This is an academic paper that outlines the protocol for a measurement standard calculating how regeneratively resources are consumed during a consumption activity.

BY

Sonika Choudhury

ABSTRACT

Every material, however synthetic, comes from some source in Nature. It is extracted from one of the container biospheres - Hydrosphere, Lithosphere or the Atmosphere. We process them by meaningfully combining various of these materials to form new materials and products that have greater utility. Every piece of waste generated during the course of this value addition still exists somewhere on this planet in one of these biospheres. Even the pollutants in the air or the toxins in our soil and water ecosystems are  wastes generated during processing that continue to remain in our ecosystem, in some form or other.

In the current economic paradigm, the value attributed to products and services and  prices of  physical materials used, is a function of demand and supply. However, in the attribution of value , other costs of extraction, processing and exhaustion of these materials on the planet are often overlooked as externalities. There is a need to build a more holistic standard of measuring these costs to the ecology, to better account for them in the production and consumption cycle.

This paper outlines a new methodology and protocol to measure the impact of consumption in terms of how much material is consumed during the course of any consumption activity. We have built a mathematical framework to measure this Cost of Consumption to the planet. With this framework, we are adding one more dimension to the prevalent system of value assessment, to account for - the true cost of these materials (is it materials or production and consumption activity to the planet 

The model first maps the quantity of materials that have been directly or indirectly used during the entire life cycle of the product/activity, how they were denatured in the course of processing and how they go back either in the natural or man-made systems. The parameters defined in the calculator for analysis measures the impact of the activities for how circular they are in Nature. To what extent the resources being used to make the product are available for reuse after the production & consumption of the product.

The first part of this paper addresses the need for the creation of a thought model that can be embedded into our current socio-economic structure, to better account for the costs to our ecology. The next part further fleshes out the underlying premises of the new thought paradigm. Finally, the workings of the practical mathematical framework rooted in the new thought paradigm is detailed out.

PART A :: WHY CHANGE?

“You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”

• Albert Einstein 

1.1 Reductionist Way of Thinking

The looming climate crisis is a result of a the myopic view of the world and exclusion of the cause and effect principle of systems thinking. If we are to bring monumental change, then we need paradigm shifts.  A vital first shift would be in how we approach the concept of ‘Sustainability’. The fact that it is seen only as a ‘climate’ crisis highlights the glaring inadequacy in our understanding of the workings of the ecological systems and how we interact with them. The Climate Change problem - is only, though a massive one, a symptom arising out of the larger systemic issue - Our economy is not designed to exist within the limits of the ecological system.

1.2 Do we even need to bring change?

There is also an argument against taking any action towards climate change. How human species will always find a way to survive. And we will find a way to advance our technology to be able to sustain the current rate of consumption activities.

The illusion of unlimited power, nourished by astonishing scientific and technological achievements, has produced the concurrent illusion of having solved the problem of production.

Small is Beautiful  

For us to find a way to survive, we need to become aware of the problem. And the rise to a higher level of intelligence to create new systems. We have the capability to better our technologies. But unless we are thinking from the expanded perspective of improving our technology to enable for regenerative consumption, we are headed towards decay & destruction So this new heightened level of awareness is needed to slowly push for recalibration. All of this said and done, we still have to live within the physical barriers of the carrying capacity of the planet. And that is a fundamental truth that cant be negated.

Going beyond thriving. Striving to design a world of excellence and beauty.

We have come a far way and live a life of many comforts and fancies. But even then, we cannot deny the faults in our current ways and standards of living.

Degradation of Nature is not experienced in the same way by everyone. To farmers it could be declining sources of water and increasing variability in rainfall in the foreground of global climate change; to inhabitants of shanty towns everywhere, the worry may be the infections they are exposed and subjected to from open sewers; to residents of mega-cities, it could be the poisonous air they breathe; to the multi-national company, it may be the worry about supply chains, as disruptions to the biosphere make old sources of primary products unreliable and investments generally more risky; to governments in many places, it may be the call by citizens, even children, to stem global climate change; and to people everywhere today, it may be the ways in which those varied experiences combine and give rise to environmental problems that affect us all.

• (An excerpt from - The Dasgupta Review)

1.3 Inadequacy of existing Measurement Standards

The status quo of measuring impact is the Carbon Standard. Every measurement standard will have its own lens of viewing sustainability. Carbon Footprint essentially tells you the weight of CO2 being released in the air for a certain activity. This is the fundamental building block upon which various other climate correction activities are designed and built. While carbon footprint has its own merit, it fails to adequately provide a quantitative system of measurement for the new age thought paradigm of Circularity & Regenerative Thinking. A new measurement standard will lay a new foundation for the building of systems and structures to slowly catalyse the progress towards more regenerative modes of consumption of Earth’s resources.

PART B: NEW SCHOOL OF THOUGHT :: PERMACULTURE ECONOMICS

These are the fundamental principles and premises upon which we are operating.

Premise 1: Economic systems exist within Ecological Systems

The world is a series of interconnected systems either nested in one another or existing outside of each other interacting only on the periphery. If we were to make a map of three large systems that all humans exist in, this is how it would look like.

Source - The Unschool of Disruptive Design

As a fundamental truth, humans exist as an element of the natural systems, ergo, our designed social structures and within that economic structures, also automatically are subsystems of the larger ecological systems.

Every consumption activity - whether it be a physical product or a tangible service is dependent on availability of various resources available to us from Earth. Economic systems governing consumption and distribution of Earth’s scarce resources fundamentally fail to take into consideration one universal truth - the limitedness of Earth’s carrying capacity. The total amount of physical material on Earth, if viewed as a closed system, is constant. It's constantly getting renewed and recycled through different natural ecosystems. The consumption has to take into account the speed at which these physical materials get renewed to form meaningful resources useful to us.

One proposed solution is to slow down Consumption to match the speed of recovery of Earth’s natural systems.The other lever to pull is to increase the intelligence with which we fashion these resources to make products and services of greater utility to us. This paper aims to bring to surface the intelligence that needs to be brought to how we fashion Earth’s resources.

Our consideration in designing the parameters of the calculator:Damage to systems that regenerate these resources

The parameters check for the extent of collateral damage to the natural ecosystem while the said activities of extraction & processing are underway. This is a subtler, more nuanced extension of circularity. As the damage to the natural ecosystem further hampers the natural systems of Earth that actually regenerate these resources for us.

Premise 2: Circularity is the Law of Nature

A forest can exist for eternity without additional external inputs. Nothing is static or linear in Nature. All material is constantly moving from one system to another. What we mean by material is all the physical matter present on Earth. These can be found either as base elements or more complex things that have formed by different combinations of these various elements. All of this material is constantly moving through different systems and changing form.

Taking the example of the dominant element ‘carbon’,the total amount of carbon in the Earth’s system is always constant. The same carbon that exists in the air as CO2, is then taken in by plants, forming the building blocks of all biological life. This is further fossilised to form fossil fuels and released back in air when we burn the fossil fuels. All of these transformations are caused by various forms of energy that are present on Earth. After every transformation, the resultant material can then be harnessed by some other system in nature, creating an endless cycle of reuse or circularity . Nature can exist for eternity because of this very principle of circularity. The state in which these materials exist determine how useful they are and how they affect these container biospheres.

Applying the 3rd law of thermodynamics lens here ‘Energy can neither be created, nor be destroyed’ - materials are neither created nor destroyed, they are constantly being cycled and recycled through different systems.

‘Waste’ as ubiquitous as it is, is actually a human made concept. If you go to a system designed by Nature, say- a forest, would you find any waste there? Owing to the principle of circularity, the ‘waste’ created by animals excreting, is not actually waste, but manure for the soil. And that is how Nature can exist for eternity by literally running in circles! Waste is the outcome of a poorly designed system. In the current case our take-make-waste linear economy.

The Law of entropy suggests that some amount of energy is always converted into an unusable form.This when applied to systems thinking, translates into defining system leaks. And that means even if materials are designed for circularity, there is always going to be some leaks. It is, by law of nature, not possible to design 100% efficient systems.

Our consideration in designing the parameters of the calculator:After we have extracted materials and processed them - how far away it is from being reused by either regeneration of material by Nature or by man made re-cycle of the resource.Some resources are finite whereas some resources are naturally infinite.All resources can be used indefinitely if their energy is harvested for use in an appropriate manner keeping its recyclability in mind.

Premise 3: Everything is Energy

Not getting into Einstein's theory of special relativity that expresses the equivalence of mass and energy represented by the famous formula e=mc2,  but It is fundamentally understood that matter was created from energy. The most basic form of this matter is the base elements as defined in our periodic table. The most common elements, like carbon and nitrogen, were created in the cores of most stars, fused from lighter elements like hydrogen and helium. The heaviest elements, like iron, were formed in the more massive stars.

Coming back to Earth, all resources as we find them are built from these building blocks. The transformation of these elements to resources also requires energy. There are different energy sources available to the Earth’s ecosystem -  solar, geothermal, hydro, wind that make this transformation happen by way of geological and ecological processes.

(All of these sources generate energy due to the 4 underlying forces of Nature - gravitational, electromagnet, weak & strong forces).

Add genetic code to matter, and we get living beings! All living elements are largely made of the sun’s energy. Plants process the sunlight into chemical energy by photosynthesis. And this chemical energy is then processed into more and more complex layers.

Our consideration in designing the parameters of the calculator:

Energy Density of Materials

The cost of natural materials in the current economic system is only a function of the demand and supply. What we don’t take into consideration is the cost of the ecosystem services that have gone into play to make these resources available to us in that form.

Fossil fuels have taken millions of years to get fossilised from dinosaurs and other organic material. They are also extremely energy dense materials compared to other kinds of resources.

PART C: MATHEMATICAL MODEL: CONSUMPTION CALCULATOR

It computes how much material a consumption activity exhausts based on how regeneratively it is designed and manufactured.

The workings of the calculator can be broken down into 3 parts

Step 1: Data Mapping

Map the total material consumed by a consumption activity across its entire life cycle.The unit of measurement is ‘by weight’.

Step 2: Material Break Down

Every material is then broken down into layers of sub materials to ultimately reach the source material that was extracted from the Earth's biosphere.

Any material can be classified into one of the five resource types further defined below.

Step 3: Calculation

A qualitative ‘Regeneration Coefficient’ is then calculated based on the parameters defined and applied to the original quantity of the material consumed to get an Adjusted Quantity.

If the initial input in step 1 comes to 100kg of an ‘x’ resource, the adjusted weight after multiplying with the regeneration coefficient can be from a range of 500 grams to 1.5kg.

The value of Regeneration Coefficient will lie between 0.5 to 1.5

NOMENCLATURES & SPECIFICATIONS

Container Sources

The three biospheres that contain all physical materials in different forms being cycled and transformed in dynamic systems. These are - Atmosphere, Hydrosphere & the Lithosphere.

Source Materials

The material in its pure, unadulterated, natural state as extracted from the dynamic systems in which they exist in one of the container sources as defined above. They are the first point of separation from the system in which they exist.

Natural Material

Materials that have been altered through physical or natural chemical processes without the combination of different materials, not denaturing it & not altering its core functionality.

Denaturing

Where its chemical properties are severely altered leading to formation of new substances with completely different physical and chemical properties, different utility & functionality.

Synthetic material

Materials formed from the combination of more than one material, where the original material has been altered to give birth to a new substance, one that is synthesised using one or more chemical processes to perform a certain function of utility to humans.

Consumables

Any product that gets exhausted after one time consumption is known as a consumable. We say exhausted, but what really happens is that it gets consumed by another system.For eg home cleaners: 30ml of floor cleaner used to mop cannot be used again. Some of it is on the floor, some lost as pollution, some inhaled by you and the rest of it gone down the sewage system with the filthy water.Other examples of consumables would be: shampoo, soap, makeup, incense, foods

Non Consumables

Any product that does not get exhausted after it is consumed. This can either be reused multiple times or if it's designed for one time use, needs to be discarded as waste.

For example

• the mop for floor cleaning can be used multiple times

•  Sanitary napkins, though only one time use, do not get consumed after use. They need to be physically disposed of. 

Consumption Activity

A human activity that involves extraction and processing of Earth’s Natural resources to form tangible products with greater utility for performing a certain function.

Regeneration Co-efficient

The average of coefficients of all the applicable variables from the parameters defined in the calculator.  

Adjusted Quantity

The material quantity that is arrived at after applying the regeneration coefficient to it.

CALCULATOR: PROCESS FLOW

Step 1: Data Mapping

The first step is to map the quantity of materials that would have been used across the entire life cycle. 

Source - The Unschool of Disruptive Design

System Boundary

Life cycle of any product has many embedded layers within it. For example: While mapping the life cycle of a pen - you can either stop at mapping the activity of the pen being transported from warehouse to retail shop, or you can go furth

er down and map the activities that were undertaken to make the vehicle that was used to transport that pen.To prevent this from being an endless exercise of mapping, we define the system boundary of the life cycle of products.  

This table defines the activities that are included in the boundary of the life cycle of a product for the purpose of this calculator.

A further model will have to be developed to attribute part of the materials used in supporting assets to a particular product. This could be a function of time of wear down in every use.

*** At the current stage of the calculator that's coded - only materials used as ingredients are taken into consideration.

Step 2: Material Break Down

Every material is broken down into sub materials to ultimately reach the source material that was extracted from the Earth’s Ecosystem.

Figure _ provided below gives the layerwise breakdown of SCI powder, a common ingredient used as a high-performance surfactant in soaps, detergents and shampoos. From Source (Earth) coconut, ethylene, salt and sulphur was derived to make SCI Powder.

This process is carried out for every material listed in the first step.

source unknown

Step 3: Calculation of Regeneration Coefficient

Twelve parameters are defined to arrive at the regeneration coefficient. Each parameter has different possible variables with a value assigned to them. The value is assigned based on different assessing criteria but all circling back to the 6 core principles defined below.

• Consuming less resources in terms of quantity
• Using those resources that cause less ecosystem damage (ecosystem responsible for running the services that regenerate these resources for us)
• Consuming resources that have taken less time to and ecosystem services
• Consuming resources that are more easily renewable
• Denaturing them in a way that they can be separated and recaptured
• Lower rate of entropy

Values are assigned to different variables using the methodology of ‘Anchoring’. A certain value is assigned to the least favourable or most favourable variable and others are assigned values in relation to that.

The coefficient values range anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5, 0.5 being the most favourable variable and vice versa. The more regenerative the activity is, the closer it will be to 0.5 and will effectively reduce the quantity of the material used as inputs and vice versa.

STAGES OF MATERIAL

We have identified three levels of materials based on their utility and naturalness.

1. Source Material Level
2. Human Made Materials
3. Product Level

1. SOURCE MATERIAL

This analysis is done at the source material level. For every source material extracted, the following analysis needs to be done.

Parameter 1: Source

Resource Types

We have identified 5 main resource types, every material extracted can be coded into one of the following resource types.

In the Circular Economy school of thought - materials are classified into two kinds

Source Unknown

RESOURCE DEFINITION

Parameter 2: No of Processes

No of processes the source material has undergone to reach the current stage of the human made material

Parameter 3: Extraction Type

How is the material extracted from Earth - from which biosphere and which system of the biosphere.

While assigning values to different possibilities within

• How energy intensive was the extraction?
• Was the system intact or retained its ability to regenerate?
• Was it extraction of a derivative or was it a whole extraction?

Parameter 4: Renewability

If the material is inherently renewable by the Earth’s natural systems or are they derived from more static systems that take much longer to get formed.

2. INTERMEDIARY MATERIAL

This analysis is done for the intermediary material - the materials used to make the final product.

Parameter 5: Degree of Change

What is the nature of change? If it has undergone chemical processing to reach the stage of intermediary material, what is the intensity of that change?

PARAMETER 6: What will be the organic classification of the intermediary material?

Depending on how it has been synthesised, what is the biodegradability of the material. How compatible it is with the biotic systems of the Earth.

PARAMETER 7: How does it impact the biotic systems?

For consumables - all materials ultimately end up in our natural environment.

Parameter 8: Use of recycled material

If the intermediary material being used in production has been reclaimed - meaning it has been used earlier in human production systems and has either been recycled. Or was a waste product generated from another process and us being used here.

3. Product Level

Classification of each product into either of the two (refer to the definition above). Differential scoring and some specific parameters would be applicable to these different kinds of products.

***At the current stage, only consumables are being tested, hence you won't find parameters relevant to non-consumables.

Parameter 9: How many times can the product be used?

Irrespective of the functionality of the product, and whether inherently it is a consumable or a non consumable product, if so much material has gone into making the product, how many times is it used before its put pack in the system for recovery or thrown out as waste.

Parameter 10: Degree of Change

This is the same as parameter 5, back then individual materials were being tested. Here this is being analysed at the product level. Further how these ingredients have been denatured.

Parameter 11 : What will be the organic classification of the final product?

This is a repetition of Parameter 6 at the product level. It takes into account values of individual ingredients assigned in Variable 6 and the degree of change in Parameter 10 laid down above.

Parameter 12 : How does it impact the biotic systems?

After all processing and consumption, when the product finally ends up in the natural ecosystem through the human sewage system, how does it interact with the biotic systems?

Computation

1. Group each source material in the respective source type
2. How much originally qty used in the making of that product
3. Average of values of all parameters at Source Material Level
4. Average of values of all parameters at Intermediary/ingredient level
5. Average of values of all parameters at Product Level
6. Adjusted Qty = 2 * Avg (3, 4 5,)

Final Answer

Water = Sumtotal of all adjusted quantities of source materials in water

Respectively calculated for every other source

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Conclusion

Future developments?

• Material mapping to happen for entire life cycle
• Including Non-Consumables
• Adding more parameters

***