Week 12 - Tools for Sustainability Planning

How Green is My Orange?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html

This article falls under the category, “Tools for Sustainability Planning-Ecological Footprint Analysis”. Yet, it also relates to the International Planning Issue of Global Warming. The tool of a measuring a carbon footprint, finds the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the ozone by producing a product, in this case orange juice. This tool can help to address the depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer while giving businesses a simple measurement of carbon dioxide emissions that they can attempt to reduce. As Bryan Lembke mentions, “If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”. Wheeler points out that “Many key elements of urban sustainability, especially involving equity, livability, and social well-being are virtually impossible to incorporate into such a quantitative model.” However, these quantitative models are tools to give people a visual understanding of the affects that they have on the planet.

Within the article, author Andrew Martin describes that the company PepsiCo has done a carbon footprint analysis on Orange Juice. PepsiCo hired professionals to measure emissions from the orange juice processing behaviors; such as the factory work and transportation of the juice. All companies are affected by this type of process. Once one company promotes a low-carbon product, a trend may occur where all companies will have to also address their carbon output. “As public concern grows about the fate of the planet, companies will find themselves under pressure to perform such calculations”


Wheeler mentions “the usefulness of such statistics is questionable. What does one do with such figures?”(95). Although talking about the ecological footprint, the carbon footprint can also be related. The calculations “can become tremendously complex spreadsheet exercises.” Instead of finding the equivalent amount of land that would be required to produce resources, the carbon footprint finds the about of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere when producing a product. Each footprint gives humans a measurable quantity that they are able to visualize. The findings of PepsiCo was “the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice”

Wheeler reveals that the footprint analysis “seems to be a limited sustainability planning tool with applications more useful in public education than in specific policy making”(95). In my mind, education is still a powerful tool for sustainability, the more we know about our effects on the planet and ozone. This knowledge may be a key in providing people with enthusiasm and encouragement to improve our destructive habits. These tools may result in only knowledge about how each action affects the environment. The results may be action to mitigate the impact, even if these actions seem small, they still make a difference.






Article 2
Europe Wants U.S. to Join Carbon Trading Market
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/business/worldbusiness/24greenhouse.html

4-6 paragraph analysis of the sustainability issue that is outlined in the article.

This article falls under the category of “International Planning Issues”. Wheeler mentions that “Sustainability issues at an international scale are numerous and many by now well known”(108). Global warming is one of the areas where international agreements have been made to jointly combat the problem. In this article by James Kantar, it is announced that “the European Commission will call on the United States to create a trans-Atlantic system of carbon trading to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to press for the establishment of similar markets in developed countries”.

Wheeler describes the prior international agreements including the Kyoto Accords, surrounding global warming as “one area in which the world’s nations and other institutions can be said to be planning jointly.” However, there has not been much success from these international agreements such as the Kyoto Accords. In 2000, George W. Bush renounced any affiliation to the agreement in the Kyoto Accords. Other nations such as Germany have reduced emissions close to the Kyoto target. The United States have unfortunately not held up their end of the bargain. In 2000, “the US was 14.2 percent above the 1990 carbon dioxide emissions. Adding the United States to the list countries that have actively tried to reduce emissions will be a powerful tool for globalization of the fight against global warming.

In the article mentioned, Kantar talks about a climate treaty that will be discussed in Copenhagen this December. This treaty will be presented to take place of the Kyoto protocol which first phase will expire in 2012. A “strategic bilateral partnership with the United States, to create a trans-Atlantic carbon market” is at the heart of this new treaty.
Kantar also mentions that past efforts to gain global action on climate change have been hindered mostly because of the United States insisting on emission limits for countries such as China and India. Those countries believed that they had the right to improve their standard of living by industrialization (108). To create this central carbon market, the United States involvement is critical. However, this article mentions the debate on adopting market based system approaches or implementing a tax to limit gases that impose a threat on the ozone. The Obama administration must be willing to accept this treaty and form an international market based system approach or else this treaty will not be effective. To fight global warming effectively, it must be a global effort. It is unfortunate that the Kyoto agreement did not set targets for developing nations. However, will a global effort, this problem will can be addressed more thoroughly. The global warming challenge presented in this article is only one sustainability subject that should be addressed internationally. Wheeler also mentions that issues such as loss of biodiversity, depletion of fossil fuels, and other nonrenewable resources, damage to the Earth’s oceans, overpopulation, global inequities, and various forms of violence and welfare should also be at the top of the agenda (108).