Positive Development
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‘Net positive’, from Positive Development (PD) theory, is a paradigm in
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
and design. PD theory (taught and published from 2003)Birkeland, J. (2003) ‘Retrofitting: Beyond Zero Waste’, in ''KLM-UC International Conference Proceedings'', University of Canberra, ACT, Australia; Birkeland, J. (2004) ‘Building Assessment Systems: Reversing Environmental Impacts’, Nature and Society Forum, ACT, Australia, http://www.naf.org.au/naf-forum/birkeland (accessed 2005); Birkeland, J. (2005) ‘Reversing Negative Impacts by Design’, in ''Sustainability for the ACT: the Future’s in our Hands'', Office of Sustainability, ACT, Australia. was first detailed in ''Positive Development'' (2008).Birkeland, J. (2008) ''Positive Development: From Vicious Circles to Virtuous Cycles through Built Environment Design’'', Earthscan, London. (A two volume book updating net positive theory is forthcoming.) A net positive system/structure would ‘give back to nature and society more than it takes’ over its life cycle.Eco-positive impacts of development must keep pace with human consumption (or
ecological footprint The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounti ...
) and offset past losses of nature, as defined in ''Positive Development'' ''(Ibid)'' p. 6.
In contrast,
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
- in the real-world context of
population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...
,
biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...
, cumulative
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
, wealth disparities and social inequities - closes off future options. To reverse direction, development must, among other sustainability criteria, increase nature beyond pre-human conditions.A
sustainable building Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...
should aim to be better for nature/society than no building at all, as well as increase nature beyond native conditions. A rule of reason would be applied as to whether the baseline is
pre-industrial Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forums of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time before ...
or pre-historic, depending on the location and circumstances.
PD develops the tools to enable net positive design and development.


Net Positive Sustainability

According to PD, the original precepts of
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
( nature preservation and equity among current/future generations)These principles are common to most early definitions of sustainability and were endorsed at a national level as early as 1969 in the preamble to the
National Environmental Policy Act The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.Un ...
(NEPA) in the United States. Among the first international documents to define sustainability was the IUCN/UNEP/WWF (1980) ''World Conservation Strategy'', re-published in 1991 as ''Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living'', The World Conservation Union, United Nations Environment Program and World Wide Fund for Nature, Earthscan, London, UK. Here it meant improving life quality within the earth’s ecological carrying capacity. See also COAG (1992) The National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (NSESD), Council of Australian Governments, Canberra, Australia. For historical context, see Commoner, B. (1971) ''The Closing Circle: Nature, Man And Technology'', Knopf, New York and Porritt, J. (1985) ''Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained'', Blackwell Publishers, UK.
require increasing future options.Social options do not mean more consumer products but rather substantive and positive life choices which requires increasing the ecological base and public estate. This, in turn, requires that development increase the life support system (nature).The idea that sustainability requires maintaining or increasing future option was discussed in Birkeland, J. (1993) ''Planning for a Sustainable Society: Institutional Reform and Social Transformation'', University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania. See also Norton, B.G. (2005) ''Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management'', University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois for a comprehensive discussion on this point.
Green design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...
always aimed for
ecological restoration Restoration ecology is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human interrupt ...
, social regeneration and economic revitalization.For a typology of green building design, see Birkeland, J. (2013) ‘Business Opportunities through Positive Development’, in ''A New Dynamic: Effective Business in a Circular Economy'', in K. Webster, J. Bleriot, and C. Johnston (Eds), Ellen MacArthur Foundation Publishing, Isle of Wight, UK, pp. 87-110. However, these essentially ‘add value’ relative to ''current'' sites, buildings or practices.For a discussion of contemporary sustainable building design approaches, see Hes, D. and du Plessus, D. (2015) ''Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability'', Taylor & Francis, New York. USA. They do not increase nature in absolute terms. Positive development is defined as structures that increase universal life quality and future options by expanding the ‘ecological base’ (ecosystems, ecological
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as t ...
, biodiversity) and the ‘public estate’ (universal access to means of survival/wellbeing and
social capital Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
).Birkeland, J. (2007) ‘GEN 4: ‘Positive Development’, ''BEDP (Built Environment Design Professions) Environmental Design Guide of the Australian Institute of Architects'', ACT, Australia. http://www.environmentdesignguide.com.au/ Assessed June 2008.


Terminology Clarification

The term net positiveThe term also appears as ‘net-positive’ or ‘netpositive’. A special issue was dedicated to net-positive design. See Cole, R. (2015) ‘Net-zero and Net-positive Design: a question of value’, in ''Building Research & Information'' 43(1), pp. 1-6. is increasingly used by green designers, developers and businesses.For example, see Forum for the Future, WWF, and The Climate Group (2015) ''Net Positive: A New Way of Doing Business''. Available at http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/publications/net-positive-a-new-way-of-doing-business/ Accessed June 2015. However, in context, it usually means just ‘giving back’ - that is, without fixed baselinesBenchmarks are relative to the present, so eco-restoration is seen by some as net positive, yet this does not account for past biodiversity losses and increased human consumption. - by optimizing material resources, energy and stakeholder benefits, etc. This was the aim of 20th Century green building design.There are a wide range of 20th Century green design books, including: Papanek, V. (1971) ''Design for the Real World: human ecology and social change'', Pantheon Books, New York; Johnson, R. (1979) ''The Green City'', MacMillan: S. Melbourne, Australia; Todd, N. and J. Todd (1994) ''From Eco-Cities to Living Machines'', N. Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA.; Vale, B. and R. Vale (1975) ''The Autonomous House: Design and Planning for self-''sufficiency, Thames and Hudson Ltd, London; Wann, D. (1996) ''Deep Design: Pathways to a Liveable Future'', Island Press, Washington, DC.; Lyle, J.T. (1994) ''Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development'', Wiley & Sons, New York; van der Ryn, S, and Cowan, D. (1996) ''Ecological Design'', Island Press, Washington, DC. Mackenzie, D. (1991), ''Green Design: Design for the Environment'', Lawrence King, London; Girardet, H. (1992), ''The Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living'', Gaia books Ltd, London; and Yeang, K. (1999) ''The Green Skyscraper: The Basis for Designing Sustainable Intensive Buildings'', Prestel Verlag, Munich, Germany eang has written numerous books on green design Although environmental ethics and social justice remain central concerns in PD,Social factors have always been a part of sustainable design paradigms, but the focus is generally on the (psychological, social, physiological, experiential, etc.) needs of building users, and less on using a building project to solve social inequities in the wider community. therefore, ‘eco-positive’ is increasingly used to underscore the ecological dimension. The term ‘net’ also causes some confusion.See for example, Baggs, D. (2015) Buildings Alone will Never be Regenerative, in ''Sourceable - Industry News and Analysis'' https://sourceable.net/buildings-alone-will-never-be-regenerative/ June 29. Accessed July 2015. This claims net positive design only concerns resource balances and does not use a life cycle perspective, but this has no basis in PD literature. In PD, ‘net’ means public benefits ''beyond'' neutral impacts - not just reducing the total negative impacts to zero by, for example, making tradeoffs.For an overview of
zero-energy building A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy c ...
, see Kibert, C.J. and Fard, M.M. (2012) Differentiating among Low-energy, Low-carbon and Net Zero-energy Building Strategies for Policy Formulation, ''Building Research & Information'', 40(5), pp. 625-637.


Theory Origins

PD theory built on eco-philosophies that emerged in the 1980s.See for example, Merchant, C. (1980) ''The Death of Nature: Women, ecology, and the scientific revolution'', HarperCollins, New York; Warren, K. (1997), ''Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature'', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana; Naess, A. (1989) ''Ecology, community, and lifestyle'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, UK; Warren, K. and Wells-Howe, B. (1994) ''Ecological Feminism'', Routledge, New York; Salleh, A. (1997) ''Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern'', Zed Books, London; Shiva, V. (1988) ''Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development'', Zed Books, London. Calling for social transformation, they deconstructed the hierarchical cultures, dualistic thought patterns and linear-reductionist analyses of modernity. PD added a positive/negative overlay to explain why these theories did not contemplate increasing nature to offset consumption. Later, sustainability was absorbed into the dominant paradigm (DP) which assumed that current institutions could resolve the problems they fostered.See WCED (1987) ''Our Common Future'', Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. This seminal report couched sustainability within the dominant economic and policy making frameworks and did not engage with the sustainability literature critical of the dominant paradigm. According to PD, existing institutional and physical structures reduce future options and are thus terminal.''Planning for Sustainability, Ibid.'' Birkeland, J. (2008) ''Positive Development, Ibid.'' The hypothesis was that, by converting negative systems into positive ones, genuinely sustainable planning, decision and design frameworks would materialize.


Design-decision Distinction

The distinction between decision-making and design is central to PD.See Birkeland, J. (2012) ‘Design blindness in Sustainable Development: From Closed to Open Systems Design Thinking’, in ''The Journal of Urban Design'', 17(2), pp. 163-187. Decision-making processes/tools divide, compare and choose. They use bounded or ‘closed system’ thinking which excludes considerations that are difficult to quantify. Essentially, decision methods simplify issues and options to facilitate finding the best path from the present position or desired future. Back-casting and scenario planning, while powerful tools, presume the future can be predicted and selected.''Positive Development, Ibid,'' pp. 165-179 Such methods decide now how future citizens must live. They also reduce future options by narrowing resources, adaptability, space and biodiversity over time. Sustainability therefore requires rethinking decision-making and design tools from first principles.


Decision-making (reducing costs)

The reduction of the ecological base and public estate continues, PD argues, because new sustainability goals were spliced onto the old (anti-ecological) closed system models, methods and metrics of the DP.''Positive Development, Ibid.'' Given escalating human consumption, even global
depopulation A population decline (also sometimes called underpopulation, depopulation, or population collapse) in humans is a reduction in a human population size. Over the long term, stretching from prehistory to the present, Earth's total human population ...
and
ecological regeneration Regeneration is the ability for a cell, tissue, or organism to recover from damage. It can also be used to describe the ability of an ecosystemspecifically, the environment and its living populationto renew and recover from damage. Regeneration ...
would not counterbalance total negative resource flows and ecological impacts. PD maintains that closed system models created and institutionalized zero-sum decision and measurement frameworks such as cost-benefit/ risk-benefit analyses.''Positive Development, Ibid,'' pp. 117-130. It identifies and ‘reverses’ over a hundred systemic biases in governance, planning, decision and design frameworks by converting them into open system and design-based frameworks to facilitate eco-positive planning and design.Birkeland, J. (2014) ‘Positive Development and Assessment’, in ''Smart and Sustainable Built Environments'', 3(1), pp. 4-22; Birkeland, J. (2015) ‘Planning for Positive Development’, in J. Byrne, J. Dodson and N. Sipe (Eds), ''Australian Environmental Planning: Challenges and Future Prospects'', Routledge, pp. 246-257.


Design (multiplying benefits)

Whereas the internal logic of decision frameworks (choosing) tend to diminish ecosystems and land eco-productivity, eco-logical design (creating) can multiply functions and public benefits synergistically. Eco-positive design involves open systems thinking (i.e. with transparent/permeable boundaries). For example, building rating tools are based on limits or thresholds (borders) and do not contemplate net public gains. Perhaps because of the deeply-embedded historic elevation of rationalist decision-making over design, green building design templates and rating tools are decision-based. Being reductionist, they encourage tradeoffs between costs and benefits or nature and society in physical development. Hence they tend to reduce adaptability, diversity and reversibility.There are many critiques of green building rating tools. Brandon, P.S., and Lombardi, P.L. (2011) ''Evaluating Sustainable Development in the Built Environment'' (2nd ed.) Chichester, West Sussex, Ames, Iowa, Wiley-Blackwell; Gu, Z., Wennersten, R., and Assefa, G. (2006) ‘Analysis of the Most Widely Used Building Environmental Assessment Methods’, ''Environmental Sciences,'' 3(3), pp. 175-192; Birkeland, J. (2004) ‘Building Assessment Systems: Reversing Environmental Impacts’, Nature and Society Forum, ACT, Australia http://www.naf.org.au/naf-forum/birkeland (accessed 2005).


Governance

Decision systems in governance (i.e. legislative, executive and judicial) resolve conflict by allocating rights and resources - not by increasing the ecological base and/or public estate. Hence PD suggests different frameworks for environmental governance.Birkeland, J. (1996) ‘The Case for a New Public Forum’, in Furnass, B., Whyte, J., Harris, J., and Baker, A. (Eds), ''Survival, Health and Wellbeing into the 21st Century'', Nature and Society Forum, pp. 111-114. Birkeland, J. (1995) ‘Ethics-Based Planning’, ''Australian Planner'' 33(1), pp. 47-49. These include a modified constitution with a new decision sphere to deal with the unique ethical dimensions of biophysical development, planning and design.Birkeland, J. (1993) ‘Towards a New System of Environmental Governance’, in ''The Environmentalist'', 13(1), pp. 19-32; Birkeland, J. (1993) ''Planning for a Sustainable Society, Ibid''; Birkeland, J. (2008) ''Positive Development, Ibid,'' pp. 220-233. Given real-world political barriers to change, PD also suggests default strategies to enable incremental reform by changing institutions from within. PD contends that gaps can be avoided in new governance and planning systems by simply reversing each ecologically terminal convention into eco-positive ones.


Planning

SMARTmode (systems mapping and redesign thinking) is a PD planning process''Positive Development, Ibid,'' pp. 251-173. that includes two dozen environment gap analyses to highlight sustainability issues that are almost never assessed in planning or design. Some of these are forensic ‘flows analyses’ that identify (local/regional) social and ecological deficits that developments could ameliorate by design. They can be undertaken scientifically using emerging multi-dimensional digital mapping tools, more pragmatically by design teams, or more subjectively in community ‘charrettes’ (aka working bees) for workshopping planning criteria and design briefs. Until planners perform these analyses routinely, therefore, they can serve as design thinking exercises, guidelines and/or criteria.


Design

While improved systems of governance, decision-making and planning can assist, biophysical sustainability is ultimately a design problem. To compensate for past system design errors, fundamental reforms of design methods and processes are required. PD proposes means to reduce material flows without tradeoffs by, for example, creating mutual gains and ‘low-impact luxury’ environments. PD contends that eco-positive design is already possible, partly through the integration of natural systems with building structures, spaces and surfaces (e.g. ‘
living machines Living Machine is a form of ecological sewage treatment. Similar to Solar Aquatics Systems, the latest generation of the technology is based on fixed-film ecology. The Living Machine system was commercialized and is marketed by Living Machine Sy ...
’,
mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as ...
, ‘algaetecture’). PD contributes other design concepts (e.g. ‘design for eco-services’, ‘green scaffolding’ ‘green space walls’, ‘solar core’ and ‘piggyback roof, ‘playgardens’).Digital sustainability can stimulate empirical advances in entrepreneurship, innovation and strategy and has the potential to have a positive impact on society.


Design for Eco-services

The term ‘ecosystem services’ generally applies only to human benefits, which are usually valued by units (e.g. money, carbon or energy. PD uses the term ‘eco-services’ to include not only nature's instrumental (pragmatic) values like ecosystem goods and services, but its intrinsic (priceless) and ‘biophilic’ values. PD considers the value of nature to be ‘infinite’ as it is not only the basis of the economy, but essential to human existence itself. To counteract the ecological footprint of existing development, ‘surplus’ natural and social capital - assessed from fixed biophysical baselines - must be created both off-site and on-site by design.


Carbon-neutral Design

Net positive energy is barred by the laws of physics. Moreover, calculations of ‘net energy’ seldom include the embodied energy - let alone ecological impacts incurred during resource extraction, production and transportation. With substantial passive solar design and renewable energy, buildings can send unused energy back to the grid, but it might be used for unsustainable purposes elsewhere. Nonetheless, a building could sequester more carbon than it emits over its life cycle with substantial building-integrated vegetation, using PD design principles. A case study (conducted by a cross-disciplinary team) showed this would within under twelve years, well under its life span.


Design Reporting

The PD eco-positive design reporting process (EDR) aims to avoid many shortcomings of decision-based approaches to design. In contrast to green building rating tools, the EDR aims to uncover opportunities to create net public gains. Design teams answer questions based on PD design criteria and SMARTmode analyses. This forces education, collaboration and ‘frontloading’ design (i.e. investing more in preliminary design stages). Exposing the research and reasoning behind decision and design concepts facilitates input from community, assessors and independent experts, and should therefore occur be undertaken in development project. Being affordable and flexible, it is also easily adapted to developing nations.


Design Strategies

Eco-positive retrofitting is a priority PD strategy. Due to the massive ongoing impacts of buildings, biophysical sustainability is impossible without retrofitting cities. Replacing buildings with greener ones costs too much in materials, money, energy and time, as new buildings represent only 1-3% of the building stock. It is now accepted that retrofitting can be profitable in resource, energy, health savings and worker productivity. It can happen quickly and simultaneously, or when buildings are repurposed or refurbished anyway. Green buildings may last a hundred years but few are designed for upgrading/adaptability, so they will soon need retrofitting to a higher standard.


Design Assessment

Most rating tools prioritize resource efficiency and treat ‘reductions in negative impacts’ as if positive. Their baselines and benchmarks preclude net-positive impacts. Some provisions consider respective rights/responsibilities, but not broader ethical issues like improving human-nature relationships, reducing total resource flows or increasing social capital in the vicinity. Also, innovation is often valued for its own sake, not outcomes, and eco-efficiency saves owners money anyway. PD's ‘hierarchy of eco-innovation’ analysis instead prioritizes positive system-wide outcomes and net public benefits. Being non-numerical, it allows self-assessment during design when scientific data is unavailable, time and ego has vested or irreversible decisions are made.


PD Starfish

The PD ‘starfish’ design and rating tool enables quantification while assisting designers to consider more dimensions of sustainability. It is a modified radar diagram with added layers and satellite diagrams. Since most
life-cycle assessment Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the Product lifecycle, life cycle of a commercial product, Process lifecycle, process, or ...
tools estimate impacts between ‘-1’ (bad) to ‘0’ (best) or zero impact, eco-positive public benefits are excluded. Unlike rating tools, benchmarks for different sustainability factors are based on fixed biophysical conditions - not typical buildings, sites or practices.Jackson, D and R. Simpson (2012) ''D_City: Digital Earth/Virtual Nations/Data Cities - Connecting Global Futures for Environmental Planning'', D. Jackson and R. Simpson, E-book, http://dcitynetwork.net/manifesto/; Birkeland, J. (2012) ‘The Eco-Positive Design Tool’, in ''Solar Progress'', Journal of the Australian Solar Energy Society. The starfish uses one scale to assess impacts in relation to fixed benchmarks (from ‘-1’ to ‘+1’) and a linear scale on another layer for scoring/comparison purposes.


References


External links


https://sourceable.net/buildings-alone-will-never-be-regenerative
* http://www.naf.org.au/naf-forum/birkeland * http://www.environmentdesignguide.com.au/ * http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/publications/net-positive-a-new-way-of-doing-business/ * https://sourceable.net/buildings-alone-will-never-be-regenerative/ * http://trove.nla.gov.au/ * http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/GRHS2011_Full.pdf/ Sustainable development