Dematerialization by conscious design
The Sustainability Dictionary hosted by the Presidio Graduate School defines Dematerialization as, “Reducing the total material that goes toward providing benefits to customers; may be accomplished through greater efficiency, the use of better or more appropriate materials, or by creating a service that produces the same benefit as a product.”
Just as firms seek to economize on energy, labor, land, and other factors of production, they are searching for opportunities to economize on materials. Encouraging examples of more efficient materials use exist in many sectors, functions, and products; however, the taste for complexity, which often goes with so-called higher performance, may intensify other environmental impacts.
Innovation inspired by nature
In her thought-provoking book, Biomimicry, author Janine Benyus opens with a quote by Vaclav Havel, “We must draw our standards from the natural world.” This is the heart of dematerialization by conscious design and what the Biomimicry revolution is all about – the conscious emulation of life’s genius. Biomimicry requires a shift in mindset from thinking about what we can extract to what we can learn from nature. It requires changing our relationship with the natural world to mentor, measure and model. “[L]iving things have done everything we want to do without guzzling fossil fuel, polluting the planet, or mortgaging their future. What better models could there be?”
How would nature design a carpet?
The answer is Entropy™ – the biggest selling product in the shortest period of time in InterfaceFLOR’s history. InterfaceFLOR’s principal designer David Oakey observed how no two square yards of a forest floor are the same, yet they blend perfectly together in a harmonious whole. There is no solid color. It’s a diverse system. He asked, “How could you make carpet so that in one production run, the color and design of every single carpet tile would come out slightly different?”
In his most recent book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, Ray Anderson, founder and Chairman of Interface, Inc., reflects on how designing carpet the way nature would has many advantages. “We could actually lay it randomly instead of in a monolithic fashion, saving installation time. It was easy to make repairs because the tile didn’t match exactly to the other tiles. Off quality practically vanished, inspectors could not find defects among the deliberate “imperfection” of no two tiles alike. And it practically eliminated installation waste.” The goal is to make the best looking, most durable product while using the least amount of raw materials, ultimately reducing environmental and financial costs.
Toward a sustainable materials economy
A next step in our research is to develop a scenario for a significantly dematerialized economy and to explore the changes in technology and behavior needed to achieve it. What would a dematerialized, sustainable materials economy look like? Such an exercise should include careful examination of hazards as well as benefits to natural systems associated with a qualitatively and quantitatively sustainable materials economy.
In other words, how does the overall growth of a system offset any efficiency gains in its components? We must measure product life cycles, industry sectors, and the total materials economy at several stages, in various contexts, drawing our standards from the natural world. Imagine a sustainable materials economy that respects its place as a subset of the biosphere, and actually enhances life on Earth as products travel through their life cycles!
Nadine Gudz
Manager, Sustainable Strategy
Source: Materialization and Dematerialization: Measures and Trends
