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We're Not Ready for
Sustainability
By Daniel
P. Gehman, AIA
Are
sustainable practices the province of the
religious and the poor? Ask any family why
they recycle. Those who respond, “We
don’t” are automatically eliminated
from any further conversation. Nearly everyone
else will give a response which, when stripped
of all pretense, will basically boil down
to “it’s the right thing to do.”
This, of course, catapults the discussion
into one of morality, because if there’s
a “right” thing to do, there must
also, by definition, be a “wrong”
thing to do. Consequently, the exploration
rapidly becomes an examination of virtue,
and dances dangerously close to a religious
talk.
Most people in highly affluent Orange County
are not pressed by necessity into frugality
as a way of life. When we are able to afford
pretty much anything we want, re-using things
becomes inconvenient, even annoying. I can
easily recall a time when this was not the
case; I was raised, for a time in a single-parent
family, where our survival depended on AFDC.
Two specific phenomena loom large in my memory:
first, that “real” milk always
had to be cut 50% with re-constituted powdered
milk before it could be consumed; and second,
that I liked it when my older brothers got
groovy new clothes—because if all went
well, I would one day inherit them. Now, my
parents both came from a deeply religious
background, so prudence was familiar to them.
It was commonly said among my agrarian grandparents
that when they slaughtered a hog, they “used
everything but the ‘oink.’”
My mother even used to insist that I rinse
out and re-use zip-lock bags. (Maybe she was
ahead of her time.)
When we can afford everything we want, deliberate
thrift must be motivated by some kind of concern
for the greater good—either the benefit
of others, or perhaps the welfare of the planet.
However, I believe, along with Phil Angelides,
“we’ve lost our vision for the
common good.” Even in the communities
with recycling programs, varying levels of
concession are made to the lifestyles of the
residents in order for the state-mandated
reclamation programs to be effective. Most
of us receive a convenient second receptacle
into which we toss our waste paper, plastic,
glass, and aluminum. Newport Beach residents
don’t even have to divide theirs--they
pay a tax to hire other people to do that.
Back in Costa Mesa, I had to scrupulously
segregate everything myself and schlep it
all over to the grocery store or reclamation
center every month or so.
Admittedly, in those days we were struggling,
and the paltry cash return for all that “baggin’
and draggin’” actually had some
meaning. In other words, for better or worse,
I was still motivated, at least in part, by
self-interest.
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I’m
grateful for the government’s recent
emphasis on sustainability. In a way, I suppose,
it’s like an institutionalized recycling
program—our leaders reward us for fulfilling
their vision of a brighter future. But it
also helps to bring the issue onto the table
for discussion in virtually every project
we design. Of course, in the “free”
market, we may still encounter the “short
term/long term” dilemma—that is,
a developer may like certain sustainable ideas,
but only if they “fit in with the overall
budgetary parameters of the project.”
Obtaining a LEED certification for a building,
for example, can be an arduous undertaking,
without immediate perceivable benefit to the
investors.
Can we in the design and building industry
act altruistically? Will we do it when the
return on the investment is not immediate?
Domestic recycling
is only a tiny portion of what “Sustainability”
entails. But it is a critical part, as it
is where the seed for the broader vision
is planted. When we cringe to see an empty
bottle head toward the landfill rather than
a second life as a counter top or bathroom
tile, that’s a great step in the right
direction.
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