Lecture 3 1994 Atlanta based interface Carpet was a leading seller of carpet tiles led by Ray Anderson Over 1 Billion year sales Petroleum based carpets with significant amounts of air water pollution 6 tons of landfill waste per day But the company complied with environmental laws Did the company get environmental awareness Founder Ray Anderson read The ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken Ray then had an epiphany You can t go on consuming more than your environment is able to renew We re on the wrong side of history and we ve got to do something Ecological Footprint land needed to provide resources and assimilate waste What was the Ecological Footprint of the Interface Carpet factory That is how much land was needed to provide its resources and assimilate its waste The ecological footprint of a population is determined by its 1 size and 2 amount of resources used per person Book Confessions of a radical industrialist by Ray Anderson Goal Build a sustainable environmentally sound business Anderson began to recognize that we must not only minimize our impact on nature but also understand that our resources come from nature Change in normal business plan increases in technology can save resources and money One method interface used was biomimicry that products imitate nature They removed glues from carpets and replaced them with gecko lizard technology Between 1994 2006 Interface Carpets made major changes Fossil fuel use declined by 55 Total energy use declined by 43 Only 5 of the 5 billion pounds of carpet pulled yearly was being reused new technologies developed to recycle carpet 100 000 tons of waste diverted from landfills Ray Anderson s pathway to sustainability Eliminate waste Benign emissions Renewable energy Closing the loop Efficient transportation Sensitizing stakeholders Redesigning commerce Total economic value 1 Use value Direct use value Resources used directly provisioning services water fish Cultural and amenity services recreation Indirect use value Resources used indirectly 2 Nonuse value Bequest value future generations possible use existence value right of existence example blue whales and uninhabited lands have value just for existing Indirect use value of plants for flood control Villagers in India planted 80 244 mangrove saplings to get into the Guinness Book of World Records which A tsunami soon struck Although much of the land around the village was flooded the village itself suffered created a kilometer wide belt of trees minimal damage option value for medicines and drugs 25 of pharmaceutical drugs are derived from nature Bequest value Do we own future generations the resources and conditions to exist Existence values Blue whales and uninhabited lands have value just for existing Sustainable development meet present needs without preventing future generations from meeting their needs Economic Discounting do we care more about the immediate benefits of some action or do we give more weight to longer term benefits The unregulated exchange of goods or services that carry externalities will generate prices that do not reflect the full social most or benefit of their transactions We call these types of transactions inefficient When marketplace inefficiency occurs the result is market failure Market failure may be caused by imperfect knowledge or environmental externalities among other things Ecological market failure can happen when a resource does not have defined property rights attached to it while too many users exploit the resource Tragedy of the Commons Reading Since 1994 Interface Carpet has Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 35 Reduced energy consumption by 43 per unit of production Relies on recycled materials for 40 of raw materials While sales increased by 66 and earnings doubled Green business can be profitable 1 Green actions save money 2 Consumers willing to support sustainable businesses Lecture 4 why did Dr Cox choose Samoa to search for a cancer cure located in tropical region which is warm lush close to the equator it s this combination of environmental factors that gives areas like Samoa the greatest biodiversity on Earth Biodiversity variety among organisms and ecological systems at all levels of organization Natural capital range of natural resources provided by ecosystems example Oxygen Timber Energy Fuel Food The welfare of humans depends on maintaining ecological system functions Ecosystem services conditions and processes of natural ecosystems and species that provide some human value What should be a human goal Sustain current standards and minimize negative impacts resulting from For example pollination by bees or wind management extraction and use of resources Chemical weapons in plants have evolved over millions of years as relationships and competition among plants and insects have been forged Plants are continually evolving to stay ahead of pressures from herbivores Why care about the Biodiversity Biodiversity benefits humans and other species Plants evolve to produce toxins as they adapt to other species Chemical weapons in plants have evolved over millions of years as relationships and competition among plants and insects have been forged Plants are continually evolving to stay ahead of pressures from herbivores Plants may gain medicinal qualities as they adapt to other species Ethnobotany The study of the relationship existing between people and plants focusing on understanding how plants are used and managed across different societies and cultures Traditional healers use medicine derived from plants and insects to treat and cure disease Like family recipes these natural remedies are passed down through generations and learned through apprenticeships Searching for natural remedies Chemical weapons produced by plants were once the primary form of healthcare and inspiration for new drugs aspirin codeine hypertension drugs Western medicine has often replaced natural sources and inspiration for medicines with pharmacology and lab based chemistry International trade in medicinal plants topped 100 billion in 2011 Paul Cox Video What might be a potential downside or challenge associated with the field of ethnobotany The ecological footprint of a population is determined by its 1 2 Size and amount of resources used per person USA Population 300 million 2 billion acres of land Footprint of each of us 24 acres person CHINA Population 1 3 billion 2 billion acres Footprint 2 acres person Cowetta NC Hydrologic Station Diverse forested