Sustainability & Permaculture
Doing More with What the Earth Produces
This blog is part of a series about permaculture, drawing on experiences in a Permaculture Design Course I am taking with Chop Wood Carry Water Permaculture in Nottingham, NH.
“We must stop expecting the earth to produce more, but start doing more with what the earth produces.”
- GUNTER PAULI, Upsizing: The Road to Zero Emissions
I just returned from a trip to the dump where I unloaded bags of garbage and plastic, glass, metal, and paper for recycling. I suppose I could feel positive that I had three times more bags for recycling than bags for the trash and all our food waste had already gone into compost for the garden. However, when I think of all these pounds of unusable material from just one household, multiplied by billions of people, this waste makes no sense. “Produce no waste” is a principle of permaculture, meaning we capture as much value as we can from each resource nature provides.
Overcoming "Functionally Insane" Short-Term Thinking
This blog begins a series of posts about permaculture, drawing on what I am learning in a Permaculture Design Course I am taking with Chop Wood Carry Water Permaculture in Nottingham, NH.
Green Biz reported on a recent speech by Al Gore where he shared a story of a survey of CEO’s several years ago. CEO’s were asked “whether they would make an investment that would meet their internal return-on-investment targets and make their business stronger, profitable and sustainable. One hitch: It would also make the company slightly miss its next quarterly earnings estimate.” Gore said “This is functionally insane. It's not only insane where the values that we share are concerned, it's functionally insane where the well-being of that business is concerned," It's the wrong decision for the investors, for the shareholders, and for all the stakeholders."
Short-term thinking and fragmented thinking are at the roots of so many of the challenges we face. These ways of thinking are so pervasive and within each of us, we are like fish that do not recognize the water we are swimming in. How do we re-learn to think in ways that are not fragmented and make decisions that are good for the short and long term? How do we design our work, our businesses, and our change efforts in ways that are attuned to the complexity 
and interconnections of a living system?
Another Way is Possible
A recent story from Rwanda provides an inspiring example of what can be achieved when leaders refuse to accept conventional wisdom about what is possible or realistic. Partners in Health (PIH) is a Boston-based NGO, led by Paul Farmer and Ophelia Dahl, has stood steadfastly by the notion that the poorest of the world’s people deserve and can have world-class medical care and facilities, equivalent to wealthier countries. Working in the poverty-stricken rural areas of Haiti to Peru to Rwanda, they have demonstrated that it can be done and are changing the way public health is addressed worldwide. This story is brilliantly told in the book Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World, The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder.
Greening Hospitals
Health care is 17% of the US economy. Health Care Without Harm has been a leader in a global movement to shift this huge sector to adopt environmentally responsible practices. They built their campaign on the principle of "first do no harm," e.g., advocating that hospital incinerators that create hazardous air pollutants should be shut down and that cancer care centers should not be using carcinogenic products. Practice Greenhealth is a related membership and networking organization for healthcare institutions to work together to implement sustainable, eco-friendly practices.
This video case study shares the story of how Health Care Without Harm and Practice Green Health helped Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston to green their operations from bottom to top. It is a great example of how to engage employees in sustainability efforts.
A Bold Stroke of Green Leadership Becomes a Learning Lab
At NHBSR’s recent ‘Go On Tour’ event with Hannaford, George Parmenter, the company’s CSR Manager shared the story of how Hannaford constructed the first grocery store in the world certified to the US Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum standard, the highest level possible. The senior leadership of the company decided to take this high-profile action to establish itself as a leader in green practices.
The store was built in Augusta, Maine on the site of an old high school. 99% of the old building’s contents were re-used in other schools and 92% of the demolition waste was used as fill for the new site. The design team found a range of strategies to green the operations including:
