Learning From Nature
Zero Emissions Research & Initiatives
By David Saunders
Are our needs inevitably in conflict with those of the environment? Could we live in harmony
with nature without sacrificing economic prosperity and growth? Until now, environmentalists
have suggested the only way forward is to reduce economic growth and consumption, but the
Zero Emissions Research Initiative chimes an optimistic note, with a new paradigm suggesting
that development can be both sustainable and evolutionary when it is in tune with nature.
It is a timely idea that deserves closer attention.
Gunter Pauli is a dynamic entrepreneur who first became
well known in Europe as chief executive of Ecover, one of
the first experiments at deliberately building a sustainable
environmental business. Ecover was very successful, but one
day Gunter Pauli realised that while he was making the
Rhine less polluted, in Malaysia and Indonesia, where he
sourced his natural ingredients, for every kilo of coconut or
palm oil he bought, he was leaving behind twenty kilos of
waste. Worse, the increased demand he stimulated, led to
further logging of the rainforest. Basically, his much-fêted
business was exporting environmental pollution from Europe
to Asia. When he called for a re-think, his partners didn't get
it - and so he walked away... to found ZERI.
The ZERI Foundation (Zero Emissions Research and
Initiatives) approach is a methodology and a decision making
tool. It's a way of focusing science and innovation on
sustainable solutions and it's an entrepreneurial approach to
caring for the planet. The concept is deceptively simple; don't
waste anything - after all, nature doesn't. Nature finds a
profitable use for everything. So, learn from nature, and if
possible imitate nature.
Put in scientific jargon, ZERI uses an open systems
approach in which all outputs from any process are turned
into useful inputs for the next process. And this is recursively
applied until a network - a cluster - of processes has been
found that all add value. Using this method new jobs and
wealth are created, and waste - emissions and pollution - is
eliminated. Gunter Pauli believes that anyone who is
polluting must be missing an opportunity to make a profit.
And the ZERI methodology allows people to identify this
missing wealth and make it real.
Instead of waste outputs, these are treated as potentially
valuable inputs to some new process. Scientists are called in
and focused on making the breakthroughs that may be
needed to solve the practical problems. Usually a multiinterdisciplinary approach is required for this, and part of
Gunter's entrepreneurial genius has been in setting about
building a network of scientists who have the necessary
skills.
Finally, a pair of business plans is written for each
process - one for including the new product or process as part
of the existing business structure and a second for doing that
process as a standalone business. The business plans are then
factored together, and hey presto! you have the requisite
decision making tool for eliminating waste, and creating jobs
and profit.
REFORESTATION IN COLOMBIA
11,000 hectares of deforested land was purchased very
cheaply - for a couple of dollars a hectare. The land was
considered worthless as the soil was too acid to grow
anything. Scientists were used to locate a tree which could
grow in such adverse conditions, which would not become
invasive and which would give way to other indigenous
species. Fortuitously, the chosen tree, Carribbean Pine, also
produces a resin with a commercial value, colofonia.
The students feel a greater sense of self-esteem and selfworth as they are solving practical problems with a positive
impact on society. There is now a first Chair in Zero
Emissions at the University of Namibia Faculty of
Agriculture, which has been transformed into a Faculty of
Zero Emissions. This revolutionary approach is already being
adopted elsewhere.
TRASH MINING
A BREWERY IN NAMIBIA.
Tetrapack aseptic food packaging, is now one of the biggest
single constituents of domestic waste, and it has a higher
aluminium content than bauxite aluminium ore. An
enzymatic process developed by ZERI with science students
in Colombia can separate Tetrapack perfectly into its
constituent layers of card, paper, printing, polyethylene and
aluminium - yielding aluminium and recyclable plastic at
very high levels of purity – and it does it in a matter of
seconds. Tetrapack themselves have been unable to develop
such a process in 25 years. This is another example of ZERI's
entrepreneurial multi-interdisciplinary scientific approach.
This approach is not limited in application to natural and
organic processes. In Japan, NEC have created an industrial
park where a cluster of electronics and other businesses use
each others’ outputs to create added value and eliminate
waste. For instance, using a process called vacuum
evaporation, used printed circuit boards can be 'mined' for
heavy metals, and separation at very high levels of purity can
be achieved. So far, 4 of the 10 proposed businesses are in
operation, and the whole park will be fully operational by
2002.
The brewery has three inputs - water, hops and barley; and
four outputs - beer, spent mash, waste water, and carbon
dioxide. The mash has to be disposed of, and this is a cost. It
can go to landfill, be burned, or is sometimes given away as
low grade cattle feed. The ZERI solution is to grow
mushrooms. Breweries have heat generating plant to
pasteurise the beer. Any spare capacity is used to dry the
spent mash to the point where it's usable as a substrate to
grow mushrooms on. This creates extra revenue and
employment.
Outputs from this process are mushrooms (incidentally, a
complete source of protein) and used mushroom base. In the
process of growing mushrooms, the base mash is converted
from indigestible cellulose into protein, which is then a much
richer and more digestible cattle food. However, in the case
of this brewery, it is used as a food input for a fish farm.
The government of Namibia has seen the light. They now
have a very simple criterion for issuing permits for new
industries - the business must be ZERI – it must have zero
emissions.
A UNIVERSAL APPROACH
Technology was developed to grow seedlings and
propagate them quickly and cheaply. Local workers were
recruited to tend and farm the trees. A factory was built to
refine the resin to very high standards, and revolutionary
new, low-impact recyclable packing was designed.
The outputs from this process were very beneficial to the
land. The soil pH gradually began to rise, and native trees
began colonising the area, followed by native fauna and
flora. Indigenous people felt supported with a degree of job
security from the project. Previously, seventy percent of their
health problems were caused by water-borne bacteria, but an
interesting side-benefit was discovered; the water in the
subsoil, filtered by the newly restored forest, is now purified
and drinkable.
A New Approach to Science Education and
Social Responsibility
Science played a part at many stages in the ZERI design of
the brewery in Namibia, requiring specialised knowledge
from many scientific disciplines. Fortunately, in Namibia,
science teaching is already being revolutionised and
advanced science courses are being prepared based on a new
multi-disciplinary approach. This revolutionary system
teaches students to co-operate and look for synergy, rather
than to compete and specialise even more deeply. And it
focuses their efforts on solving practical problems that
reduce environmental impacts and increase biodiversity.
There is one big problem in the West and that is the business
school mentality that says we “focus on our core business”,
which makes it harder to adopt a clustering approach with a
portfolio of businesses. The West has been slower to adopt
ZERI principles, but there have been initial successes in
Sweden: In Stockholm, a cement manufacturer was due to
close, and the cost of restoring the plant to 'brown field' state
would have been considerable. A process was introduced that
re-used the kilns for a new process to pre-digest urban refuse,
which after three days allows it to be separated into
components for recycling, composting, and so on, so that
only a small proportion has to go to landfill. The justification
for the City was that their landfill site would last five years
longer, but there are also many other benefits.
McDonalds, a name one does not usually associate with
environmental concerns, produce a lot of waste, which is
70% organic (compostable), and 30% non-biodegradable
packaging. It is possible to get plastics made from organic
sources which are biodegradable, but they are more
expensive, and not yet as long lasting as petrochemical based
plastics. However plastics at McDonalds have a short life
cycle, and using plant-based plastics would make their waste
100% biodegradable, meaning it could go through the new
Stockholm waste plant and not have to be sent to more
expensive landfill.
McDonalds plastics purchasing manager would not make
this decision, but by looking at an Integrated Cash Flow for
the whole business, the general manager could. McDonalds
are reluctant to publicise any of this as it could be used to
pressurise their business elsewhere.
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
ZERI provides a way for Boards of Directors to make
decisions on which potential investments will make most
business sense and which will give best added value. Smart
businesses are already adopting this tool for decision making
on new plant, products, and investments. British Petroleum is
perhaps the biggest business so far to adopt ZERI as their
prime approach at top board level. DuPont Chemicals uses
ZERI methodology to examine its constituent businesses, and
those businesses that are not capable of running with Zero
Emissions are targeted for divestment, so that DuPont is
gradually becoming more and more sustainable.
It's quite obvious that ZERI, as a methodology, is set to
take the world by storm, and recently it has achieved a
significantly higher profile, having been adopted by the
United Nations Development Programme. The University of
Chicago has also recognised the value of ZERI, and there are
joint initiatives in the offing which will transform the
Masters of Science training by shifting to a multiinterdisciplinary case-based approach.
WORLD CONGRESS
The ZERI World Congress was held recently in Colombia,
with over two thousand delegates, and over two hundred
projects submitted for consideration. Many of these projects
were submitted by young people and even schoolchildren.
The young people in South America are taking a very active
interest in ZERI. One 16 year old girl who promotes ZERI
projects sternly told a group of scientists "Your generation
has messed up the world for my generation. You have tried
to fix it, but you have failed. Now we must fix it, and you
must help us".
ZERI has been adopted recently by the United Nations
Development Programme as its primary tool for development
in Africa - at the request of African governments. ZERI
LINK is the initiative that has been established to promote
understanding of these principles in schools.
For further information: see: http://www.zeri.org
or contact David Saunders at david@dns.org.uk.
Also worth reading: 'Upsizing' and 'Breakthroughs' by
Gunter Pauli, and 'The Web of Life' by Fritjof Capra.
First published in the Spring 2000 Living Lightly supplement
of Positive News - http://www.positivenews.org.uk/