Environmental design crisis

[Kevin]

[Richard Haut]

Difficult question - because it is a matter of agreeing and disagreeing at the same time.

Architects were, in my experience, among the first to understand and try to deal with the environmental implications of their work and for the world around them. But I am talking of a couple of decades ago.

Today architects are still concerned with environmental issues. In France many new buildings have to comply with thorough high environmental quality conditions ("HQE") relating to all aspects of the buildings and their long-term management and maintenance. Britain also has projects, for example schools, trying to achieve similar aims.

The problem is in the intentions of governments and corporations.

What does it matter if a small new building is designed in an environmentally conscious way when depleted Uranium is showered over countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq's great rivers have been described in recent reports as having become like open sewers - how many Iraqis have access to potable water ?

The attitude - and its apparent hopelessness - was shown when Bush announced that he wanted to restart logging in America's National Parks.

Of course it is collective. The individual efforts can only have meaning when central policy strives to improve and preserve the environment.

[Kevin]

Richard, in addition to the specific responsibilities of design professionals... What do you think is the collective responsibility of everyone? Especially, of people living in the relatively affluent societies of the 'developed world'? To you, does it look fundamentally political (governments, corporations)? If so, what politics, to what ends? (tricky ground, I know, but if that's where the path has to go...)

Donald, having thought about the future and positive long-term senarios, does that affect things you do in your daily life? Where do you think the pressure-points are for the best improvements with the least suffering and destruction?

[Richard Haut]

The first responsibility of the affluent nations is to avoid causing deliberate harm in the poorer nations. This is either calculated ravaging of resources or an ignoring of safety and other standards. Two examples: Bhopal and the so-called GM "death seed".

The collective responsibility within the affluent, developed nations is twofold. Firstly to ensure that their own people and corporations behave in ways which are not inhuman and, secondly, the purchasing power of the individual.

While I find Michael Moore irritating to watch on the screen, I did appreciate his standing outside the headquarters of a sports clothing company yelling first at the building, then at the PR people, and finally the owner about that company's use of child labour and other practices in poorer nations.

It is not just a matter of politics nor of the big corporations making a mess to earn a bit more money so that woolly-hatted "greens" can come and clean it up. It is bad business.

Example: if the sports company makes their sneakers for, say, $5 using inhuman means and then sells them for over $100, then their business is at risk. Firstly, somebody may make a better sneaker anywhere for, say, $25 and sell it for $70 - but much more important is that when people find out that the company has inhuman practices, each time that such a realisation stops a sale the company is losing at least the sale of a pair of $100 sneakers and probably many, many times that (when people turn away from brands, they do not return, certainly for many years). If they make the sneakers in the first place for $10 in a proper manner, the company avoids becoming a consumer-pariah.

For corporations it is a matter of long-term gain and stability - and for politicians, it is a matter of popularity.

Dropping depleted Uranium on Afghanistan may sound remote to many in the US or UK, but as a very recent report by British MP's has pointed out, the attack on Afghanistan not merely restarted the drugs trade (which the Taleban tried to close down) but has brought it to record levels. The price to be paid for that will probably include kids in your local town.

Let me give you a rather extreme example of environmental awareness, design and politics: just think of a house built in South Africa under Apartheid for affluent Whites - but the house uses environmentally friendly materials and procedures.

Environmental concerns are too often portrayed as an extremist, almost anti-economic form of weird politics. Conversely commercial organisations and their politicial sidekicks are often seen as ravagers of resources and habitats. Both views have a hint of truth, but the reality - as with all politics in a democratic nation - rests with what the people actually care about. If people do not care about their environment, why should the corporations bother to clean up their mess or politicians make a fuss about it ?

It is in this respect that "environment" is, I believe, far wider than trees and bugs.

[VWall]

[Kevin]

Isn't this a bit of a cheap shot?

[sitetutor]

on how you look at it