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Box 52 Negative Resource Transfers
The public estate should not be confused with public control or public property. The public
sector does not necessarily make better resource allocation decisions than the private sector.
The concept of the public estate, however, conveys the idea that citizens can theoretically take
back control of public sector management and decisions. They can do little about corporate
power, when it operates above public control. Stockholders in particular corporations will
not realistically protect the wider public interest.
Types of negative resource transfers
Decision
sphere
Negative
resource
transfers
Negative
characteristics
Negative
mechanisms
Negative
consequences
Biophysical
(design):
Loss of
options
From future to
present
generations;
opportunity cost
Irreversible
designs and
developments
that cut off future
options
Planning; design;
environmental
management
frameworks
Loss of ecological
base and
meaningful future
options
Institutional
(state):
Power
transfers
From public to
private interests
Legislated
standards or
processes
transfer power
Privatization;
deregulation;
pareto optimum
Loss of public
estate and future
meaningful
democratic rights
Technical
(industrial):
Impact
transfers
From natural
environment
to ‘industrial’
development
Substitution of
natural capital
with financial,
manufactured, and
built capital
Externalities;
internalities
Loss of future
human health and
life quality and
meaningful choice
Economic
(market):
Wealth
transfers
From poor to
wealthy, 3rd
world to 1st
world
Indirect and
often ‘hidden’
mechanisms
like perverse
subsidies
Subsidies to
status quo
Loss of
opportunities
and meaningful
choices
Economic
inequity
Wealth transfers
‘piratization’
(eg perverse
subsidies)
The white arrows are processes
that diminish the public estate
and ecological base
The dark circle is the
diminishing public estate
and ecological base
Design
externalities
Future
opportunity
cost
Governance
and
decision-making
Impact
transfers
(eg pollution
and waste)
Power transfers
(eg privatization of
resource control)
Loss of future
social options (eg life-
style and life quality)
341
Boxes
Box 53 Converting Negatives into Positives
Ways to create net positive social and natural capital
Decision
sphere
Reversal of
‘negatives’
Potential
‘positive’
change
drivers
‘Positive’
decision
rules
New
‘positive’
processes
Biophysical
(design):
Expansion of
options
From present to
future
generations;
opportunities
for Positive
Development
Eco- solutions
that increase the
ecological base
and public estate
Sustainability
standard: net
positive design
Trans-
disciplinary
charettes and
participatory
design teams
Institutional
(state):
Power
transfers
Institutions that
can create a just
and equitable
society
Social engage-
ment and open
‘participatory
democracy’
Green Optimum,
constitutional
design, and due
process
Direct solutions
like
eco-retrofitting
Technical
(industrial):
Impact
transfers
Development
that gives back
more to nature
than it takes
Eco-efficiency
and waste mini-
mization (waste
as a productive
resource)
Zero waste or
no loop systems
that use natural
systems
Bioconversion
of waste to
resources (soil,
water, air, biota,
energy)
Economic
(market):
Wealth
transfers
Decoupling
growth and
impacts through
Positive
Development
Businesses or
arrangements
that address
environmental
problems
equitably
Full cost pricing;
partnering; and
performance
contracting
Offsets for fixing
existing damage
(not future
damage)
Eco-innovations –
decoupling
growth and
impacts
Bioconversion of
waste to resources
(soil, water, air, biota,
energy)
The small arrows represent
solution areas that reverse the
impacts of past resource
transfers
Increased social
options through
reversible natural
systems
Direct eco-
solutions like
eco-retrofitting
Sustaining institutions
Engagement in
partnerships and team-
based design
Expanded future
options
The large arrows represent
activities that are suggested by
combining the adjacent solution
areas
Remediation
programmes that
generate saleable
products
342
Positive Development
Box 54 Reversing the Role of Fashion
Fabia Pryor
Green fashion challenges political, ideological, economic, cultural and social forces that are
embedded in ‘consumerism’. The sustainable fashion and textiles sector incorporates envi
-
ronmental and humanitarian concerns into this otherwise individualistic, consumption and
appearance-focused sector.
Sustainability in these industries is an achievable target, with economic gains for businesses
which invest in it. Numerous examples exist of innovative, entrepreneurial and sustainable
fashion and textile businesses which are stimulating widespread change within both the pro-
duction and the consumption sectors.
The revival of the Cambodian silk industry illustrates the breadth of change that can be achieved
by utilizing sustainable textiles as a driver. This is the brainchild of a Japanese silk expert,
former refugee worker and UNESCO consultant Kikuo Morimoto. Morimoto founded the
Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles when he saw the once highly valued industry fading
away, following decades of civil war and the advent of synthetic fabrics and mass-production
technology.
1
Working closely with the community, he set about reviving the Cambodian silk
trade, encompassing the entire silk-making process.
Morimoto’s vision led to the creation of two new silk villages in Cambodia and is an example
of whole system thinking. These villages incorporate schools, farmland, market gardens and
livestock breeding areas. The concept also encompasses an established ‘self-sustaining forest
preserve’, the outcome of revegetation which aimed to replant the natural forests, devastated
by years of war, from which the silk and dye constituents are sourced.
As Morimoto puts it, ‘Rather than a faithful recreation of a silk village, we consider it to be a
new model of a village that utilizes traditional wisdom.’
2
In redeveloping this industry, Morimoto scoured Cambodia in search of the remaining women,
or ‘silk grandmothers’, who had survived the Pol Pot era and still possessed the traditional
knowledge of silk-making, handed down over 1200 years.
3
These women have now passed
their knowledge down to younger women in the community, ensuring the survival of traditional
knowledge and a key component of Khmer cultural heritage. Now custodians of this knowl
-
edge, the recently-skilled women are able to generate an income from silk-making, diverting
them from paths which may otherwise have led to begging or prostitution.
As well as social benefits, environmental benefits have resulted from the silk industry’s
revival. Reforestation of native vegetation has increased biodiversity in the region, enhancing
natural capital and the self-sufficiency of the local community. The silk project is resourceful,
using wastes from the material and dye production as organic fertilizer on the community’s
farmland.
Morimoto points out that while Cambodia was never rich, it did have a self-sustaining rural
economy. “War ruined this,” he states, “but too rapid and thoughtless modernization can have
the same result over time.”
4
Key to the revived industry’s success has been the high acclaim the silk has enjoyed within
the mainstream sector, generating increased awareness of the plight of the Khmer people and
the Cambodian environment. The revival of the Cambodian silk industry, using traditional
knowledge and increasing environmental and social capital, exemplifies the positive effects of
incorporating traditional knowledge within a sustainable framework in the textiles and apparel
sector. It is just one example of similar initiatives being taken throughout the world in both
fashion and textile production.
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