history

Highlights of working on the road to sustainability for the last 20 years.

1976: Substituting manpower for energy.

Our own road to sustainability started in 1976 with the ecology behind the product-life extension of goods. Stahel and Reday researched a report to the Commission of the European Communities (today the European Commission) on 'the Potential for Substitution Manpower for Energy' (at that time, Stahel was head of project at the Battelle research laboratories, Geneva, Switzerland, which was part of the Battelle Foundation in Columbus, Ohio). The report analyzed cars and buildings on a micro and macro economic basis and concluded that every product-life extension, in comparison with manufacturing, constitutes a substitution of manpower for energy, and of decentralized workshops for centralized factories. The report was published in 1981 under the title "Jobs for Tomorrow, the potential for substituting manpower for energy" by Vantage Press New York, N.Y..

The conclusions of this report have since been quoted many times, lately in the book factor four, mostly without indicating the source:

"Roughly three quarters of all industrial energy consumption is associated with the extraction or production of basic materials like steel and cement, while only about one quarter is used in the transformation of materials into finished goods such as machines or buildings. The converse is true of labour, about three times as much being used in the conversion of materials to finished products as is required in the production of materials.
An increase in the transformation-type industries, such as reconditioning, thus corresponds to a substitution of labour for energy. Skilled and experienced craftsmen are needed in repair and reconditioning activities which can be undertaken in comparatively small workshops scattered widely throughout the country wherever there are goods in need of renovation and customers for them, as is still the case with car-repair workshops. These enterprises can be located in any rural or urban area with high unemployment, making reconditioning a doubly attractive proposition for job creation."

1982: Founding the Product-Life Institute, Geneva

In 1982, the Product-Life Institute was founded by Orio Giarini and Walter R. Stahel, who were joined after a few month by Max Börlin.

The paper 'The Product-Life Factor' that won Stahel a Mitchell Prize in 1983 (at the same time as Amory and Hunter Lovins) is based on this report.

1986: The service economy - internalizing all costs, from cradle back to cradle.

In 1986, Orio Giarini and Stahel wrote a manuscript that was published as a book under the title of "The limits to certainty - facing risks in the new service economy" by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1989, followed by a second enlarged and revised edition in 1993. The book has been translated into French (1990), Italian (1993), Romanian (1995), German (1998) and Japanese (1998). The Open University in the UK recommends it as mandatory reading.

1986: The concept of selling performance (services) instead of goods.

Also in 1986, Börlin and Stahel researched a report for the Swiss Bank Corporation on "Economic strategies to enhance the durability of goods". One of the case studies presented in this report was the 'Mieting'-concept of Agfa-Gevaert ('Mieting' is a cross between 'Mieten' (German for rental) and 'Leasing'), which consisted in putting a photocopier at clients disposal and making them pay for the copies made, not for the copier itself, which remained property of Agfa-Gevaert. We realized that this concept of selling performance instead of products had a considerable impact on the liability for quality and waste, and translated these findings into a table (p. 56/57 in the report). This following table is an English translation:

examples of economic actors

Examples of economic actors

Alternative liability carriers
"product quality" and "utilization"

Interested in product durability

liability for waste and waste elimination costs

Producer

Fleet Manager

User

OWNER IS USER
cash sale or credit card sale of durables

cars
white goods
clothes
computers

Individuals

risk of warranty (6/12 months)

User

all risks (except warranty) for an unlimited time period

Dispersed waste

cost of waste elimination are paid by the Community (local taxes)

(household waist)

OWNER IS FLEET MANAGER
product rental:

skis
cars

system rental:

appartment
hotel room

service rental:

taxi

(specialized companies)

Shops (Hertz, Avis)

Invertors
Hotels

Taxi owners

risk of warranty

Fleet Manager

all risks (except warranty) for an unlimited time period

none

Fleet Manager

in search of most advatageous cost-perfomance ratio which also depends upon taxation, depreciation rules and speculation

OWNER IS FLEET AND MAINTENANCE MANAGER
sale of system utilization:

transport
telecom
clothes

(fleet managers)

Rrailways
Airlines
PTT

all risks for a period of time to be determined are negociable between producer and fleet manager

none

Maintenance Manager

Preventive Maintenance Engineering: minimization of operation costs incl. maintenence and waste elimination costs

Concentrated waste

waste elimination costs are internalized by producer, hence waste prevention through the optimization of the product-life of systems and components (re-use, reconditioning, technical updating, use cascading etc)

OWNER IS PRODUCER, FLEET AND MAINTENANCE MANAGER
sale of system utilization: (goods and services)

photocopies

(Manufacturers)

Agfa-Gevaert AG

all risks for an unlimited period of time
Producer = fleet manager

none

Producer

Preventive Engineering: zero-maintenence, full compatibility of products, systems and long life components

The concept of selling performance, or results, or services, instead of goods, was published by us in a number of publications, such as:

Stahel, Walter R. (1986) R & D in a sustainable society, in: Science and Public Policy, Journal of the International Science _Policy Foundation, London; Volume 13, Number, 4 August 1986 : Special Issue : The Hidden Wealth, edited by Orio Giarini and Walter R. Stahel.

Stahel, Walter R (1987) Limiting excess waste. This paper presented at the conference on Energy in towns gives a detailed description of the Agfa-Gevaert strategy 'Mieting' (the concept of selling services, performance, utilization, instead of goods) and the waste prevention resulting from more durable goods.

1991: first case studies on sustainable consumption (waste prevention strategies in the utilization of goods).

In 1991, this research report was published in German under the title 'Langlebigkeit und Materialrecycling' (longlife goods and material recycling). In 1992, Dr John Skinner, then head of R&D at the US EPA in Washington, had the three case studies (Personal Computers, washing machines, power tools) translated into English for EPA use.

1994: Helping to found the Factor 10 club.

The annual declarations of the Factor 10 Club (starting 1994) can be ordered from: Prof Schmidt-Bleek, The Factor 10 Institute, La Rabassière, Carrière des Bravengues, F-83660 Carnoules.

The most recent research on sustainability was published in:

Stahel, Walter R. (1997) The functional economy: cultural and organizational change; in: Richards, Deanna J., The industrial green game, 1997, National Academy Press, Washington DC. p. 91-100. ISBN 0-309-05294-7.

Stahel, Walter R. (1997) The service economy: 'wealth without resource consumption?'; in: Philosophical Transactions A, Royal Society London, 355 (June), p. 1309 - 1319.

Stahel, Walter R. (1994) The Utilization-Focused Service Economy: Resource Efficiency and Product-Life Extension; in: Allenby, Braden R (ed.) The Greening of Industrial Ecosystems, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy Press, Washington DC. p. 178-190. ISBN 0-309-04937-7.

in the early 1990s: our own definition of the five pillars of sustainability

Through his lectures and seminars in the early '90s, Walter R. Stahel developed a structure of sustainability based on the historic development. This structure of the 5 pillars of sustainability is today commonly used by many politicians in Europe - but most people ignore its source.

Historically, sustainability has grown on five pillars, each of which is essential for the 'survival' of man on Earth. This means that we cannot argue on priorities, or speculate on which of these pillars we can afford to lose first. In fact, we cannot take the risk of losing any single one of them.

The first pillar of 'nature conservation' recognizes the need to conserve nature and the environment as a base for life on earth. Men's life is based on the resources supplied by the global eco-support system for life on the planet (e.g. biodiversity, the atmosphere and the oceans), and the regional carrying capacity of nature with regard to populations and their lifestyle (e.g. the water cycle, land-use patterns, waste assimilation).

The second pillar of ' limited toxicity' recognizes the need to conserve the individual health and safety of people and animals, which is jeopardized by man's economic activities. This is a qualitative issue, measuring the presence of toxic agents (heavy metals such as mercury, nickel, or DDT, thalidomide) in tiny quantities (nanograms) as well as nature's capacity of absorption .

These first two pillars form the domain of 'environmental protection', of 'command and control'-legislation, and of compliance by industry. The are dominated by chemists and biologists, and ruled by State authorities and technology. And as protecting the environment costs money, these two pillars are not very popular with players in the economy.

A distinct border line exists between these first two pillars and the following third one.

The third pillar of 'resource productivity' is based on the need of industrialized countries to dematerialize their life-style, in order to allow the material development of industrially less developed countries. This is a domain of innovation and creativity, dominated by business strategies that lead to a higher resource productivity over long periods of time. A reduction of the resource consumption by a factor ten is needed to prevent the threat of a radical change for the planet towards a re-acidification and/or climate change which could question man's life on Earth. In addition, this is a factor of disequilibrium between over-industrialized countries and less industrialized ones

The first three pillars allow the creation of a sustainable economy, once they are implemented. But a sustainable economy is only part of the objective to reach a sustainable society. A second distinct border line exists therefore after these first three pillars, which separates techno-economic issues from societal ones. The coming 'Quest for a Sustainable Society' must be much broader and include social and cultural issues.

The fourth pillar of social ecology encompasses the fabric of societal structures, including peace and human rights, dignity and democracy, employment and social integration, security and safety, the constructive integration of female and male attitudes. Key words here are: the commons, 'prisoners' dilemma', sharing and caring, barter economy.

The fifth pillar of cultural ecology encompasses education and knowledge, ethics and culture, attitudes towards risk taking, values of 'national heritage' and other assets, at the level of the individual, the corporation and the State. Commons create cultural ecology, and are part of it. 'Old is resourceful'. Key words here are: 'Waste is inefficient is un-japanese' (MITI 1995). '100% yield instead of zero waste' (DuPont 1995). 'Show to others that you are able to care, by looking after e.g. your car, your house (instead of buying a new one)' (J.P. Kusz,IDSA 1995). 'Dem Ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör', upgradable Siemens PC (1985). Worker retraining instead of lay-offs as a reaction to insufficient orders: teaching its workers how to maintain and repair their own machines, instead of part-time lay-offs, avoiding damage to worker morale and preventing line stoppages in the future, Honda U.S. and UK (1993).

This insight of the five pillars was already at the base of the movement that coined the English term 'sustainability' in the early '70s: the Woodlands Conferences in Houston, Texas, and the related Mitchell Prize Competitions, had already emphasized the quest for a sustainable society [Coomer, 1981]. The more recent emphasis on 'green politics' focused on nature and the environment, and 'clean production and green products' has lost sight of the wider reference of a sustainable society, including subjects such as full and meaningful employment and quality of life.

Looking at the five pillars with regard to the overall vulnerability of the vision of sustainability, the social ecoloy is probably the weakest link in the chain. When social violence erupts and the social fabric breaks down, the other four pillars collaps almost instantly. This means that the present focus on eco-efficiency and technology in order to achieve a sustainable economy might be the wrong focus as it misses the issue with the highest catastrophe potential, the pillar of social ecology.

For a complete list, look up 'publications'.