Zeronauts unite!

The term "zero waste" has been so misused in government parlance that it has become a term of gentle (and not so gentle) mockery. So Western Australia had the slogan "Zero Waste by 2020", which then became "Towards Zero Waste", which is atrociously at odds with the reality of this state that had to change again, this time to "Western Australia: Too good to waste".

"Zero waste" is clearly misused when there is nothing to back it up - a "zero waste" policy becomes zero waste policy. Nothing. Nada. Nix.

However, just because a term has been misused doesn't make it invalid. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) did not invalidate the term democracy because it holds a fundamental core. Similarly, there is a fundamental and revolutionary truth to zero waste.

To achieve zero requires us to refashion how we do things. That might seem terrifying, but this sort of revolutionary change has happened over and over again. There was a time when oil and kerosene lamps were ubiquitous. They then rapidly blinked out to be replaced by electricity (and associated immense generation and transmission infrastructure).

Of course, it is easy to get hung up on "zero", to find reasons why some tiny amount will always exist, and then act as if this is a fatal flaw that prevents even contemplating the concept. That would be akin to arguing that people will always die in car crashes, so there is no point in trying to prevent fatal crashes. And so on.

In fact, the case for "zero" and zeronauts in particular is well argued by John Elkington in his book The Zeronauts, Breaking the Sustainability Barrier and associated Zeronauts website, and summed up by Maxine Perella in a post "the zeronaut: where others fear to tread" on her blog //greendipped:

Essentially, it is about rebuilding the status quo and transforming it into a ‘future quo’. Elkington argues that status quo capitalism lacks imagination and ambition. That there is a design fault within it and also those factors linked to it such as mindset, behaviour, culture, economics and technology. 

His approach is a game changing, experimental one. Where zeronauts will succeed in achieving large-scale sustainability improvements, he argues, is where there is a market price signalling scarcity. So if consumers face higher prices for water and electricity, this should stimulate entrepreneurial activity centred on economising those resources.

It is a notion that is very close to my heart. It basically asks the question "Why do we tolerate waste?", and seeks an answer to that question in stronger entrepreneurial activity. I think it's spot on.

So, thanks to //greendipped, I've learned another thing that I am not (yet) but wish to be (joining the ranks of maven from my "social media epiphany" blog). As for the term "maven", part of the comfort is realising that what I am striving for is not impossible. Hard, yes, but not impossible.