Commodity Ecology Mobile Platform
= "The CEM platform will be the world’s first archive of all sustainable materials in 130 (commodity) categories". [1]
Description
Mark Whitaker et al. :
"The Commodity Ecology Mobile (CEM) platform is an online platform to enfranchise the world in its sustainable development ... to reach cheaply and durably
- all people,
- all regions, and
- all material uses to aid a clean circular economy.
Respectively, it does this by
- creating a long-term civic deliberation space taking advantage of the existing network value of over 5 billion mobile phones,
- by using 867 ecoregions as a global yet detailed geographic space in which to debate and build such regional sustainable development, and
- by using the Commodity way to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Encourage Sustainable Production and Consumption)."
(https://scholar.kyobobook.co.kr/article/detail/4010028079805)
Discussion
On the aim of the project:
(a correction of my description, as suggested by Mark Whitaker, in: [2]
"People will have context based sustainability, there is a project in South Korea, Mark Whitaker was doing this (cosmolocal project called Commodity Ecology, a project of ecological ethics and human ethics--cleaning up the air, soil, and water AND providing for human livelihood--by facilitating a circular economy's better material choices and better material links via digital technology--and that use of digital technology can make a 'regional grass roots command economy' easy to organize out of circular economy project, and this can be both a global and multi-regional local project at the same moment) so 860+ ecoregions (which are real world ecologies of flora and fauna unique in the world different than their neighboring ecoregion, mapped only from the early 2000s, instead of the cultural human term bioregions), (and in these ecoregions, the platform catalyzes debates and buying/selling on) 130 commodities (as open-ended threads of places of posting/debate/purchases/sales on the whole issue of the image of the future: what commodity is categorically the best material choice, for material links, in a specific ecoregion over time), you mix that (with the wisdom of local crowds following Ostrom's idea of commons property management as always based on a set boundary (here, ecoregions) and a set of specific issues of what is the problem, here, every commodity used by human beings), though do such grass roots command economies via digital technology, 24/7, so) because it goes straight to the smartphone of (over 5 billion) individual people (because there are 5.6 billion plus smartphone users as of spring 2024, smartphone users are in a network that is so widespread and digitally distributed around all the ecoregions of the world that he calls this digital technology as having a capacity of a 'digital parity' of being evenly distributed around the world, instead of such digital technologies always being assumed to be in a 'digital divide', i.e., only in industrialized economic countries), so they can see, like, (what are the best current or future material options per commodity category for my region, that make the best material links for our region, and we can ask what can I complain about in a region, what is a better material for the category of use, how can we reduce pollution, how can we create more material links to demote waste, and even ask the question 'here is the waste that I have, maybe someone in my region wants to buy it or take it to make another kind of material link, where is the waste, that I can buy or sell to reduce externalities in the whole regional economic system--all of this is the debate. (there is nothing really about what you said: 'what am I spending, and am I above the average, or below the average, you know,' (though it IS about setting up a regional 'grass roots command economy', interested regionally in) regenerating or degenerating, the environment I am a part of.' (by more collective deliberation and by market forces working better under wider choices being known per category of use, thus we can regionally find better material choices and better material links that clean up the region while creating human livelihood without externalities.
And over time, it is a venue in which better material choices, then material links, and then materially virtuous cycles can come about being based on ongoing debates, innovation, flexibility, and durability for a region. And digital networks means global and local regionalism simultaneously, so it would be lateral learning and acceleration for a circular economy to have such a platform use: where different regions can learn from each other how it is done in one region and whether those ideas for categorical material links apply well in another region, etc. "
(via email, January 2025)
More Information
- Article: A Circular Economy for the World: The Commodity Ecology Model for Achieving All Sustainable Development Goals. By Mark Douglas Whitaker and Geon-Cheol Shin.Journal of APEC Studies Journal of APEC Studies Vol.12 No.2, 2020
URL = https://scholar.kyobobook.co.kr/article/detail/4010028079805
- Draft book: Relinking Eden: The Best Organizational and Material Choices to Accelerate a Circular Economy