As the dust begins to settle after the American election frenzy, Urban Sprout has outlined some of Obama's proposed policies relating to environmental issues. And the blog Green Building Law has posts on the topic both before and after election day. [Update: here's another environment-focused Obama roundup.] My impression is that we're in for a much more enlightened attitude from the US, though it's not clear how that will translate into foreign policy. Will Obama adopt a more inclusive approach internationally? On the domestic front, he seems to be keeping an open mind:
Environment and Energy Daily is reporting here that Obama will begin almost immediately working on these issues by going on a listening tour to explore "energy and environmental issues before Inauguration Day in an attempt to build momentum for its policies and legislative plans," allowing California to enhance its automobile standards, setting the stage for cap and trade and investing $15 billion per year to promote the deployment of renewable technologies.
We can hope that his approach to fundraising has kept him less beholden to lobbyists, as he claims. Let's also hope the Obama administration doesn't rely entirely on regulation to solve the environmental crisis. We need a dramatic shift, and regulation alone won't achieve that. Thomas L. Friedman, author of the 2005 book The World is Flat and the newly-released Hot, Flat and Crowded, suggests that we need to innovate our way out of global warming. To those who say that renewable energy can't provide the industrial-strength power needed to run the modern economy, Friedman says we haven't really tried. Seen in comparison to mainstream R&D, efforts at reducing energy dependence have been halfhearted at best.
One of the case studies presented at last week's GBCSA conference was that of carpeting manufacturer InterfaceFLOR, whose European manufacturing operations use electricity from renewable sources only. That's a positive example on its own, but what the company is trying to promote is a change in their marketplace that will allow them to improve sustainability performance even more. Illustrating the importance of industry awareness, Lindsey Parnell (CEO and President of InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India) pointed out that it can actually be better to design carpets for a shorter lifespan that fits with the trend of replacing carpets every 3 to 5 years.
Every time a new tenant moves into a building they inevitably tear up the carpets, so Parnell argues that designing a carpet to last as long as the typical lease would allow them to use different raw materials that have a lower environmental impact. But purchasers generally baulk at the idea of a carpet that is designed to last such a short period. InterfaceFLOR has also tried promoting the "evergreen lease", where they manufacture, install, maintain and dispose of carpets (which also allows them to repurpose old carpets), but the concept hasn't caught on.
This example tells me two things. One, that many manufacturing processes can be made efficient enough to be supplied by non-fossil-fueled energy, if sufficient attention is paid to the choice of materials and manufacturing processes. Two, that change is often stymied by attitudes, rather than technologies or regulations. I do recognise that standards and regulations have an important role to play in encouraging change, but the transformation often needs to cross jurisdictions or economic sectors, while regulations tend to be piecemeal because they are enacted within sectoral boundaries. Every industry needs to interface with other industries and markets, and each of these may be governed by legislation that is not uniformly supportive of sustainable business practices. Consequently there is a limit to how effective the regulations are in creating a transformative environment.
