12 elements to make resource recovery antifragile

In my last post about the fragility of the waste industry, I wrote about how attempts from the waste industry at resource recovery make for fragility, or at best, robustness (as used by Nicholas Nassim Taleb). This means that the best the industry can hope for is that major shocks ("black swans") do not cause too much harm.

Black Swans (with local Perth skyline). Source: PlanBookTravel

Looking to minimise harm doesn't really lend itself to thriving. To truly thrive, resource recovery needs to become antifragile. That is, to establish itself in ways such that it is strengthened by black swans.

Taleb (as summarised in John Hagel's review of Antifragile) gives a handy 12 point list of elements that go toward creating antifragility.

The fragility of the waste industry

Nicholas Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame, has recently written a new book called Antifragile. This book essentially takes the observation of black swans (highly unlikely, high impact events) and seeks to understand how the existence of black swans can be exploited.

Rather than systems being susceptible to black swans (ie fragile), or even resistant to black swans (resilient or robust), the goal is to design systems that thrive in the presence of black swans. Taleb coins the word "antifragile" to describe such systems.

What does that have to do with waste?

Well, I'd argue that it has a great deal to do with waste. Whenever the waste industry turns its mind to zero waste, it seems to do so in a perfectly fragile way.