Sustainable Living Audio Book – Learn From Looking – Chapter 4: Part 1

Sustainable Living Audio Book – Learn From Looking – Chapter 4: Part 1

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The author of Learn from Looking, Charlie Szoradi, has given us authorization to share the written content and drawings from his book with our readers. This is one of many segments that focuses on the overall theme of sustainable design and overall sustainable living.

Book Topic: Sustainable Living

Learn from Looking is about critical thinking and reaching a sustainable future more cost-effectively than ever imagined. The book's subtitle "How Observation Inspires Innovation" speaks to the core aspect of the content, given that the author, Charlie Szoradi, is an architect and inventor who has traveled extensively around the world over multiple decades and built businesses that range from energy saving lighting to indoor agriculture systems. Mr. Szoradi shares insights on "green" clean-technology that are increasingly key for sustainability, profitable businesses, healthy living, and raising intellectually curious children in a pre and post Covid-19 world. We give Learn from Looking five out of five green stars! Note that the audio book comes with the E-book for only $15 together. Click here to Order the Audio Book on Sustainable Living

Sample content from Learn from Looking: 

Sustainable Design Approach

Sustainable design is a child of sustainability and a sibling of sustainable innovation. So understanding the family is important for clarity.

Sustainability is about endurance through interdependence at the social (people), environmental (planet), and financial (profit) levels. This triple bottom line relies on complex connections, and that complexity of interconnectivity is what makes it so difficult to achieve.

Sustainable innovation is a process that aspires to reach the triple bottom line while cultivating new ideas within a company from inception through to sales. All of the complexity of engineering, research, and refinement along the way make sustainable innovation difficult to achieve as well.

Sustainable design is an approach to design and build structures, develop and manufacture products, and provide services that adhere to the principles of social, economic, and ecological sustainability. 

            Synonyms include environmental design, environmentally sustainable design, and environmentally conscious design.

Execution of Sustainable Design

The founding three Rs of sustainability—reduce, reuse, and recycle—form a compelling triangle of interconnectivity. I have add “rethink” as the fourth to create cornerstones that provide a solid foundation for sustainable design.

Reduce

Reduce negative impacts on the environment:

• Reduce nonrenewable energy consumption.
• Reduce water consumption and contamination.
• Reduce packaging waste, especially in single-use packaging.
• Reduce transportation, especially through local options. 
• Reduce toxins in products and building materials.
• Reduce energy waste by adopting high-efficiency technology (from lighting to air-conditioning, and many more systems). Note: lighting and indoor climate control each account for over a quarter of building energy consumption. 

Reuse

• Reuse resources and goods when possible, especially over single-use packaging.
• Repair versus replace when possible with equipment, finished goods, and buildings.

Recycle

Recycle whatever cannot be reused or repaired. Remember, recycling uses energy and transportation, so it comes after reduce, reuse, and repair.

Rethink

• health and comfort for people
• delivering function and style with sustainability
• productive living and working environments
• alternative and renewable power production
• optimization of operational and maintenance practices
• optimization of site potential for building locations
• life-cycle impact on the environment of products, services, and buildings
• prioritization of social and economic impact—local products and jobs placed first

Clean Tech for America

Clean Tech for America is an example of a strategy to promote sustainability across many different socioeconomic sectors. The debate over energy resources and weather impact may continue for decades. In the ramp up to the 2012 presidential election, the debate over the science of climate change started heating up. I thought that conservatives and liberals could focus more on solutions for natural resource allocation and sustainable ROI than the weather. So I developed the concept “Clean Tech for America” to focus on creating new jobs and business opportunities along with building a stronger and more sustainable country in the new global energy economy. Since we had moved the manufacturing for our LED lighting business from China to southeastern Pennsylvania in 2010, I had started to see firsthand the sales traction and benefits of energy-smart job creation through American manufacturing. My thought was that America needed more jobs, and we had rallied to fight for independence 235 years ago, and now we could rally for energy independence.

The Concept 

Create a tipping point that makes America stronger as a change agent for positive economic growth and environmental sustainability. In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes, “The Theory of Tipping Points requires, however, that we reframe the way we think about the world.” In this case, I felt that we needed to reframe the perception that economic growth was counter to environmental sustainability. Mr. Gladwell also writes, “In the end, Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action.” This Clean Tech for America concept includes examples of intelligent action and mission with ten pillars for positive change.

To succeed in executing this concept, l looked at relevant examples of cultural change to learn from their strategies and tactics. The conservative Tea Party had ignited tens of millions of Americans to take action and hold rallies, which over the course of the 2010 midterm election impacted the nation and sparked dialogue. The Republican Party gained sixty-three seats in the US House of Representatives, recapturing the majority and making it the largest seat change since 1948. Clean Tech for America is about the American ideal of self-reliance, technology leadership, and smart government. While Tea Party supporters often spoke about our need to stop wasting money, my idea for Clean Tech for America was to attract both liberals and conservatives by focusing on our need to stop wasting energy. The concept was to attract Americans from college age to the baby boomers and focus on “smart” government, not just small or large government. Smart government would create incentives as the carrot versus penalties as the stick to work with rather than against private sector interests.