The challenges brought by global warming and the degradation to the environment caused by industrialization requires a multifaceted response, i.e., one which addresses the complexity of economic, social, environmental and technological interdependencies.
"No matter how useful man-made products are, there is nearly always a price to pay.
A key feature of the first Industrial revolution - and the three periods of industrial change that followed - was the profligate manner in which manufacturers used natural materials and released harmful man-made substances into the environment"
- Peter March, The New Industrial Revolution (Yale, 2012)
It is unlikely that the commercialization of innovative products and production systems undertaken without an understanding of and response to the causes of the environmental crisis, will either be financially feasible or sustainable in the long-term.
The case for rapidly introducing and supporting sustainable design and production methods that could lead to a renewal of industrial innovation along sustainable lines is a strong one. The associated claim by large manufacturing firms that a type of high added value, knowledge-based, competitive sustainable manufacturing (CSM) can be introduced that permits economic models to operate as they are. i.e., along the path of continual growth, may be more difficult to uphold. Why is this?
The notion of 'sustainable growth' has it advocates with Peter March, author of The New Industrial Revolution, amongst them. Peter March thinks that the response by the new era of industrialists to the environmental imperative that we now face will be different: "In the new industrial revolution, the approach .. will be built around stewarding resources and minimizing ecological disturbances. It will involve the development of new processes and products designed to tackle some of the most pressing environmental challenges - such as reducing carbon dioxide linked to energy generation. There seems a good chance that the new industrial revolution will trigger an unprecedented sequence of events: a world in which economic expansion continues, but with manufacturing for the first time reducing environmental pressures rather than adding to them."
March's optimism is supported by the development of ecology-oriented strategies by several large corporations (Adidas, Puma, Nike) which Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, believes "have .. a genuine and profound interest in making changes." The changes proposed may well include products that are designed "not to increase the environmental pressures on the planet." Importantly, however, questions regarding the sustainability of a product turn not only on the design of the individual product but on the numbers produced and their recyclability. This broader question forces us to look at the system itself - product design, product manufacture, product consumption. product recycling. The approach of Whole Systems Design would include questions regarding the number of items produced and the relation with finite resource. This approach, while not overcoming the limitations of available resource, does go some length to addressing the weakness of our current economic models when failing to confront the problem of finite resource.