine, steam shovel, and mechanized farming equipment. Repetitive tasks, the work of manufacturing the stuff of life, were the next to be automated. Then technology replaced humans in simple communicative roles—automated help desks being a prime example. Right now, we are witnessing how technology is continually replacing much more complex functions such as that of cashier or bank teller. And while we may have difficulty comprehending how technology could possibly replace more creative, complex tasks, A.I. promises to do just that. In a not-so-distant future where machines can replace humans at nearly all tasks, is there a line we should not cross? Have we already crossed it? Are there things that should be sacred? Is there work that we should reserve for us, even if robots and computers can do it more accurately, faster, or cheaper? What is our purpose, if not to have a purpose?

The idea of utilizing more discernment in the adoption of new technological advances is one I have found compelling for some time. The clarion call of neoliberalism has been for deregulation and privatization of everything. Guardrails formerly in place to safeguard the excesses of the free market have been systematically dismantled year after year in the United States and state involvement decried as impediments to innovation, or worse, branded as “socialist overreach.” In neoliberalist theory, the free market allows for equally unbounded prosperity—a rising tide that lifts all boats—but in effect it is concentrating wealth in the hands of a few and widening socio-economic gaps between the haves and the have-nots. This wealth concentration is, in fact, by design. In a past article I authored in 2014 called “Ecological Ordnung” I put forward the simple premise that technology for the sake of itself (or simply the enrichment of a few) is not a reason to use it, and that there needs to be a societal and ecological screening criterion for any invention or new technology based on a democratic and egalitarian review of its impact on human and planetary health.

This article, in essence, picks up where that one left off by asking the follow up questions, “How do we better regulate rapid technological and A.I. adoption without stifling innovation and progress? Are there ways that we can use the arc of technological progress to wean humanity off work that we should not do, while making us more adaptable and better at the work we should do? How can we ensure technologies are, on a net basis, benefiting the whole—not just people, but the entirety of life on this planet—and not the few at the expense of the whole? Who should arbitrate this conversation and by what criterion?” We should ask ourselves why our politicians and business leaders are so silent on these issues even though the answers are often self-evident.

While there are no shortages of dystopian predictions of A.I. gone horribly wrong, it is not all gloom and doom if we put up suitable and rigorous guardrails and take more care with our designs. These are our technologies; they should work for us, not diminish us. They should not strip us of meaningful work and a viable future simply for the benefit of those who hold a patent or own enough shares and certainly not simply because they exist. The widespread adoption of technology must be more critically assessed going forward or, as we are now seeing, it will go on unchecked at great and perhaps terminal peril to humanity and most higher order life on this planet. One person’s invention should not undermine entire livelihoods and human dignity, or ecological and sociological health. This critical assessment is the work of democracy. Therefore, to get at the question, “What are people for?” from a holistic perspective, we must simultaneously ask ourselves, “What is technology for?”

Discernment And The Myth Of Inevitability

We do not exercise much discernment with regards to technology anymore in the United States. And while other countries have exhibited slightly more good judgment, this is also a global issue. In fact, a hallmark of our contemporary society is a total lack of discernment in many regards—particularly when there is money to be made. When conversations around AI and technology surface on questions of impact, we tend to shrug our shoulders and view the future as inevitable rather than designable. Screening for social and environmental good is quickly labeled socialist and regressive. We delude ourselves with aphorisms like, “All progress is good progress,” or, “The market will sort it out,” or, “Automation achieves better results and people will always find other work.” But when societal and ecological fabrics are as frayed as they are, it becomes clear that progress for progress’ sake does not inevitably lead to good. Our societal track record since World War II has been abysmal. When all major living systems across the globe are in decline and with the effects of runaway climate change becoming evermore evident, it has become clear that the market’s only inclination is to make money; it certainly does not sort anything out for the betterment of nature—which we perennially forget includes ourselves. And it does not magically level out the playing field for the poor and middle classes of the world who are given as little thought as other species. Left to its own devices, market forces without rules lead to degeneration, the lowest common denominator, as well as massive inequities, and even death. In the context of work, automation, and better economic results, we really need to define what we mean when we say “better.” If our only metric for better is GDP or stock market gains, our economic betterment portends our decline.

The language of inevitability, at the heart of neoliberalist policies, casts us as puppets in the hands of fate, carrying out the work of our own demise like brainwashed suicide bombers. We forget that we have agency in democracies, that we build legacies, that we can create meaningful change at massive scales when we wake up and act together for the benefit of the whole. We can utilize the same ingenuity that invents dazzling new technologies to thoughtfully consider their limitations, externalities and the precautions that should be taken in their use. Then as a society we can design what is best for us as a collective whole. This idea that, for good or ill, technological “progress” is inevitable is merely a human idea. We can introduce other ideas that change the timbre of this discussion and the trajectory on which we find ourselves as a global society.

In a democratic, free society we have the ability and the responsibility to say how we want things to be for all of us, including our children and our grandchildren. We must recognize that capitalism and democracy are not one and the same, and that capitalism is but one tool in our democratic toolbox to create the societies and world we want. It is possible to have active and vibrant capitalist systems within a functioning and active democracy that safeguard the world.³ Why then are we not asking ourselves, “How do we want to live? What role do we want technology to play in our world? What do we want our societies to look like? What are people for?”

Read Jason’s entire article in the spring 2021 issue of Love + Regeneration, here.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelligence

2 Wendell Berry wrote a great book of essays with this name. The name always captured my interest as a provocative question to understand in the context of work, play and human activity.

3 Let’s not forget that capitalism also exists in fascist states, monarchies, and communist countries like China. Capitalism does not equal democracy any more than putting economic and technological guardrails means that a country is now “communist” as so often is the scare tactic of neoliberal conservatives.

Editor’s Note: We’re excited to share an excerpt of the article titled “Humanity’s Grand Design Assignment: 5 Big Things to Save Life as We Know It”, written by ILFI’s founder and current board member Jason F. McLennan. You can read the full article, as well as McLennan Design’s quarterly magazine, Love + Regeneration, here.

_{Article by Jason F. McLennan, with Kristina Avramovic Oldani}

It’s time we evolved. Literally evolved. ‘Punctuated equilibrium’ is a biological concept which describes a period of rapid evolution brought on by crisis or a quickly changing environment. The process of punctuated equilibrium leads to a new formation: cladogenesis — an evolutionary divergence. As a metaphor, we are in a moment of punctuated equilibrium and in need of a divergence from old ways of thinking that are no longer serving us or the planet of which we are part.

I want to acknowledge here that the ‘migration’ required of us is daunting. The enormity and comprehension of the change needed is overwhelming. And the heaviness of the pain and suffering running rampant across the earth and all its life including us is horribly depressing, at times paralyzingly so. But the antidote to this collectively felt anxiety and depression is acting with love.

To this end, this article examines five big things that we can and must do on behalf of the planet we live on to halt, then begin to reverse, and eventually regenerate vitality on earth, including in our societies. This list is by no means a comprehensive accounting of all that needs to be done to heal the planet, but by addressing these five big things we will accomplish a massive sea change for the better. This is the movement’s call to humanity. This is our big assignment.

First, and as quickly as possible, we need to decarbonize everything. We need to end the fossil fuel era in this decade and stop extracting and burning fossil fuels immediately.

While the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has fluctuated over time, prior to the Industrial Revolution it held around 280 parts per million (ppm). Safe concentrations of carbon dioxide are below 350 ppm. We passed that threshold in 1988 and have now hit around 416 ppm. This increase is warming our atmosphere dangerously, with horrific results. Rising sea levels are displacing thousands across the world and threaten the homes and livelihoods of millions more. Species are failing to adapt to warmer temperatures, especially in the ocean, and we’re experiencing massive extinctions. Weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, claiming lives and causing significant and enormously expensive damage. As climate action organization 350.org announces succinctly, “It’s warming. It’s us. We’re sure. It’s bad.”

But they go on: “We can fix it.” Drawing down our carbon emissions to zero is the most urgently needed action to slow, then stop, the acceleration of climate change and eventually begin to heal and regenerate life on earth.

To this end, the first step is to transition to the full electrification of everything. The good news is that we already have viable and, in many cases, superior alternatives to all fossil fuel burning conveniences: electric cars, renewable energy that is cost effective, batteries, LED lights, heat pump-based HVAC systems, and induction stoves. We have all the technologies and systems we need now to decarbonize. All we need is the will to do so on a global scale.

At an individual level, we need to stop purchasing internal combustion vehicles. No one should ever buy one again. We need to de-couple from natural gas and upgrade everything to electric based systems. We need to disentangle our lives from the extraction, sale, and burning of fossil fuels in our world simply by not buying the technology that makes use of them. As demand for electric alternatives has risen, so has availability, and now we’re seeing costs decline due to the uptick in adoption. We’re out of excuses to buy fossil fuel burning technology. Period.

At local levels, we need to demand building and transportation policies that not only reward good choices, but actively phase out fuel burning technology by banning all combustion. Berkeley, California was the first city to ban natural gas appliances in new construction in the summer of 2019 and more than twenty cities quickly followed suit. Others, like Brookline, Massachusetts, have banned new gas hook-ups city-wide. Such building code amendments are critical to reflecting the urgency of climate change and the significant contribution of domestic natural gas use to overall carbon emissions. Development largely is governed at a municipal level and it is therefore critical that local building codes catch up to the urgency of our need to decarbonize.

In the various communities to which we belong—work, faith, educational, and municipal—we need to push leadership to entirely divest from fossil fuels. Just recently, over 40 institutions of faith spanning 14 countries came together to divest from fossil fuels, the largest ever joint divestment from the global faith community. Given the pandemic’s effects on the economy, 350.org applauds this collaborative effort’s critical timing: “This is a clear signal to the rest of the world that any future investments or stimulus funds must reject fossil fuels and provide long-term structural emissions reductions. The solutions to the economic crisis are the solutions to the climate crisis. It’s high time for governments to accelerate the transition needed towards a 100% renewable energy future. Any financial intervention must put people and their livelihoods at its core.” While amazing models like this are heartening, only a rapid and collaborated divestment movement will have the intended effects.

We need corporations to make concretized, quantifiable, and scientifically backed carbon reduction pledges and follow through on them. We’re seeing promising trends: 23% of Fortune 500 companies now have solid carbon reduction plans that disclose their emissions, set ambitious reduction targets, all on more aggressive timelines. In 2019, Amazon adopted a climate pledge that aims to achieve net-zero carbon across the business by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. It further created a $100 million dollar conservation and restoration fund. Early in 2020, Microsoft went a step further by committing to be carbon negative by 2030, with a $1 billion climate innovation fund. Apple committed to be 100 percent carbon neutral for its supply chain and products by 2030. They are already carbon neutral for corporate emissions worldwide, but the company plans to bring its entire carbon footprint to net zero 20 years sooner than IPCC targets. These commitments have resulted in Apple shrinking its carbon footprint by 35% since 2015, despite its continued growth. This kind of leadership is required across the transportation, service, and manufacturing industries to enact the rapid and comprehensive decarbonization needed.

At the governmental level, we need laws to reflect the climate crisis and the unviability of continuing to burn fossil fuels. We need funding, particularly in this moment, to support a future powered by renewables, with investments in technological advancements and job creation toward a living future. Germany just made a bold move by requiring all gas stations add electric vehicle charging capabilities. Policies like this are urgently needed to push us at the national level toward a comprehensive adoption of electrification.

Taken together, the effects of decarbonization will be monumental, and not just as action against climate change. Already, the price of utility scale solar energy is cheaper than that of fossil fuels, spurring rapid adoption of the switch toward renewables. Even though initial costs of solar are higher for the consumer, at an average cost of between 3 cents and 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, solar achieves cost parity with fossil fuels fairly quickly, which cost 5 – 17 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Improvements to air quality have been made apparent in the relatively brief amount of time since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. Lockdown efforts in some places, like Jalandhar, India in the northern Punjab state, have resulted in clear skies and Himalayan views obscured for over 30 years by heavy air pollution. As a global community, we can demand such views, such access to clean air. That we’ve gotten a taste of what a world with fewer fossil fuels looks like bodes well for this migration.

An end to the fossil fuel era promises an end to the particular evils and corruption intricately woven into the politics of energy. “The Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world,” writes Boston University Professor of Political Science Neta Crawford in a recent white paper entitled “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War.” This consumption is in an antagonistic relationship to the military’s interest in creating energy stability by securing oil from regions of the world embroiled in conflict. An entire weapons and transportation industry has been built around our need for energy security, and this industry is economically fueled by conflict. The United States has been in an ongoing state of war since 2001, we’ve had only a few years of peace since the turn of the twentieth century. And while the Pentagon officially recognizes and understands the threat of climate change on national security, they do not officially concede their role in perpetuating the corrupt and enormously harmful military industrial complex by way of engaging in this relationship. “The US military has an opportunity to reduce the risks associated with climate change — and the security threats associated with climate change — by reducing their role in creating greenhouse gas emissions,” Crawford states simply.

And last—though certainly not least—our waters will regain dramatic health should we complete this transition. The horribly destructive practices of fracking and other modes of mining and drilling for oil and coal, dump chemicals and unwanted quantities of rock and soil in waterways. Oil spills have horrific effects on marine life and have created massive economic hardship in regions that rely on the sea for their livelihoods. Increasingly, these side effects are factored into the “true costs” of fossil fuel consumption, and rightly so. Without these kinds of failures and unintended, but very possible, even probable outcomes, renewable energy’s true costs are better reflected in the sticker price while the technology is far from perfect, improvements are trending toward elegant, comprehensively beneficial solutions to our energy needs.

The end of the fossil fuel era promises a cleaner, quieter, more peaceful, healthier world with air quality that surpasses any experienced in the past two hundred years. All that is needed is the collective will to change.

Read the rest of Jason’s list, as well as other inspiring articles, in McLennan Design’s quarterly Love + Regeneration publication.

A Special Invitation

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Jason F. McLennan, Founder of the International Living Future Institute and the Living Building Challenge. Jason is a keynote at this year’s Living Future Unconference, now online around the world for the first time in history. In this post, Jason shares how he is #SustainingHope during this crisis and extends a special invitation and call to action to all readers to come together as a community at this time.

Share your own story by May 1 about how you are #SustainingHope at this time. Please submit your stories, photos, art, or whatever is keeping you going, through social media or by emailing media@living-future.org, with the hashtag #SustainingHope. We will be sharing select posts online during the week leading up to Living Future 2020.

It’s Spring in the Pacific Northwest. This is the home of the Living Building Challenge. Yes, we are a global organization, but our roots are here, and it is here where we see hope bursting forth in every blooming cherry blossom.

This is the season of renewal and emergence. It’s now that the Bullitt Center’s windows would normally be opening and closing, the blinds raising and lowering to the pattern of the shifting natural light and gently drifting cloud cover, keeping us comfortable through our Hemisphere’s gradual tilt back toward the sun.

But this year, it also brings something new: a humbling, shared, global experience in which we are all feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders. Not one of us is escaping what all of us face–a daunting, evolving crisis with an unknown end date.

More than 16 years ago when I launched the Living Building Challenge, I never could have imagined that what I felt then about the damage we were doing to our planet would be so similar to what the entire world is feeling now about the global COVID-19 pandemic. It’s clear that people are finally realizing we need to change how we do things.

In moments of crisis, we are naturally drawn toward hope. As my good friend Anthony Guerrero wrote to all of you recently, hope is what gets us out of bed in the morning and keeps us going til dark, even in the current haze of ambiguity.

“How can this moment of change inspire you to break old patterns you have for the benefit of your health and the health of the world?”

Jason F. McLennan, Founder, ILFI and Living Building Challenge

This moment has catalyzed me to rethink many of my old assumptions and to make changes, and I invite each and every single one of you to do the same. What is your superpower? How can this moment of change inspire you to break old patterns you have for the benefit of your health and the health of the world?

In this crowd, we stand among the heroes of our own industry–people like you who have been pushing for change in our industry for a long time. This global pandemic will pass and it will be time, with renewed vigor, to solve not only our climate crisis but also the numerous environmental and societal challenges that are affecting life on the planet as we know it. It will take an even greater mobilization of global energy and resolve to confront the much larger and more impactful global disruptions to come.

I don’t want to take away from the gravity of grief and loss that so many people around the world are facing right now. But we must steel ourselves for the challenges ahead and as soon as we are safely able, we must come together again in solidarity.

I invite you to show up the best you can right now given the circumstances, with whatever hope and whatever strength you can bring. Show up for your family. Show up for your partner, your children, your parents, your loved ones, your chosen family. Show up for your community, and show up for your coworkers. And as we move toward what is normally the biggest event of our community every year, Living Future, we hope that you will show up for our planet. I will be there, on your screen. I hope to see you there too.

With warmth,

Jason F. McLennan, Founder, International Living Future Institute, Living Building Challenge

Editor’s note: This article is republished with permission from Love + Regeneration, a publication from the regenerative design practice McLennan Design.

The Over Consumption of Water

Since 2015, the world has watched Cape Town, South Africa’s four million residents live with the reality of water scarcity and its experts adjust predictions of when Day Zero – the day when taps are shut off due to exhausted water supply – will arrive. This water crisis has brought attention to the state of water resources and an uncertain future in which water scarcity is a reality the world over. In Cape Town, unchecked population growth combined with years long drought exacerbated by climate change has led to the current crisis, where water is being rationed to 13 gallons per person per day, with the inevitability of system shutdown even so.

The Pacific Institute’s world water conflict database seeks to comprehensively chronicle water conflict going back to ancient times. The database contains 400 entries; thirty-seven of these have occurred since 2010, including skirmishes, terrorist attacks, and armed assaults that have resulted in injury, infrastructural destruction, and death. And the Institute expects to see this increase:

“Our work suggests that the risks of water-related violence and conflict is growing, not diminishing, as population, resources, and economic and environmental pressures on scarce water resources increase. Many of these risks are materializing at the sub-national level rather than as disputes among nations, but even at the national level, there are growing concerns about tensions in Africa and parts of Asia that share international rivers but lack international agreements over how to manage those waters.” [source]

An estimated 780 million people in the world lack access to clean water, resulting in thousands of deaths each day. Additionally, as many as four billion people experience severe water stress for at least one month each year.  And Cape Town isn’t the only major city in the world to experience monumental water shortages: according to National Geographic, fourteen of the world’s twenty mega cities are currently experiencing water scarcity or drought conditions.

In the US, where individual water consumption tops world stats at 80 – 150 gallons per person per day, ground water in many places is being depleted at five times the rate of natural replenishment by precipitation. Coastal US cities that rely on groundwater are watching as water levels drop to alarming lows, resulting in salt water encroachment that further threatens what’s left. In Houston, Texas, which receives sixty inches of precipitation annually, groundwater levels have still declined by 400 feet, resulting in both a tenuous water supply and some 10 feet of subsidence, directly contributing to the city’s particular vulnerability to flooding – the repercussions of which have played out to devastating effect in recent years: last year’s Hurricane Harvey costs have been estimated as high as 125 billion dollars and 88 lives were lost.

Many coastal cities have begun looking to the oceans for their water supplies, investing millions in desalination plants. A proposed 100 million gallons per day desalination plant in Texas is estimated to cost $658 million. The proposal suggests several options for disposal of the concentrate stream (the salt and other impurities filtered from the water), including deep well injection, reintroduction to marine environments, or disposal in surface water, all of which have unknown, long-term environmental impacts. Additionally, the energy intensity requirements of this water source dwarf all other sources at more than four times the rate of brackish water and nearly seven times that of groundwater.

In the 20th century, the link between energy and water was largely ignored: systems were developed with the assumption supplies of each would remain robust and inexpensive. But the energy intensity of treating and distributing our dwindling water supplies is increasing: “with water demand growing and many local, low-energy supplies already tapped, water providers are increasingly looking to more remote or alternative water sources that often carry a far greater energy and carbon cost than existing supplies.” [source] Currently, 13% of the US’s energy consumption is spent moving water around, representing 521 MWh/year, which translates to 5% of our annual carbon emissions, and this number is on the rise.

Our current systems are outdated, failing, and environmentally and economically costly. Energy spent solving this crisis is largely directed at fixing these systems, which ultimately amounts to throwing good money after bad. Predictions place the global demand for water at 40% beyond available supply by 2030. And yet, all of these issues around water do not actually have to exist.  They all stem from simple overconsumption and an old Victorian era paradigm, unfortunate and unnecessary, especially when models of living exist where people can use radically less water, yet with improved health, economic and ecological outcomes.

LBC – A Radical Approach to Water Systems Design

In 2006, while leading the Cascadia Green Building Council, I launched the Living Building Challenge, a new certification program based on actual measured building performance. Living Buildings’ indicator of success is the data derived from the 12-month performance period, in which systems’ outputs are measured, their functions honed, and the success of the project verified in seven categories, or petals: water, energy, materials, health + happiness, place, beauty and equity.

The intent of the Water Petal is “to meet all water demands within the carrying capacity of the site and mimic natural hydrological conditions, using appropriately-sized and climate-specific water management systems that treat, infiltrate or reuse all resources on-site.” [source] In other words, projects have to be virtually independent of municipal water utilities, and utilize precipitation or groundwater that is fully recharged for 100% of their function. Initially illegal in all jurisdictions across the US, through the advocacy of many, net positive water pathways are now increasingly possible, and projects are demonstrating a completely different relationship to water – one that is in balance with the watershed and climate in which the buildings are located.

Seattle’s Bullitt Center, widely considered the greenest commercial building in the world, has proven the efficacy of the LBC’s vision for water stewardship. The building’s graywater system collects rain that falls on the rooftop PV array, funnels it to a 56,000-gallon cistern in the basement and treats and distributes the water throughout the building. Graywater from sinks and showers is re-collected and circulated through a rooftop constructed wetland before being released to infiltrate at a street level green swale. Thus far, the center does not have the necessary permissions to provide treated rainwater from kitchen faucets in the building, so redefining potable remains a regulatory sticking point, but this is only for a small fraction of the building’s water use. The building is nearly 100% off the water grid.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Brock Environmental Center serves as another case study for the LBC’s water imperative. The Virginia Beach, VA center is possibly the first commercial building in the United States to receive a permit for drinking treated rainwater (the regulatory obstacle that keeps the Bullitt Center from fully utilizing its graywater system) – an important precedent. With plentiful (45 inches per year) and well distributed rainfall, the system requires just two, 1,650 gallon tanks which can float the center through 23 days of drought. It too utilizes composting toilets and low flow faucets and fixtures. Its native landscape did not require any permanent irrigation measures after an establishment period. The center provides its public a living example of responsible water in tandem with an educational experience focused on the hydrological functioning, overall health, and ongoing conservation of Chesapeake Bay. The pairing of the intense care for place, and in particular the water there, with the demonstrable commitment to living within the means of the ecosystem is a powerful combination not lost on the center’s thousands of annual visitors.

Heron Hall – Taking Residential Living to a New Level

In designing my own home, Heron Hall, I wanted to demonstrate what was possible for a single-family residence and prove that a radical new relationship with water could be both functional and desirable. Many people think that Seattle is an easy place to be net zero for water – and yet the region often has over thirty days of drought or more and a lower rainfall count than most of the eastern and southern cities in the US. My goal was to be completely off the water grid and live on rainwater for all my year-round water needs. The path to net positive water was one of only a few key steps:

Step One – Reducing Loads

The first step towards net zero for water was to dramatically change the amount of water required within the household – something any family can do if there is a willingness to consider different technology choices and behavior patterns. California successfully curbed its water consumption by 25% in response to the 2010-2016 drought just by encouraging individuals to take a more measured, careful approach to habits of consumption, identify and repair inefficient or leaking fixtures, and limit excessive water consumption for non-essentials like private swimming pools and water intensive landscaping. Deeper reductions are possible and often easy.

As a family, we’ve developed habits of personal water use efficiency – we take short showers, we turn off faucets while we’re not actively using the water that flows through them – basic stuff, so we had this going for us automatically.

We selected and installed the most water efficient appliances and fixtures available on the market as a next step to reduce our water demand (dishwasher, washer), and careful design and installation ensured against losing water to leaks.

Because my landscape primarily consists of native or naturalized plantings designed to require very little irrigation beyond their establishment period, I’ve eliminated at Heron Hall what for many homes is a huge water footprint – watering lawns and gardens with potable water. As an added benefit, native plantings elegantly reference place, creating a sense of a home’s belonging in and to its natural surroundings. That said, I did install a separate agriculture cistern from 100% unfiltered rainwater to provide the water for my vegetable gardens and for water during the establishment period of landscape, but it is not potable water and uses only gravity for conveyance.

The majority of personally consumed water in the US, collected or pumped, piped, treated, and available at our fingertips, is used to flush toilets. This makes the toilet our biggest opportunity for designing for radical water reductions. The average person uses (and presumably flushes) a toilet 7 times a day. Each flush is between 1.6 and 3 gallons of potable water, amounting to between 11 and 21 gallons of water per person per day. The final and biggest step in dramatically reducing home water use was in eliminating the flush toilet at Heron Hall. By replacing the standard flush toilet with Phoenix’s foam flush composting toilet system, I now make soil, not waste water. And each flush uses just a cup of water, or .065 gallons per flush. This means I’m using somewhere between 2 to 4% of the water an average person uses throughout the course of a day to flush.

Step Two – Understand Place and Climate for Water Infrastructure

A comprehensive understanding of place and climate was the launching point from which we designed the water systems for Heron Hall and is foundational to designing a water system. In the pacific northwest, rain tends to fall in a concentrated wet season that stretches from October through June, with the summer months of July, August and September generally dry and often without any meaningful precipitation.

Using this information, I worked closely with 2020 Engineers and Rainbank Systems to develop a water plan for my home. Heron Hall’s rainwater catchment system collects the rain that falls on the north and south slopes of its main volume. The water on the north slope is directed to a 15,000-gallon cistern that supplies all the interior water for the house. This cistern was sized based on precipitation and usage predictions to accommodate four months of drought – but as we soon learned after moving in, it was very much oversized.

The water that falls on and is collected from the south slope of the roof is directed to a 9000-gallon agricultural cistern that provides all the necessary water for landscaping and onsite agriculture and makes for a beautiful landscape feature in its own right. By separating the two systems I do not waste energy to treat water that is used for landscape and agriculture. In climates that get less rainfall than Seattle, this water could easily be diverted for use within the house instead of being reserved for outdoor uses, making net zero possible, even in desert regions of the US.

Understanding how the system needed to accommodate the climate was crucial to building one that worked. In parts of the US where there is more or as much annual rainfall, more evenly distributed throughout the year, tanks and catchment areas would be smaller or water could be used more abundantly for landscape. In dryer parts of the country catchment areas may need to be larger to capture enough water to adequately supply a home. My home has several green roof areas not used for rainwater collection, but in a dry climate the entire roof could be used.

Step Three –  Apply Best Available Technology

The final step in radical water reduction at Heron Hall was to apply the best technology to using the rainwater the system captured.

Water from the 15,000-gallon cistern is cycled through a 3-step process – a normal filter that is followed by charcoal and finally UV to deliver completely potable water for all needs within the home. Graywater from sinks and showers is not needed to be reused given the efficiency of the home and abundance of water, so it is integrated back into the soil through a drip irrigation system. Again, more arid locations could opt to clean and re-use this water if needed.  The composting system requires minimal intervention and sometime 18-24 months after use will produce great topsoil for the garden.

How Did it Turn Out?

Having completed the twelve-month occupancy period for the systems per the Living Building Challenge, we can confirm that each member of my family is using an average of 13 gallons of water per day, a number comparable to the individual water consumption of a person in Bangladesh or Kenya and an 87% reduction from the average American. This is a massive reduction without any drop in quality of experience.  In fact, I’d argue that given that the water is rainwater (softer and free of chlorine, fluoride and all sorts of chemicals) that the quality of experience is far superior than the average American experience – but with a fraction of the environmental and economic impact.

Treated rainwater provides my family with an excess of water. Based on actual usage recorded, our cistern could in fact float us through 8 months of drought, which shows we could have easily had a cistern half the size we installed. Or, as designed, it shows that Heron Hall could easily be water independent even in a desert climate like Arizona. Imagine that – 100% rainwater powered homes in the American Southwest – with significantly reduced taxpayer burden and with an enhanced quality of water.

Here is another interesting fact – 14% of the water consumed daily in the average US home is lost to leaky fixtures and plumbing and even more when conveyance as a whole across a community is taken into account. The amount of water I am personally consuming in total in my home each day is equal to or less than the daily amount the average American is losing to system inefficiencies.

What Does This Mean?

How do we share the world’s water equitably among 7.4 billion inhabitants? We start by eliminating waste and rethinking the 150-year-old Victorian water paradigm we have been locked into. Our community water systems are broken, misguided and so wasteful as to be near criminal in intent. We need to start living within our means ecologically, retiring our debunked stories of the restriction and deprivation of doing so. We need to focus on the possibilities for regeneration and the much improved – not diminished – quality of life as evidenced by increased water quality, restored ecology, lowered costs of ownership and lowered or reprioritized taxes. These outcomes can be achieved by leveraging existing technology and collective will to change. 

The system in place in Heron Hall is replicable and scalable. With careful adaptations it works in every climate zone in the United States and Canada. With comprehensive understanding of place and the requisite adjustments to the plan, comparable systems can work even in places like southern California and Arizona. It is possible for humans to live and live well in these places while contributing to a world that is equitable, living within the capacity of place and engaging as part of the nutrient cycle. And we can do it now with available and proven technology and systems.

Neighborhood scale water catchment and treatment systems are even more affordable and spread the impact at the sweet spot of scale between accountability and economics so that each home doesn’t have to have its own water treatment system. When these principles are applied to whole new communities, we begin to see change at a meaningful level.

When we incentivize ingenuity around water usage and encourage decentralization – either on a house by house, or preferably block by block basis – we get extremely positive and radical results. Rather than wait for catastrophic failure and the accompanying monumental costs of replacement or overhaul, we need to begin investing in alternatives that successfully utilize the resources of a place without detracting or dumping: closed loop systems that healthfully participate in the ecology of place.

Imagine if Heron Hall wasn’t merely a demonstration home, but the start of a radical new paradigm for water use – what would happen? There are 1.35 million open new residential building permits in the US currently. If these homes were built simply to comply with current building codes and each resident used 100 gallons of water per day, and if they housed the US average of 2.58 people, on a daily basis they would collectively consume 348.3 million gallons of water. If code standards were increased to require the type of closed loop system featured at Heron Hall, and each resident used just 13 gallons of water per day, that number would reduce by 87% to 45 million gallons of water a day, the entirety of which could be rainwater utilized within a closed loop system. National carbon emissions would be reduced significantly and none of these homes would ever have a water bill again.

It is time to move away from the vast centralized water treatment systems bankrupting our communities and shrinking our aquifers and time to begin living in harmony with place and watershed by adopting this new paradigm. Reductions in municipal expenses can be used to phase out our ailing centralized infrastructure, replacing them with more rational and modern approaches to water and waste infrastructure. We could see the health of our ecosystems rebound by way of restored groundwater levels and soil health. By addressing the challenge now, we have the opportunity to create solutions that enhance quality of life and are more equitable, just and sustainable.

Editor’s note: This article is republished with permission from Love + Regeneration, a new publication from regenerative design practice McLennan Design.

Our bodies crave nature – of this we are sure. We are all familiar with the innately restorative effects of a deep breath of fresh air. We bring fragrant bouquets into our homes, hoping to waft the scents of nature into our sterile spaces. We walk out into the world, jump into lakes and streams, and plant herbs in our backyards. And until recently, we had little but our intuition to back this up, confirming how good it feels to interact with the natural world as part of our natural heritage.

The last few years have shown a rise in scientific and architectural interest in our relationship with nature, a topic known as biophilia. Edward O. Wilson coined the term “biophilia” in his 1984 book of the same name. He described it as, “the innate tendency to focus on life and life-like processes.” The bottom line is clear: we are meant to engage with the natural world, for the health and benefit of our bodies, our minds, and our communities. We’ve known for some time that a lack of access to natural ecosystems is an impoverishment for humankind, and we are finally beginning to produce hard data to prove it. Access to nature – along with clean air and water – must be recognized as a basic human right.

Stephen Kellert, a friend and colleague, was a pioneer of biophilia and wrote the 1993 book The Biophilia Hypothesis. In this critical text, he names a “human dependence on nature that extends far beyond the simple issues of material and physical sustenance to encompass as well the human craving for aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual meaning and satisfaction.”

Kellert wrote, “This daring assertion reaches beyond the poetic and philosophical articulation of nature’s capacity to inspire and morally inform to a scientific claim of a human need, fired in the crucible of evolutionary development, for deep and intimate association with the natural environment, particularly its living biota.” With his recent passing, we revisit his work and add some new thinking to the emergent field of biophilic design.

The Initial Rubric for Biophilic Design – A Good Starting Point

When I wrote and published the Living Building Challenge in 2006, it was the first green building program in the world to include Biophilia as a dedicated topic. The field was still quite young and barely defined beyond a general thesis. We included biophilia for two reasons: to elevate the level of discussion among practitioners, and to use the standard as a way to help advance the topic. We knew that getting designers to think intentionally about our relationship with nature was a critical first step and that we could use LBC to shine a light on critical issues under-appreciated within the green building world. We did this also with the introduction of Equity and Beauty as required topics for the first time into the green building certification world – elevating those critical subjects along with the more readily measurable topics like energy and water.

Our initial biophilia requirements put forth Kellert’s original design principles and encouraged an awareness of our own connections to life and “life-like processes” through design. The parameters were simple and loosely defined – the topic was so new, and we wanted to get people thinking and learning collaboratively with our project teams. The industry’s understanding of biophilia has evolved significantly since; our decision to include biophilia as a topic was timely.

However, there has always been a degree of confusion surrounding the implementation of biophilic design into architecture. Though more and more project teams began to discuss the topic of Biophilia and some project teams did begin to break new ground on nature integration into the built environment, all too often conversations rarely broke through a surface-level understanding. People worked to meet the letter of the standard and no further. Or jumped to immature conclusions, believing that they could simply decorate their way into Biophilia, shrubbing up their buildings by practicing business as usual and then throwing in a small living wall in their lobby and some patterns on their walls and believing it to be sufficient.

These short cut ideas – though well intentioned and perhaps better than no focus on the subject – skipped over the underlying philosophy: that our society needs to radically improve and deepen our daily interactions with the world outside of our walls precisely because we are now so separated from it. A veneer of nature alone is wholly inadequate.

The more recent versions of the LBC standard (3.0 and 3.1) changed the approach and emphasized the need for the teams to engage more deeply with Biophilia. The hope was that a greater interdisciplinary focus on the subject would help mature the biophlic designs and elevate the nature/human connection more authentically.

The jury is still out.

Biophilic Design Versus Biophilia – Why do they Exist?

Let’s revisit for a minute why the subject of biophilia and the sub-category of biophilic design even exist. Like so many movements, the field of Biophilia is a reaction to a great loss of some kind. The environmental movement was born from a response to the destruction of the environment witnessed by individuals and communities (think Rachel Carson, City Beautiful movement, Earth Day). The social justice movement exists because of rampant inequalities in our societies and a democratic society that still allows for them to be heard. Without injustice no social justice movement would emerge.

Biophilic design is the natural response to a rapidly growing lack of connection to the natural world experienced by so many urban dwellers. When we spend most of our time inside sterile and life-impoverished spaces, we find ourselves lacking the enriching, inspirational, and restorative effects of nature in ways we are only just now beginning to understand. The impacts are developmental, cognitive and physical with implications ranging from our ability to heal properly, to proper vitamin D production, to mental health.

Biophilia is described as our innate desire to connect with living things. We must distinguish biophilia from biophilic design, which we are critiquing and engaging with here. Biophilic design is the response from the Architectural and Design communities to the topic of biophilia and the need for more purposeful interventions.

One can’t imagine farmers, ranchers and certainly not indigenous people in traditional lifestyles needing to invent a field like biophilic design a couple centuries ago, since they lived with an abundance of nature already. The topic would have seemed laughable to anyone before the industrial revolution. It’s important to recognize that the field only exists now to limit the damage done with our current community and building designs and the degree to which we’ve separated from most life in the last few decades.
What most urban citizens are currently experiencing to varying degrees is a phenomenon described by Richard Louv as “Nature Deficit Disorder.” The variation in the magnitude of such a deficit depends on the character and intensity of the urban context. Most people are now so under-stimulated by nature in their urban lives, that we can no longer derive our necessary exposure to the diversity of life required for basic health from our daily routines. As a result, we must deliberately and surgically add it back into the rhythm of our lives to restore in some measure a balance that has been lost – or so goes the theory behind the movement.

And on top of the under-stimulation from natural processes and life forms, we are further assaulted with a constant overstimulation from our built, mechanical world that taxes our senses in completely different ways than we are evolutionarily accustomed to. We are growing deaf to our own biological input as we overwhelm our senses with the sights, smells, and sounds of modern life. Humanity is simultaneously understimulated in critical ways and overstimulated in destructive ways.

Living in our well-lit, air-conditioned spaces and enjoying the fruits of our comfort, we can delude ourselves into thinking that our move toward sterility and artificiality has been our inevitable trajectory – that we are programmed to fear nature – when actually the opposite is true. We are a species that is drawn to life and flourishes in its presence. We experience this on an individual, anecdotal level every day when we take a deep breath upon stepping outside. I sometimes joke that in one regard smokers are healthier than non-smokers in that that they take more frequent breaks and step outside more than others. All of us should practice this…while skipping the tobacco.

As more and more scientific evidence emerges to back up the hypothesis of Biophilia, we recognize how intuitive the outcomes truly are. None of this is surprising to us when we think back to our ancestors and the fact that we spent most of the last two hundred thousand years immersed in a daily struggle in nature – and only the last couple hundred years now in a form of nature deprivation. We are a species that evolved out in the world for almost all of our lives, and just recently walked inside, washed our hands, and shut the door. We evolved under the stars, out in the rain, under the trees and in the fields. We evolved surrounded by life. Our bodies are wired to connect with other living things to the extent that without them we are truly diminished.

Of course, a lot of these things killed us, ate us, and made us sick – such was the cycle of life. But the good and the bad came as a package, something we should have been more sophisticated to realize. As the rate of technological innovation accelerates, so grows our separation from the natural world. Technology has given us greater security, comfort, hygiene, and longevity, but has left us also an intense sensory deprivation whose consequences we are only beginning to appreciate.

It stands to reason that we can’t simply apply token nature elements and expect them to overcome the huge shift away from the natural world our lives have taken. And we need to recognize that design alone is not enough – certainly not interior design alone at least. Healthy living requires intense interactions for prolonged periods in actual nature on a regular basis. Or it means bringing nature authentically back into our cities so that we are once again connected to life continuously in the background. What we can do inside buildings with surface application will always be secondary to simply going outside, walking in parks or hiking in the woods surrounded by as much biodiversity as possible.

Scientific Evidence is Catching Up with Intuition

Writers, planners, and philosophers alike have long posited that there are health and wellness benefits associated with exposure to nature. Frederick Law Olmstead, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Muir are just some of those early thinkers who espoused their beliefs on the benefits of nature to the human experience. Through conservation efforts, the creation of urban parks, and spiritual and emotional writing, these luminaries set the stage for science to follow.

On the topic of mental health, much has been written to support the hypothesis that nature is essential to our wellbeing. Greg Bratman, a Stanford researcher, showed changes in the brain activity of people before and after walking for 90 minutes in either a large park or on a busy street in downtown Palo Alto. He found decreased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (where we process depressive thoughts) in those who walked in nature. He concluded that nature “may influence how you allocate your attention and whether or not you focus on negative emotions.”

Similarly, several psychologists from the Universities of Utah and Kansas studied the effects of nature on our attention spans and problem-solving abilities. In a study of immersion in nature, they found that a 4-day backpacking trip led to a 50% increase in creative problem-solving performance in a group of novice hikers. Their research presents a “cognitive advantage to be realized if we spend time immersed in a natural setting.”

People around the globe have leapt to incorporate this growing body of evidence into their lifestyles through increased activity in nature. Take for example the growing trend of Forest Therapy – also known as Shinrin-Yoku. Developed in Japan in the 1980s (likely out of necessity given the intense urbanization of Japan), this field has become a staple of preventative health care for the Japanese. Drawing from the same body of wisdom and scientific evidence, Forest Therapy encourages people to spend quiet, contemplative time walking in the woods to improve their mental and physical well-being.

Putting aside for a moment the fields of psychology and cognitive behavior, there are also many medical studies that present the benefits to physical health of exposure to nature. One study conducted on a 200-bed suburban Pennsylvania hospital found that post-op patients with views of nature from their windows recovered faster than those who were looking out onto a brick wall. They also had less complicated recoveries and less need for pain medication than those whose views faced the brick wall.

Another study by researchers in Tokyo showed the increased longevity of elderly citizens who lived closer to public, walkable green spaces. Furthermore, the study found an increase in longevity from those who lived near a space where they could stroll and those who lived near or on tree-lined streets or parks. This study marks an interesting approach to the differentiation between various types of outdoor exposure.

Despite the seemingly clear trends in countless scientific journals, many researchers struggle to draw a substantiated causal link between the noted health effects and the exposure to nature. The sticking point has been the question of how to quantify the effects of nature.

A good example of this dilemma is illustrated in “The Relationship Between Trees and Human Health: Evidence from the Spread of the Emerald Ash Borer.” This study took data from the naturally occurring spread of an invasive forest pest, which was causing a huge loss in tree populations across 15 US states. The study compared mortality rates with the presence of the emerald ash borer on the county level between 1990 and 2007 and found a correlation between loss of trees and an increase in mortality related to cardiovascular and lower respiratory tract illness. However, the study was based on observed data and thus was unable to claim causality.

In a discussion of this study, researcher Howard Frumkin stated a primary challenge of the field: it is still unclear how to define a dose of nature. He also postulates “even the most rigorous biomedical research results would not tell the whole story… In a world of specialized researchers and niche journals, it is the rare study that quantifies all the benefits of trees, for human health and well-being, the environment, and the economy.”

In another study in the February 2012 edition of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, several researchers looked into the question of the health effects of green design on the scale of the city. What they found was that the total area of green space in the city was not the most accurate indicator of a healthy city, in fact the inverse was true – cities with more green space had slightly higher rates of all-cause mortality. There were several factors that could have yielded this result (the selection bias of a greener city for the infirm and elderly, for example), but there was one that seemed far more likely than the rest: the lack of distinction in the study between sprawling, private suburban lawns and high-volume, multi-use public parks. For the purposes of quantifying “greenness,” these were counted as the same.

The outcome of the study is a lesson for scientists, planners, architects, and citizens alike: that the design of our outdoor spaces is as important – if not more so – than the fact of their existence. The study plainly states that, “if we green our cities without attention to the form the green spaces take, and the kinds of contact that residents want to have with their natural environment, there may be no benefit for population health.”

Central Park is living proof of the greater power of well-designed, usable, public green space. By providing a huge, natural environment in the middle of New York City, Central Park serves as a nature hub for all citizens. It is host to countless events – cultural, athletic, educational, and social – and provides the city a release from the overwhelming stimuli of the urban metropolis. I’ve long posited that Central Park serves as a giant biophilic pressure relief valve, without which the city would fail to balance the intensity of the urban landscape. By comparison, a suburban compound with individual lawns – though possibly greener in area ratios – is essentially a monoculture ecological desert not much better than concrete.

Science alone cannot answer all the current questions of this field. There is a demonstrated need for collaboration between many fields – biomedical research, landscape architecture, architecture, medicine, and countless others – in order to build a nuanced and informed rubric. We must work together to grasp a full understanding of the factors at play in the field of biophilic design and how to modify modern life to once again be in balance.

There is also a clear need for new methodology to guide designers through the process of integrating biophilic design into their projects. We must pose and answer the questions that continue to crop up. How much biophilia is enough? When and where is it most critical and to whom? Clearly, there is a qualitative difference between different kinds of exposure to nature, which affect us in different ways. It’s not as simple as “greener is better.” It is vital that we make distinctions between the needs of an office worker and those of a prisoner; between the types of natural access afforded to people living in Scandinavia and in the Caribbean; between the slightly positive effect of having an African Violet in the corner of the office and the transformative power of a lifestyle shift that pushes us out into nature on a regular basis.

Clockwise from upper left: Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond provided him the immersion in nature that inspired his lifelong writing about he benefits of simple living and exposure to the natural world. In stark contrast to Thoreau’s cabin, these tower blocks of apartment units have become all too common the world over and effectively block out the natural world entirely. In between these extremes are the familiar American suburban home (which provides a narrow-minded view of inclusion of nature through lawns) and an urban brownstone, which may attempt to fix its lack of natural connection with an indoor green wall.

The Exponential Scale of Biophilic Design: A New Hypothesis

In an effort to add to the growing field of investigation in biophilic design, I’ve put up some methodological scaffolding upon which to build future research – let’s call it the “Scale of Biophilic Design.”

I propose that the needs for biophilic design change in quality and quantity along a spectrum that is far from linear. This non-linearity needs to be clearly recognized by the design community practicing the young field of biophilic design. As our habitats move farther away from the natural world, our need for immersive nature increases exponentially so that the need for natural immersion at each level is multiple times more critical than at the preceding one. This Scale measures the effectiveness of typical biophilic design responses against the benefit of being out in nature. As the need increases, the degree of natural immersion needed gets higher. There is a gradient of quality of nature wherein a lawn is better than no lawn, but a forest or healthy meadow is better than a lawn. The quality is related to the abundance of life present – the diversity and the ecological health – as well as the accessibility.

Until now, people have often treated biophilic design in a linear way – assuming that the introduction of a few plants makes up for a complete loss of nature (like a green band-aid). These approaches are simplistic and far too inconsequential a response. They may not provide much more value than a placebo if not also part of an overall lifestyle that brings us back outside an in touch with a diversity of life.

The diagram above proposes a non-linear approach to the field of Biophilia. Along the x-axis is a selection of human dwelling typologies ranging from immersion in nature to total sensory deprivation. As one moves along the scale toward exposure to nature, the need for biophilic design intervention gets smaller. For example, someone who spends much of their life on a farm is not in terrible need of intentional, ameliorative biophilic interventions. However, if that person were to move to a suburban house, their need for biophilic design would grow.

The scale helps to divide typologies into categories of need. According to this methodology, there is a “sweet spot” where biophilic design can make a huge difference to the user’s lifestyle and wellness. This sweet spot is such because biophilic intervention is both possible and needed – there is an opportunity to leverage architecture to enhance biophilic experiences. As architects, spending our time enhancing the nature connection within these typologies could be the most effective use of biophilic design.

As you move to the right on the scale, you enter environments that are nature impoverished and biophilic design moves will always be inadequate. There is a reason that seamen spend limited amounts of time on submarines and must balance that time of sensory deprivation with time spent in a more natural environment. In this case, the time dimension becomes very important. Few people spend all of their time in any one of these typologies and as such, we must think holistically about our approach to people’s lifestyles beyond the one structure in question. For example, someone who lives in an urban apartment but goes out every weekend to a cabin in the woods will be exposed to far more biophilic surroundings than someone who lives in an urban apartment and spends their weekends at a casino. Biophilic design then is not a cure but part of an overall treatment.

Any convention that aims to measure relative need for biophilia must address variables that have long been ill-defined: the qualitative difference between a paved courtyard and a park, the amount of time that people spend interacting with nature, and the amount of time that people spend inside or in non-biophillic environments. These variables have long eluded scientific study and will be critical in guiding the conversations to come.

Having a clear, qualitative biophilic scale could also begin to help answer the question of how to suggest, require, discuss, and implement biophilic design in architecture and planning projects. By quantifying the needs of a given typology on the Scale of Biophilic Design relative to other projects, designers could target their biophilic design responses accordingly.

The implications of such a nuanced approach are profound. For those who work in environments where there is an extreme nature deprivation, more frequent exposure to the natural world could be of vital importance and suggest that both design and policy are required for substantial interventions. People who work in prisons, on submarines, or in internally focused structures should have significant corresponding time out in nature for their long-term health and well-being. Less extreme but still critical is understanding what is required for people that spend significant amounts of time in tall buildings – away from the ground plane and separated from landscape by distance and height.

As diagram to the right shows, there is a decreased connection to the natural world as you move farther from the ground. While beautiful views of nature from a high rise certainly help, there is a point where even these views become abstracted if the distance is simply too great.

Beyond the separation from the natural world, there is an additional separation from human interaction. I’ve long posited that children especially suffer from living above a certain height off the ground. At 200 feet of distance, we can no longer tell one person’s face from another and at 500 feet, we can barely see the tops of people’s heads. This disassociation with other members of our species creates a disconnect when it makes up the majority of our experience at a young age.

The diagrams put forth for the first time in this article are suggestive of scale and impact and should provide a much-needed framework for researchers to test and adjust based on scientific rigor and longitudinal studies on impacts to people.

Thoughtful approaches to biophilic design will take into account the particulars of the site and the demographics of users. The biophilic needs of a space will change depending on the age of the users, the amount of time spent inside the space, the seasonal fluctuations, and many more criteria. For example, the very young, the elderly, and the sick are especially sensitive to the effects of natural exposure and most harmed by a lack of exposure to life. In these sensitive demographics, the need for concentrated interaction with the natural world has been shown time and again to be vitally important. Similarly, those who live in the more extreme latitudes of the world – and therefore spend less time outside – have been found to react positively emotionally and medically when they bring nature more deliberately into their daily lives.

The best investigation of the biophilic needs of a project is wide-reaching, nuanced, and deep. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to biophilic design, but rather there is a range and a sweet spot that differs depending on conditions. Designers practicing biophilia would be wise to think more deeply about how to design differently. As we begin to understand the variables at play, we can adjust our responses to the context.

[I]Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984

[II]Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, The Biophilia Hypothesis (WashingtonD.C.: Island Press, 1993).

[III]Florence Williams, “This is Your Brain on Nature,” National Geographic, January2016, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/01/call-to-wild/

[IV] RuthAnn Atchley, David L. Strayer, and Paul Atchley, “Creativity in the Wild:Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Setting,” PLoS ONE 7, no. 12 (December 12, 2012)

[V]“Shinrin-Yoku Forest Medicine,” Shinrin-yoku: the Medicine of Being in theForest, accessed February 11, 2017, http://www.shinrin-yoku.org/shinrin-yoku.html.

[VI] R.Ulrich, “View through a window may influence recovery from surgery.” Science224, no. 4647 (1984)

[VII] T.Takano, K. Nakamura, and M. Watanabe, “Urban residential environments and senior citizens’ longevity in megacity areas: the importance of walkable green spaces,” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 56, no. 12 (2002)

[VIII](Geoffrey H. Donovan, PhD et al., “The Relationship Between Trees and HumanHealth: Evidence from the Spread of the Emerald Ash Borer,” American Journal ofPreventative Medicine 44, no. 2 (May 2013):.)

[IX] Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, “The Evidence of Nature and the Nature of Evidence,”American Journal of Preventative Medicine 44, no. 2 (May 2013):.

[X] Terry Hartig et al., “Green Cities and Health: A Question of Scale?,” Annual Review of Public Health 35 (March 2014)

Editor’s Note: In past issues of Trim Tab, Jason F. McLennan and Bill Reed have collaborated on two articles that focused on the subject of regenerative design (Regenerating the Whole and Falling in Love with Life)

Introduction

In our past articles we introduced aspects of the different thinking required to engage in the practice of living system development or regeneration; how this thinking is different from the left-brain, piecemeal, technical efficiency approach to sustainability; and why this shift in thinking is essential to achieve a sustainable condition. Many green projects are generative in nature: people get very excited about the techniques, technologies, and new ways of thinking that result in positive contributions to the health of ecosystems and a reduction of human impact. The big question is how this work can continue in the face of societal inertia and the surprises of evolutionary change. Certainly, a single developer, institution, architect, or planner cannot determine or dictate an effective, long-term result. All living systems of a community and watershed are the only organisms that can influence wholesale, long-lasting and purposeful engagement, and so design should be thought of as a framework or vessel that is supportive of this engagement.
The first article focused on Living System Design Truths, emphasizing five principles inextricably connected to living system regenerative design and development. The second article emphasized the necessary shift in our state of being—the right-brain, heart, and consciousness aspect of human being. The greatest source of leverage for this needed shift is within a human being’s inner development: developing the understanding of why, and the practice of how, to be in the right relationship with the world and each other.
This article addresses some processes to practice living system design and development and ways to bridge the world of things and relationships into re-engaging in the wholeness of life. The re (which means to do again, afresh, anew) in regenerative is the ultimate focus. How do we build the desire, the capacity, and the capability of a group of people to continually engage in a process of rebirthing their relationship with the evolutionary processes of life so that, overall, all life benefits? What does practicing regeneration look like? What are the leverage points that can serve as entry points to practice this way of doing and being?

Broad Aspects of the Practice

Regenerative development and design is a living systems approach to design and construction processes, inviting us to consider our full potential as human beings, understanding that we can be in a co-creative role within nature, helping to nourish and be nourished by all of life.
Holding the complexity of the whole of living entities (a person, the land, a community, an organization) is accomplished by working from the core identity (essence or uniqueness) of that entity. Carol Sanford, an expert in regenerative business, describes this as “working essence to essence.“ This is a design process that engages and focuses on the evolution of the whole of the system of which we are part. Logically, our place—community, watershed, and bio-region—is the sphere in which we can participate. By engaging all the key stakeholders and processes of the place—humans, other biotic systems, earth systems, and the consciousness that connects them—the design process builds the capability of people and the ‘more than human’ participants to engage in continuous and healthy co-evolutionary relationship.
Much like yoga, or any body-and-mind practice, a regenerative approach works at multiple levels in the individual and in the collaborative space. And it works much like a developing relationship between two people or a group. It is not a mechanistic or “cookie cutter” methodology. The practice responds to what is real and live in the here and now, not through reading words and manuals, but through action and experience. So, as a way of working, a regenerative approach calls for the kind of reciprocity and engagement between the participants, other people and the living system of a place. It is an ongoing tending, aligning, developing, and deepening of relationships—to bring the (birth, life, death, rebirth) process alive in a meaningful and fiercely pragmatic way that benefits life in each unique place.

Regeneration is a practice; it is ongoing, just as with evolution.
It is real work.
Just like life, one can’t go on automatic and expect to accomplish much. To be most effective in life, every step we take, asks us to be conscious of taking the next step.

Aspects and distinction of this developmental systems practice

Regenerative design is not a cookie-cutter, step-by-step, or linear process. As in any holistic practice, it is important to simply begin, and then you are in a position to practice and learn. This may seem to be an intimidating way of launching into this work, yet there are several schools of thought and practice to support the learning curve and help the practitioner engage in the process of socio-ecologic development along with the development of their own lives. For example, the two of us belong to different yet synergistic schools of thought relative to regenerative design. Working with actual projects in this way is one of the most effective ways to engage in large-scale transformation processes toward deeply sustainable, resilient, and regenerative systems.
There are many ways to structure whole, regenerative or integral practices. The important point of this work is to shift your client’s approach and assumptions as well as your own (even if you think you have all the right answers) and to start from what is core to the life of that client and to the place and culture in which you are working. This is the shift from doing things to developing the being relationships discussed in the second article. This discovery process of relatedness—between each other, and the whole living organism of the place we are addressing—is the source of compassion and care and therefore of the will to create tremendous change.
From practical experience, we have found that there are some basic aspects and distinctions that are useful to shift a project into this “becoming state.” This state of being generates the will to significantly change the way we do things. A master plan, building, or project emerges as a synchronous outcome of these deeper relationships.

These aspects and distinctions can be loosely identified as the Five Ps of Regenerative Development

I. Potential (co-discovering the new relationships, adaptation, and harmonization possible as people and place evolve)
• Permission (getting buy in and endorsement to begin a different kind process by those involved)
II. Process (building a web of relationships using Integrative Design, Lean Construction or similar processes)
• Five Capitals and Value-adding Processes (integrating continuously accruing value into a place)
III. Place and People (Place and People are linked in a dance – understand what makes this dance unique, its essence)
• Pattern (the consistent and repeating way a living system adds value to itself and other systems)
• Purpose and Role (understanding and becoming aligned around the unique role people have within this ecology and the      role of this place in its larger ecological context)
IV. Personal Development (practicing and developing a self that can minimize attachment)
V. Perpetual capability building (developing whole systems understanding, participating in feedback systems and opportunities for improvement and discovery as a living process over time).

IMPORTANT NOTE: These aspects and distinctions are experienced as concurrent and parallel threads. They are woven together in a way that is most appropriate for each project and the client’s level of focus and understanding as a foundation for the physical realization of the project.
In other words, these aspects of the work of engaging a whole living system are all done at the beginning of the project and are deepened and iterated throughout. A continual birth, life, death, and rebirth occurs in the project and within the team and each individual at almost every step of the project when working this way.

Potential

Even seemingly cataclysmic events are not problems. Nature can only address the present and work toward a future wherein life in that place organizes and collaborates to bring a higher order of diversity and resilience. It is a human perspective that looks at these events as problems; instead, it is more fruitful to think of them as rebirths. For example, a stream is in a continual process of making itself.
Since humans are nature, this means there is a lot to look forward to: the most exciting, powerful, and effective dimension of the practice of regeneration centers on working with the concept of potential; that is, the inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

The idea of potential may seem to be stating the obvious: life is emergent, it is becoming, it is always evolving; we are part of an inevitable dynamic process. Yet, in general, our design culture has been trained to solve problems and provide “deliverables”—things, master plans, restored ecosystems, and reports—as if the thinking and ideas delivered at the end of a contract will somehow outlast the myriad evolutionary pressures of life. We can easily lose sight of the whole in pursuit of the part.
What is most fun and satisfying about the practice of regeneration is that we are helping people experience and become excited about the processes of life and how any ecological system—all of life, humans and “nature”—can continually organize to bring back a tremendous diversity of healthy relationships and further the ongoing renewing of quality of life. This regeneration includes our own relationship to self.
This work is built on the concept of autopoiesis, or auto-creation, wherein living beings such as bacteria, guilds of animals, plants, and soil, watersheds, and so on are seen as systems that produce themselves in a ceaseless way. Similarly, we need to take the abilities of the organisms we call human beings, help them see the potential of how life wants to work in the places they live, and then give them basic organizational frameworks and principles for how the whole socio-ecological system can be collaborative and healing. With the catalyzing of this co-creative process, whole ecosystems can begin organizing toward a dynamic resiliency in a matter of months and certainly within only a very few years.

Permission – Finding the client who is ready to engage in exploring potential—to move beyond expected outcomes

• From residential construction to whole cities and cultural groups within nations, the size of the project doesn’t matter. It is important to identify the client’s motivating factors in order to deepen the regenerative design process. In our experience, there are a few reasons that clients are inspired to engage in this different nature of design process:
• A desire to leave a legacy compared to their previous work;
• An aspiration toward higher levels of sustainability and restoration;
• Need to address large-scale, human-caused ecological system damage;
• Fear of community backlash and lack of support;
• An awareness of the benefits of systems thinking and integrative processes;
• Collaboration and alignment with multi-stakeholder constituencies and/or large design teams;
• A desire to add value to the system they are working within;
• A desire to systematically address multiple and concurrent issues.
  Despite the client’s motivation, the general approach to the regenerative design and development process is intended to help them recognize and understand the core of their reason for considering engaging a practice that explores new thinking. The basic way of starting a co-creative relationship is to help clients see themselves and recognize the (likely unspoken) core purpose for their work. This occurs through asking them gently destabilizing questions for which you (and them) do not have an immediate answer. These questions may be entered on identifying the client’s distinct purpose for doing this work. The important point to remember is that this is all about them, not about your expertise. One thing is certain: you cannot force this way of being on a client; it is something they recognize when they engage with it.

Process
Building a web of relationships

At its most basic level, practicing regenerative development is about the process of inviting and helping the stakeholders in an ecological system to be in a continually enriching relationship around a unifying purpose. People, in general, are social beings who want to be in healthy relationships with each other. Fragmented issues and groups of people working in silos and managing their own fiefdoms will only exacerbate the problems in a living system. The most practical and well-developed practice modes come from the world of System Integration. Your “gateway practice” may be built on one of a number of different modalities of group process alignment: community organizing techniques, organizational development, lean construction, integrative process, integrated project delivery. Each of these management technologies has strengths and weaknesses. The most important attribute to be embraced is the idea of organizing around a co-creative or integrated process and avoiding the command-and-control mentality that sponsors the tyranny of the expert. The integrative process is an absolute and basic foundation to realize regenerative development. A core group of people in an organization or community must be able to contribute to a process of creativity in order for them to eventually take responsibility for the health-giving evolution of the place. If the team that the core group is working with is not integrated, there is not much hope or practicality in thinking that a bad example will somehow inspire the opposite.

A diverse community is a resilient community, capable of adapting to changing situations. However, diversity is a strategic advantage only if there is a truly vibrant community, sustained by a web of relationships. If the community is fragmented into isolated groups and individuals, diversity can easily become a source of prejudice and friction. But if the community is aware of the interdependence of all its members, diversity will enrich all the relationships and thus enrich the community as a whole, as well as each individual member. In such a community information and ideas flow freely through the entire network, and the diversity of interpretations and learning styles-even the diversity of mistakes-will enrich the entire community.
—Maturana and Varela (1987) The Tree of Knowledge as cited in: Fritjof Capra (1996) The Web of Life. p. 330

A unified team is much more intelligent and effective than any individual.

Five Capitals and Value-adding Processes – Building a web of relationships also means we are building capital, or adding value, to the system in all the essential domains of life. The Forum for the Future, an independent non-profit specializing in solutions for sustainability challenges, identifies at least five domains that require value to be added on a continuous basis: Natural Systems, Human Development (spiritual/intellectual), Social Development, Economic Development, and Built Environment. Engaging with and developing all five capitals as the design process progresses is why it is vital to “design the design process.” If we do not intentionally hold multiple places in the schedule to continually iterate around these domains many opportunities for synergy will be lost.

Place and People

Expand the opportunity in order to understand the ecosystem at its core; in other words, the core living patterns of place and people are observable in their larger context.

An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing.

—Masanobu Fukuoka, The One Straw Revolution
Start with universe.
—Buckminster Fuller
If you can’t solve a problem, enlarge it.
—Dwight Eisenhower

We cannot reduce a problem to the point at which it can no longer stay alive. Once a problem is disassociated from its living and supportive context, it cannot sustain itself. Thus, we need to enlarge the system with which we are working:

Place – enlarge the project. “Place” is the smallest unit of effective living development.
A living system self organizes most effectively when it comprehensively encompasses as many aspects of evolving life as possible: a watershed, agricultural land, relatively undamaged habitat, and urban and rural human habitation.

People – Interestingly this work also ‘expands’ into the inner human dimension of self – our own evolving development.

Regeneration is foremost a developmental practice, a process of internal becoming, a process of relationship-building between people-to-people and people-to-nature. The “deliverable” of a project emerges out of this new and deeper exploration and understanding of necessary interrelationship, the unique relationships between the people and the environment, and the unique ecosystem in each place.

. . .The future is not just about firefighting and tinkering with the surface of structural change. It’s not just about replacing one mindset that no longer serves us with another . . . It’s a future that requires us to tap into a deeper level of humanity, of who we really are and who we want to be as a society. It is a future that we can sense, feel, and actualize by shifting the inner place from which we operate . . .
This inner shift . . . is at the core of all deep leadership work today. It’s a shift that requires us to expand our thinking from the head to the heart. It is a shift from an ego-system awareness that cares about the well-being of oneself to an eco-system awareness that cares about the well-being of all, including oneself . . . When operating with eco-system awareness we are driven by concerns and intentions of our emerging and essential self – that is, by a concern that is informed by the well-being of the whole.
—Leading from the Emerging Future, Otto Scharmer, Katrina Kaufer, 2013

Pattern – Story of Place©

When the uniqueness of a place sings to us like a melody, then we will know, at last, what it means to be at home.
—Paul Gruchow

Patterning is how we hold any complex idea. It identifies the consistent and repeating way a living system or living entity adds value to itself and to other systems and entities.

“The world around us can be understood as structures, or as patterns. We can see objects or we can see the exchanges between those beings. Both are valid and useful views, but as a culture, we tend to the myopic view of a formal world. We are highly literate in the languages of symbols like letters, numbers, codes, and icons, and largely illiterate in the language of patterns. Life is process, and processes are patterned. This shortsightedness is why we damage the living world and cannot seem to stop it. We stumble without the balancing view of the pattern perspective.”

This pattern work is done through a process of working from pattern understanding to identify key leverage points:

“We are looking for what Gregory Bateson called “the difference that makes a difference.” That difference is not a thing: it is a place and time—a relationship—a small change that changes everything. To play a song well, tune your instrument . . . To topple the arch, remove the keystone . . . Bread rises from adding a timely pinch of leaven . . .It is not a new technique or technology that is called for, but understanding when and where efforts can be effective . . . To be effective, shift the underlying patterns. This is the key to systemic change . . . The trick lies in seeing it.’

The Story of Place® is a process developed by the Regenesis Group to engage communities in an essence understanding of how the core patterns of life work in the system they live within. Understanding the essence of the place inspires people to work with the system by harmonizing their actions with its core nature. This process builds ‘will’ in people by helping them relate to, understand, and love the unique way life works in their place. The Story of Place® is not just a narrative of history; it is a narrative that identifies the key nodes of exchange and transformation and the collection of patterns that make a place unique, as all places are. The story is really about the essence of the place and its people. The power of working with a community comes when people are asked to think into the patterns that are being discovered. When they feel the resonance (that “sings to us like a melody”), you know that their heart is being spoken to. Now, the reconciling work can begin between people and the place they know as home.
The International Living Future Institute began pioneering some work to create both “child-centered patterns” and ecological patterns that are based loosely on Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language.

Purpose and Role- understanding and becoming aligned around the unique role people have within this ecology

When exploring a working relationship with a client or consultant, it is useful to shift the conversation from the normal telling and teaching to helping them experience the additional dimensions that need to be considered when working with living socio-ecological systems. By participating and experiencing the work required to move the conversation beyond the normal “what we are going to do for you” or what is wanted, new insights emerge, and the participants are excited about new areas of discovery.
Typically we work with what we are going to do. This is the checklist approach. When we add the dimension of how it is going to be done, and what the purpose is, the conversation and learning are more relevant at a deeper level.
One framework that is used to explore and experience these additional dimensions is the Five Whys. Edwards Deming used this problem-solving tool in his work with the Japanese auto industry. Any decision made should be questioned to at least five levels of why. This framework demands that we examine levels of understanding and relationships.
“What,” “How” and “Why” are the questions all journalists are expected to address to create a whole story.
Patterning, the Story of Place®, essence understanding, and identifying purpose are ways that help us to get to the core of the issues. This is a kind of tracking process. Trackers are expert at recognizing related and repeated essential patterns at different scales. This kind of training helps us move past all the extraneous white noise and get at what is truly important and repeated over time. By getting to the core, we then have the flexibility to move beyond fragmented wishes and expectations. This is a very effective way to discover new potential.
All life can be seen as an activating force and a receiving or restraining force. For example, a developer wants to build a building, and the receiving force may be the reduced health of the social and natural systems of a community and its habitat. If we compromise, the building may cost a little more, but the local system of nature may still be damaged with a mechanical approach to the problem. By taking the time to find out what is core to the developer and core to the community, we can find multiple ways to identify new potential rather than compromise around what we think we need or the answers we have used in the past.

Personal Development

Let him who would move the world first move himself.
—Socrates
Practicing personal leadership begins with the “self” rather than the “other.”
—“Personal Leadership,” Schaetti, Ramsey, Watanabe, pg. 14

How do we develop caring relationships with others in our organizations, communities, and of course, with our inner selves? This work is holistic, and the practice of regeneration asks us to engage ourselves, our clients, and the communities we are involved with in the challenging work of human development in order to effectively work with the collaborative nature of nature.
When we work this way with any group of people, the way of being and becoming will naturally unfold as we challenge ourselves to think in new ways with the places we inhabit. The discipline of sustainable design requires this of us. This is why the term regenerative development is used: as long as life evolves, we will need to evolve with it. This is a conscious process, and working on projects with a diversity of people is one of the best ways to develop new capacity and capability as individuals. It is up to each of us to find a way to intentionally bring this practice into the projects we are working within. Doing so will allow us to be inspiring and powerfully effective with those who hunger for greater meaning in the work of sustaining life.

“External regeneration cannot occur without internal regeneration. Find a way, or an ecology of ways, to heal your inner self. This could include traditional therapy, peer-to-peer counseling, group work, or a commitment to one of the many schools of human potential and personal development. A spiritual practice can be included, but is not enough to fully heal the wounds that each person carries from the current oppressive society”
—“Regenerative Enterprise,” Roland and Landua

Perpetual capability building

Sustaining ourselves and the living systems that support us is a dance of reciprocity, very much like a permaculture food system, or how a gardener engages with her backyard vegetable patch. This attitude and relationship are built upon in order to “garden” the whole system that we live within, and the attitude and practice expand to all living entities.
Regeneration is about engaging in a process of continual adjustment and change based on how natural systems are responding—as well as engaging our willingness to change and adapt by consciously working on our individual selves and the larger social system.
The ultimate deliverable for a regenerative development project is to leave the place, the community, and the ecosystem with a core group of people who have the capability to continue evolving this developmental process into the future, in order to ensure that the project lives into its potential.
This core team may be a newly formed group representing the various domains or interest areas that form the subsystems (energy, water, mobility, social, governance, and so on) that are part of the whole system. The purpose of this team is to “hold the whole,” bringing together or informing others who are working in the subsystems so that they are working in support of the unique nature of that particular place.
Based on change and transformation experience (and common sense), this core team will typically need some guidance and support over a period of three to seven years. It takes that long to develop new patterns of relationship that have staying power. This does not take extensive time; it is a matter of consistency, with coaching visits every six to eight weeks to keep the plates spinning and the depth of understanding developing. In other situations, we have seen the process of feedback systems actually teach the community about right relationships. If you have stormwater runoff pollutants draining into the lake your children swim in, the motivation and constant awareness of cause and effect are obvious and compelling.

Finally:
Regeneration is another term for rebirth in all its dimensions. After all, a whole is composed of everything. Regeneration can start with anyone hoping to make a change for good in the world. Whether we are engaging with a human, a building, a stream, or a whole ecosystem, the relationships are equally complex and always evolving. No matter where we begin, it always comes down to human development; humans are both the source of degradation and the conduit for the greatest expressions of love and co-creation.
One final word on this work as a practice comes from Wahiduddin, a website with a variety of resources for inner exploration and inspiration.

. . . simply reading the words are not the point . . . The goal here is mastery. It is the act of practicing these ideals in every moment of daily life (that) is the challenge, and for most of us that takes repetition and effort, day after day, year after year.

The End of the Internal Combustion Engine and the rapidly approaching Fossil-Fuel-Free World

 A couple years ago, I began to discuss the idea that the end of the internal combustion era was finally in sight, along with the overall rapid decline of a fossil fuel– driven world.  I think some folks felt it was a premature pronouncement—yet in more recent days, the prediction has begun to pick up momentum.  Recent climate talks, scandals by Volkswagen and the emergence of ever-more electric vehicle platforms have combined to give further weight to my prediction.  To be clear—I think we will see the end of fossil fuels as the predominant fuel source for the world within our lifetime—and the reign of the internal combustion engine has a scant two decades left.

 There are several trends to look at:

The Rise of Electric and the Fall of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)

The electric car has gone from a liability to an asset.

I bought my first electric car nearly twenty years ago—the Corbin Sparrow. It was cool looking but spent more time in the garage than on the road—it was bleeding edge and mostly bleeding. Now I have a Tesla, and apart from being too pricey (the only thing wrong with it), it is without a doubt the best car I have ever experienced in nearly every way possible. It seats seven, has nearly as much storage as a minivan, goes 0-60 in under five seconds, and is absolutely quiet. It receives upgrades with wireless software downloads and keeps getting better the longer I have it. At a Tesla Super Charger Station, a car can charge to full 260-mile range in 20 minutes for free. I haven’t been to a smelly, polluting gas station in over a year.  Once the cost of a Tesla becomes equal in price to a gas engine (only a few years away), it’s game over.

The price of renewable energy has dropped precipitously and improved dramatically—when I designed my first net zero home for a client a decade ago solar panels were 9-11% efficient versus 20% efficient and are now about ¼ the cost per installed watt as they were back then.  Those are impressive gains and I predict there will be similar jumps ahead. Forget about the difference in batteries for both cars and homes! Tesla’s Powerwall lithium ion batteries are vastly superior to the polluting and inefficient lead-acid and nickel-metal-hydride batteries that were the go-to solution for decades. In the last couple of years, significant progress on battery development has began to open up exciting new possibilities.

While too many Americans are still in denial about climate change, the ranks of the ignorant and foolish are quickly diminishing under the undeniable weight of evidence that climate change is both happening at an alarming rate—and definitely caused by human activity. From the papal encyclical to the global COP 21 agreements and the rise of the divestment movement, momentum is finally shifting to act on climate change.

In the end, like too many things, it is money—not altruism—that will result in sudden positive shifts in the world’s energy paradigm. History has been clear on this front in so many ways—when presented with a better paradigm and equal (or even nearly equal) costs, people rapidly and willingly dump the old paradigm for the better. Once a trend even begins to become inevitable, the market begins to shift, and the underlying infrastructure that has subsidized the current paradigm quickly dissolve and further hastens the change. As quickly as the horse and buggy was replaced by the ICE automobile, so too will electric cars and renewable energy replace ICE engines, coal, diesel, and petroleum. We will be leaving (thankfully) a lot of oil in the ground.

I believe that in less than two decades, internal combustion engines in cars will feel about as relevant as Betamax cassette tapes (for those who remember them), and there will be a rapid and sudden shift in the market after a short (10-15 year) transition period starting about now. Toyota, Volkswagen, Chevy, Ford—they are all racing to get into the electric car game. Alternative vehicles and micro cars like the Renault Twizy, electric bikes, better public transportation and self-driving vehicles will further drive a stake into the old ways. Lastly and significantly, changes in driving patterns and more walkable and bikeable cities mean that more and more people will simply do without a car, which is an even better step. Car ownership is no longer the rite of passage for young Americans that it used to be.

Solar has reached grid parity in many markets around the world and in a few US markets like Hawaii and Alaska, and the economics will shift for most of the world within the next decade. Much like electric cars—the result of using solar is infinitely better as an experience—so that once it is equal in price, it’s the end of the road for “conventional” fossil fuels.

Solar City’s business model is proving highly profitable, allowing for solar deployment without upfront capital by building owners in markets where they operate. Payback times are dropping fast, and the price for a net-zero home system is now no larger than the price of a good automobile. There is a lot of work to do to change our grids and utility systems, but I think the transition will be swift and positive. Imagine a world without air pollution, oil spills, strip coal mining, and deadly foreign wars propped up by the necessity of a giant military industrial complex. You can see why there were so many efforts for so long to squash and hinder progress in renewables.

The following chart explains my predictions of our rapid change to the new energy paradigm globally.

Energy Prediction Timelines

Between now and 2030, two major changes in technology and a third overarching change in multiple technologies completely change the energy game.

1. Automakers begin to dump the ICE engine and as uptake continues, the entire petroleum and ICE infrastructure begins to fall apart rapidly. Cars have short lifespans—so as cars are pulled from the road, they aren’t replaced. Petroleum use, while still necessary for air travel, begins a rapid slide to obscurity. RIP!
2. Photovoltaics and wind (and a few other sources) become cheaper than fossil fuel resource extraction everywhere, and the market simply folds on coal and natural gas and is quickly made up by renewables. As renewable market share increases and economies of scale and competition kick into high gear, they will continue to improve in both economics and efficiency. By 2040 the fossil fuel era of humanity comes to an end, and by 2050 fossil fuel accounts for a fraction of global energy use.
3. Overall global energy use will continue to decline—even as the planet adds two billion more people in the timeframe shown in the graph. Continued rapid improvements in energy efficiency and incredible new ways to understand and interface with energy result in radical improvements. Other changes include the rise of computers that use a fraction of the energy with significantly more computing power, appliances and equipment that also are radically more efficient—huge improvements in lighting, building design, building envelopes, and improvements by industry in all sectors. We’ll have 20% more people by 2050 and use 20-30% less energy than we do now overall—and 80% will come from renewables.

Other energy predictions include:

• An abandonment of nuclear energy as unsafe, immoral, and economically backwards.

• A wholesale change in how our cities function that de-emphasizes the car and instead prioritizes human locomotion and public transportation.

• A moratorium on large-scale hydroelectric systems that are ecologically damaging, and the rewilding of rivers worldwide. As current major dams reach their useful lifespan, they will simply be decommissioned and never replaced again.

A lot can happen in the next few decades, and big questions remain. What will happen when the world’s energy is democratized? How will traditional energy players adapt? How will utilities change over the next few decades? How will government policies help or hinder the transition?

What can we all do to hasten the change to this future?

Personal Divestment

The fossil fuel divestment movement is growing rapidly around the world as institutions and organizations agree to purge their investment assets, including stocks, bonds, and investment funds from companies that are directly tied to the fossil fuel industry. Since 2014, several hundred organizations have made significant pledges that now total over $50 billion and growing. Divestment helps shine a light on the contributions of this industry to climate change and stigmatizes further investment into unsustainable energy sources.

But divestment isn’t just for large organizations. All of us can join in and begin to divest as individuals and grow the momentum to rapidly eliminate fossil fuels from our lives.

***Create a cool sticker for Personal Divestment –

“I’m Divesting from Fossil Fuels and Investing in a Living Future”***

Here are a few things you can do to personally divest:

Step One – Lobby your employer to divest from fossil fuels for all of its assets.

Step Two – Divest all your personal investments from fossil fuels, including where you bank and which credit cards you use. Many large financial institutions have ties to entities you likely don’t support! Check out the ILFI credit card from Beneficial State Bank for a better option, and consider putting your money into funds that support renewables: http://fossilfreeindexes.com

Step Three – Purchase 100% of your electricity from green energy sources. Many utilities offer a green energy purchase option.

Step Four – Trade in your gasoline car an electric vehicle or better yet a bicycle!  Stop buying petroleum directly. My family has gone all electric, and it’s been liberating to not have to go to the pump!

Step Five – Buy a solar array for all your home’s power needs.

Step Six – Live locally and give up flying. I’m nowhere near to being able to do this, but for many it can be a significant step, since flying consumes so much fossil fuel.

For more information on the divestment movement:

http://divestinvest.org

http://350.org/category/topic/divestment/

http://gofossilfree.org

Every generation has a tendency to consider its way of living to be normal—the way it always was, how it will continue and how it should be. We are self-centered that way, which makes some sense because our patterns of behavior make up our entire direct context. History lessons sometimes seem abstract, and the future hasn’t happened yet. We know that things have changed greatly in the last few centuries—especially in the last few several decades with regards to. This is particularly true when we consider the human habitat—the environment we have created to provide ourselves with security and shelter.

In the span of just a handful of generations, we humans have radically altered our surroundings. We’ve transitioned out of the natural habitat where we spent our first 200,000 years and hurled ourselves into one that is increasingly artificial, and there’s no way that the pace of natural human evolution can keep up with the environmental changes we’ve created. In our relentless march forward, we haven’t stopped long enough to consider how the radical change in our homes, offices and cities are affecting us. It’s time for us to ask what short- and long-term effects our new habitat is imposing on our species and the environment.

FROM OUTSIDE TO INSIDE

Think about the vast difference between how people live in the industrialized world today versus where the majority of their ancestors dwelled; “creature comforts” are almost exclusively focused on the interior of buildings and homes, while not-so-distant predecessors lived the majority of life outside. This is a simple observation loaded with profound implications. What are the biological implications of transitioning a species that evolved under the stars for over two million years to one that rarely ever sees a star?

Places such as Shanghai, Tokyo and Mexico City offer extreme examples of densely urbanized megacities, human communities that have literally become unnatural in an alarmingly short period of time, with more concrete than trees. Too many people are crowded into overbuilt, artificial landscapes that have cropped up in just the past two centuries with the majority of the population growth happening since 1945. Modern-day humans in these habitats have too few opportunities to interact with the natural environment as they go about their days; many children never have the opportunity to climb a tree or experience true, untouched nature. With light pollution, dark skies are a thing of the past.

Will this rapid variation in human habitat unleash rapid evolutionary change, and is that change already underway? Will we experience a type of punctuated equilibrium similar to the sudden modifications seen in species that are abruptly isolated by natural phenomena? Will the humans of tomorrow begin to develop different attributes in response to a separation from the natural world? Will our new manufactured environments weaken us in some critical way?

We’ll begin with the understanding that modern humans are at least 200,000 years old; however, given the drastic changes introduced by industrialization and technology, it is not an exaggeration to say that our species created wholesale changes to our environment only within the last 100 years, or 1/2000 of our history—a mere blip. Factoring in archaic humans (that share 99% of our DNA) dating back two million years, our “new habitat” represents only 1/20,000 of our current environmental context.

For several million years, our humanoid ancestors lived almost completely outdoors, using only caves, trees and crude shelters for respite from the elements. Humans rose with the sun and slept when it was dark. They were guided by moonlight and starlight and, later, by firelight. They breathed pristine air that was free of chemicals (except perhaps in caves with fire). They drank only water and ate an omnivore’s diet of nuts, grubs, vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. The normal routine provided constant exercise, since following the herds and moving with the seasons meant that everyone walked an estimated average of five to nine miles each day. There were short periods of intense stress (adrenaline flowed when large carnivores were approaching, for example) and longer periods of idle time as hunter-gatherers, likely without the chronic long-term stress that we know today. They stood, squatted or sat on hard objects for much of the time, and ate dirt and bugs while coexisting intimately with other organisms—that sometimes tormented them and sometimes shaped how long they lived in a particular place. They adapted to varying degrees of temperature fluctuations, and relied on all five of the senses for survival. I could go on, but the picture is clear.

Now consider current conditions for affluent humans in the developed world—most people in this segment spend about 90% of their time indoors. They breathe air that contains a veritable soup of chemicals and pollutants (especially in crowded cities), and those who are smokers intentionally inhale approximately 7,000 toxic chemicals. During those hours indoors, where the temperature is often set at a constantly comfortable 72 degrees Fahrenheit, they typically sit in chairs or lie in beds—few stand for long periods anymore. There is habituated sedation, which led to a lack of sufficient exercise and an obesity epidemic.

Their diets don’t serve them well either. Most people in industrialized nations consume copious quantities of foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt. They ingest an overabundance of calories and multiple chemical preservatives with every meal. They drink far too little water, usually replacing it with beverages laden again with chemicals, sugar and often alcohol. On average, they do not get enough natural light during the day but instead bathe themselves in too much artificial light at night—something researchers are finding is terrible for the circadian system that regulates the digestive and immune systems. Their bodies and indoor environments are sterilized, destroying the beneficial microbial communities that have evolved with the species. Many work and live in a state of constant background stress due to the pace of life and the work environment. And they stare at computer screens for hours (which is hardly natural), but spend only minutes looking at trees and other life beyond their pets.

The developed world has unconsciously dotted the built landscape with natural placeholders to sate a missing desire: hanging images of nature on interior walls; building parks into cities’ plans; caging animals in zoos to observe them from a safe distance. In so doing, we have trapped ourselves in a cage of our own making. All of these attempts to surround ourselves with stand-ins for the natural world stem from a collective sense of loss.

The urban living trend is driving the new normal for human habitats, and unleashing a grand experiment on the human condition. What happens when you completely change the environment of the majority of a species? Many modern cities do not provide humans with the elements necessary to thrive in the natural manner with which they evolved, yet migration to urban dwellings is rapidly increasing. While approximately half of the global population lives in cities today, a much larger percentage of humans will flock to urban areas by the turn of the next century. This urbanization of our habitat becomes an experiment on a majority of our kind. It is important to note that even our “rural” environments bear little resemblance to the way humans used to live.

When Everything We Want is the Opposite of What We Need I want to be very clear that I don’t pine for the “way things were” or romanticize our hunter-gatherer past. Pre-modern life was not always idyllic, and current ways of life are not always apocalyptic. On the contrary, life for our ancestors was short and brutish. Technological advancements in the developed world have delivered some undeniable benefits to humanity. It’s hard to deny progress on so many fronts, but there needs to be a limit, beyond which too much separation begins to lead us down a path of regression. I’m afraid we’ve passed that point.

As with anything, there is an ideal balance—a place where things are in harmony and optimal conditions are achieved; a sweet spot between the pre-industrial past and over-industrialized present; an internal “Boundary of Disconnect” that we cross at our peril. (For more on the Boundary of Disconnect concept, refer to the January 2013 issue of Trim Tab.) Of course, this theoretical boundary is never static. There has always been a dynamic interplay of forces. We are a durable and adaptable species, and many of our innovations have helped us immensely. But that doesn’t discount the need for reflection and analysis.

There has to be a human-created environment where humanity is truly at its best and healthiest. Surely there is a set of conditions that best supports human wellness, culture, safety and life expectancy. Instead of spending so much money and time on technological and mechanized efficiencies, we need to focus resources on a much more critical analysis, one that examines the causes of many of the chronic problems that compromise human health, community and culture.

What would the ideal human environment look like? Let’s consider the key elements of the pre-industrial past (pre-agricultural age), the present affluent, developed world, and the ideal future. How far from ideal are we in each category?

Returning to all of the ways of the past is clearly not an option nor would it be desirable, but nor can we allow certain current conditions to remain unchanged. The direction we are headed towards even greater separation with the natural world is disconcerting. We have to temper our desire to control and tame nature, and choose instead to live in concert with it. We have to go back to seeing ourselves as an important part of the natural world, not separate from or superior to it. There are ways to apply our acquired knowledge that will benefit us, and our environment. We have to use technology as a tool—with discernment—to get our cities, our homes and our bodies back on the right track—to build communities that have a net positive impact on the world.

The habitat we crave is the one we need. We evolved in natural, biophilic settings, and it is incumbent upon us to recapture and preserve those same qualities within our modern habitat. Surrounding ourselves with life, spending considerable time outdoors and sharing our spaces with living things nurtures our kinship with nature.

Our love of life is what makes us human. So let’s allow ourselves to get a little wilder and, where smart, to readjust our scales in the right direction.