Sustainability Through Design Science:
Re-Imagining Option Spaces Beyond Eco-Efficiency
Ecological resource efficiency, implemented as a market mechanism within a neoclassical economy, shoulders the burden of providing a worldview for sustainable development: continuous GDP growth to provide for the expansion of human needs, and dematerialization through resource efficiency to accommodate ecological limits.
But resource efficiency does not equal resource conservation. Empirical evidence confirms that the emergent rebound effects of efficiency gains overpower their first-order intention, creating counterintuitive feedback effects at larger scales. Backfire, the collective product of individual scale resource efficiencies, is a key driver of resource depletion. But the acknowledgement of rebound effects as emergent properties of eco-efficiency systems also opens an opportunity space.
My research explores the paradigm of design science for sustainable development, a qualitatively different epistemology in which the emergent effects of throughput growth and social rebound are collectively negotiated within a Sustainable Area Budget. Multiple-Alternative Scenario Building within this budget outlines a process within which emergent properties are harnessed to support the resilience of social and ecological systems. Design science provides the crucial outlines for the negotiation of a common future inscribed within ecological limits.
But resource efficiency does not equal resource conservation. Empirical evidence confirms that the emergent rebound effects of efficiency gains overpower their first-order intention, creating counterintuitive feedback effects at larger scales. Backfire, the collective product of individual scale resource efficiencies, is a key driver of resource depletion. But the acknowledgement of rebound effects as emergent properties of eco-efficiency systems also opens an opportunity space.
My research explores the paradigm of design science for sustainable development, a qualitatively different epistemology in which the emergent effects of throughput growth and social rebound are collectively negotiated within a Sustainable Area Budget. Multiple-Alternative Scenario Building within this budget outlines a process within which emergent properties are harnessed to support the resilience of social and ecological systems. Design science provides the crucial outlines for the negotiation of a common future inscribed within ecological limits.
Conference Papers
United States Society for Ecological Economics Biennial Conference
“Building A Green Economy”: Michigan State University, Lansing, MI. 2011
Poster: Sustainable Cities: A Scale and Process Allowing Design Science to Supercede Analytical Science.
American Solar Energy Society (ASES) Annual Meeting: Raleigh, NC. 2011
Paper: Does Efficiency Lead to Sustainability: Reflections on the Jevons Paradox.
International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) 17th annual conference: Columbia University, New York, NY. 2011
Paper: Sustainable Cities: A Scale and Process Allowing Design Science to Supercede Analytical Science.
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). 2009
Paper, with Richard S. Levine: The College Campus as a Simulacrum of the Sustainable City.
International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE): Nairobi, Kenya. 2008
Film: Exporting Conservation, Exporting Livelihoods: A Local Context of Coffee, Migration, And Conservation in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
International Earth Forum: Beijing, China. 2008
Invited Keynote Speech & Film: Communications within the New Environmental Economy: Youth and Green Media.
American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting: Boston, MA. 2008
Paper & Film: Essentially Contested Imperatives: Village Livelihood in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
Environmental Science Research Conference: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2008
Paper: Export: Coffee Production and Ecological Justice in a Commodified Landscape, a Study Through Film.
Tropical Research Institute Brown Bag Lunch: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2007
Essentially Contested Imperatives: Village Livelihood in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN):
Latin American Protected Areas Conference: Bariloche, Argentina. 2007
Poster: Participatory Processes for Conservation and Development in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
Environmental Science Research Conference: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2007
Poster: Local Sustainable Development in the Context of Economic Globalization: The Case of Cusuco, Honduras.
Bahamian Geology Conference: San Salvador, Bahamas. 2005
Poster: Economic Feasibility of Rooftop Rainwater Collection Systems for San Salvador, Bahamas.
Build Boston: Boston, MA. 2003
Panel: Do you hear what I hear? Institutional diversity and the next generation of designers.
“Building A Green Economy”: Michigan State University, Lansing, MI. 2011
Poster: Sustainable Cities: A Scale and Process Allowing Design Science to Supercede Analytical Science.
American Solar Energy Society (ASES) Annual Meeting: Raleigh, NC. 2011
Paper: Does Efficiency Lead to Sustainability: Reflections on the Jevons Paradox.
International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) 17th annual conference: Columbia University, New York, NY. 2011
Paper: Sustainable Cities: A Scale and Process Allowing Design Science to Supercede Analytical Science.
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). 2009
Paper, with Richard S. Levine: The College Campus as a Simulacrum of the Sustainable City.
International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE): Nairobi, Kenya. 2008
Film: Exporting Conservation, Exporting Livelihoods: A Local Context of Coffee, Migration, And Conservation in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
International Earth Forum: Beijing, China. 2008
Invited Keynote Speech & Film: Communications within the New Environmental Economy: Youth and Green Media.
American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting: Boston, MA. 2008
Paper & Film: Essentially Contested Imperatives: Village Livelihood in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
Environmental Science Research Conference: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2008
Paper: Export: Coffee Production and Ecological Justice in a Commodified Landscape, a Study Through Film.
Tropical Research Institute Brown Bag Lunch: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2007
Essentially Contested Imperatives: Village Livelihood in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN):
Latin American Protected Areas Conference: Bariloche, Argentina. 2007
Poster: Participatory Processes for Conservation and Development in Cusuco National Park, Honduras.
Environmental Science Research Conference: Yale University, New Haven CT. 2007
Poster: Local Sustainable Development in the Context of Economic Globalization: The Case of Cusuco, Honduras.
Bahamian Geology Conference: San Salvador, Bahamas. 2005
Poster: Economic Feasibility of Rooftop Rainwater Collection Systems for San Salvador, Bahamas.
Build Boston: Boston, MA. 2003
Panel: Do you hear what I hear? Institutional diversity and the next generation of designers.
