Sustainability: Strategy, Innovation and Change (EBM210A05)
Institution
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
Ehrenfeld, J. R. (2008). Sustainability by design: A subversive strategy for transforming our consumer culture. Taylor and Francis, pp. 10-21
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, .
Eccles, R. G., & Serafeim, G. (2013). The performance frontier. Harvard Business Review,...
Week 36: What is “sustainability” anyways?
No required readings
Week 37: Why is this so damn hard to solve?
Module 2: Complex Problems
® Ehrenfeld, J. R. (2008). Sustainability by design: A subversive strategy for transforming our
consumer culture. Taylor and Francis, pp. 10-21.
Module 3: Tragedy of the Commons
® Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243-1248.
Week 38: Why do businesses need to care?
Module 4: The Challenge for Businesses
Week 39: What’s in it for business?
Module 6: Business Opportunities
® Eccles, R. G., & Serafeim, G. (2013). The performance frontier. Harvard Business Review,
91(5), 50-60.
Module 7: Sustainability Strategies
® Hart, S. (1995). A natural-resource-based view of the firm. Academy of Management Review,
20(4), 986-1014.
Week 41: Can it be done alone?
Module 8: Collaboration for Sustainability
® Nidumolu, R., Ellison, J., Whalen, J., & Billman, E. (2014). The collaboration imperative. Har-
vard Business Review, 92(4), 76-84.
Week 42: How do we actually change this?
Module 9: Initiating Sustainable Organizational Change
® Kotter, J. (2012). Accelerate: How the most innovative companies capitalize on today's rapid-
fire strategic challenges-and still make their numbers. Harvard Business Review, 90(11), 43-
58.
Week 43: Now, how the hell do we change that?
Module 11: Systems Change
® Seelos, C. & Mair, J. (2018) Mastering System Change. Stanford Social Innovation Review.
,Module 2: Complex Problems
Ehrenfeld, J. R. (2008). Sustainability by design: A subversive strategy for transforming our con-
sumer culture. Taylor and Francis, pp. 10-21.
Chapter 2
Solving the Wrong Problem: How Good Habits Turn Bad
Industrial ecology is based on the idea that healthy ecosystems can also serve as a metaphor for sus-
tainable human socioeconomic systems. One of the central themes in this field is the closing of material
loops – in other words, recycling most everything we use in the same way materials flow in natural
systems.
Our society is addicted to reductionist ways of solving virtually all our problems. When confronting prob-
lems, we tend to chop them into small pieces and give each piece to a specialist familiar with that chunk.
Over time, as we engage more and more in this practice, society’s competence to address the compli-
cated, messy problems we confront has diminished. Unsustainability is just such a messy problem.
Reductionism will not make it go away.
Whenever we encounter something that needs doing or fulfilling (the “problem”), we take an action to
solve it (the symptomatic “solution”). The solution we apply causes an opposite effect (o). Because we
spend most of our lives working to make our problems go away, this pattern of behavior is the most
common. This pattern of behavior also describes our habits, which are nothing more than repeated
problem-solving routines.
One common outcome is that the original problem comes back at some time later: “fixes-that-fail.” An-
other is that some unintended consequence shows up somewhere else. The unwanted effects keep
getting bigger the more we keep trying to solve the primary problem, which may also grow over time if
our efforts fail to get at its roots. This kind of loop is called a reinforcing loop, and we term the process
positive feedback. Repeated attempts to solve the problems often have another serious negative “side
effect.” The first, shifting-the-burden, is our tendency to lose sight of possible fundamental or more
effective solutions while we remain stuck in our habitual ways, trying harder and harder to deal with
situations that just don’t seem to improve or otherwise go away. Our habits and fixation on the symp-
toms tend to blind us to the possibility of more effective and longer-lasting solutions.
If the habitual solution has a negative impact on the system beyond simply defocusing attention, re-
peated efforts can severely damage the system itself. In this case, the solution becomes a new problem.
Such is the status of unsustainability.
In our modern way of thinking and acting, we are accustomed to solving virtually every problem by
some sort of technological means. This habitual way of acting has the insidious “side effect” of produc-
ing serious deterioration of nature and our own humanistic capabilities. The long run of successes of
the technological fix has also led to unjustified expectations that such solutions can always be found →
“technohubris” (Thomas Homer-Dixon). He suggests that this route to solving today’s complex problems
such as global warming may not lead us to the place we seek.
Attempting to address the symptoms of ecological stress rather than go to the root of the problem is a
form of shifting-the-burden. The currently preferred policy to deal with greenhouse gas emissions and
their relationship to global warming is through emissions trading and carbon taxes. These instruments
are designed to bring about a reduction of global emissions that slows down, but does not stop, the
buildup of solar energy-trapping gases. In the long run, only the innovation and implementation of re-
newable energy sources will make this problem disappear.
, There is another, subtler problem hidden. All of the existing efforts toward sustainable development
simply equate more sustainability to less unsustainability. After all, that is the usual case in a linear,
reductionist world. But this is not the case of sustainability. Reducing unsustainability will not create
sustainability. Our modern culture has led us to the wrong place by reifying sustainability. Given our
total immersion in this culture, extraordinary steps are required even to recognize this form of habitual
behavior, much less begin to try and change it.
Sustainable development itself is a technological, technocratic program. Within sustainable develop-
ment come programmatic prescriptions like ecoefficiency, Natural Capital, The Natural Step, Triple Bot-
tom Line, and many others. All have some potential to mitigate or slow down the unsustainable trajec-
tory of the globe, but all are only quick fixes. They are part of the problem, not the solution: they all will
fail sooner or later and, worse, shift the burden away from more fundamental actions.
Table 1: Shifting-the-burden examples
Problem symptom Symptomatic solution Negative side effects Fundamental solution
Poor employee perfor- Manager steps in Erosion of confidence Skills training
mance and relationship
“Not enough time” Eat fast foods Obesity; sociability loss Improve time manage-
ment
Oil scarcity and high Create reserve supply of Inadequate development New products, culture
prices alternates changes
Table 2: Examples of unsustainable practices
Problem symptom Symptomatic solution Negative side effects Fundamental solution
Global warming CO2 trading R&D slips; irresponsibility Renewable energy
Material use growth Ecoefficiency Ecosystem collapse Industrial restructuring
Maldistribution Tax policy Irresponsibility; gated Cultural change
cities
Dissatisfaction; alienation Commodity consumption Addiction; loss of Self-development
competence
Module 3: Tragedy of the Commons
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243-1248.
“The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”
® “Both sides in the arms race are … confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military
power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that
this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the
area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.”
A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural
sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.
What Shall We Maximize?
Population naturally tends to grow “geometrically,” or, as we would now say, exponentially. In a finite
world this means that the per capita share of the world’s goods must steadily decrease. A finite world
can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons
The rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control is to be found a scenario first sketched in a little-
known pamphlet in 1833 by a mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd. We may well call it
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