‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

SECTION B:

CRITIQUE OF 
METHODS, 
TOOLS AND 
PROCESSES 
IN BUILDING 
DESIGN

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4 
Development 
Standards 
and Criteria
 
From ‘designed waste’ 
to zero waste
The previous chapters form a background for a discussion on the new design concepts, standards and 
methods that the next few chapters explore. We have said that, in the context of the increasing rates 
of resource depletion and degradation, the built environment must do more than reverse the negative 
impacts of future land use and development. What are currently regarded as ‘ecological’ design 
goals, criteria and concepts are not geared towards improving whole systems health, only reducing 
collateral damage. Consequently, our design processes have not evolved to foster the creativity and 
imagination required for true sustainability. An entirely new standard is required: 
•
It is not enough to re-design products or buildings. Every new design should contribute to
the conversion of the industrial system in which it is embedded (eg construction, farming or 
forestry). Each design can leverage system-wide changes aimed towards true zero waste.
• 
It is not enough to eliminate waste and toxins. Each design should help to reduce the total
flow of materials and energy throughout development. The built environment can be
converted to a living landscape that restores, detoxifies and expands the
 
ecological base.
• 
It is not enough to restore environmental quality. A design could expand usable public urban 
open space, contact with nature, food production, resource security, biodiversity, and
ecosystem goods and services. In other words, it can add value to the public estate.
• 
It is not enough to make incremental improvements that slow the accelerating spiral towards
ecosystem collapse. Development can be adaptable, reversible, and provide future
generations with an expanded range of substantive life choices and future social options.
‘True zero waste’ would mean the elimination of all avoidable waste throughout the supply chain: 
from the source of extraction and production to recycling and disposal.
1
Positive Development would 
go beyond even true zero waste by generating positive impacts, both on-site and off-site, over its life 
cycle, increase economic, social 
and
ecological capital, and improve human and ecosystem health.
Instead of design that exaggerates differentials of wealth, Positive Development would increase equity 
[Chapter 14]. We will begin by exploring the dominant conceptions of ‘waste’ and ‘limits of nature’, 
and how these militate against efforts to reduce the rate of ecocide. Then we will look at what we 

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64
Positive Development
will call ‘designed waste’: the avoidable duplication, disposability, planned obsolescence and wasteful 
end purposes to which resources are put by virtue of their design.
2
To eliminate or reduce designed 
waste, we need new forms of analysis that make ‘waste’ visible, expose biases against sustainability and 
front-load design. Conventional development approval processes focus on predicting the amount of 
known impacts in the future. They still exclude many uncertain future, long-term and cumulative 
impacts. To address this, our concepts of waste can be expanded to account for the waste ‘embodied’ 
in development and ‘ecological waste’ – the time, space and effort required to restore the source of 
materials in nature.