Whole Systems Energy Assessment

= SEA

URL = https://www.synapse9.com/SEA/ [1]

Description

"There's been a long standing scientific problem with how sustainability metrics have been defined. We've been doing sustainability assessments by "counting up" the parts we could find... instead of by "dividing up" the totals. The latter approach can capture 2 to 10 times the impacts that the former approach was leaving uncounted.

An environmental impact is a very diffuse global effect, something every business contributes to globally with all its materials and services chains, with both employee and technology impacts of great variety, literally scattered around the world. Without lifting a pen you can be sure that "on average", every business will be responsible for a share of the world economy's impacts proportional to its share of the world economy.

So, an accurate accounting of material responsibility for impacts needs check what direct impacts you can find to count, and as if just to "check the math" compare that to the average world environmental impact for its share of the world economy. That's how physical science measures are designed, with defined units that are defined fractions of a scale. Using that approach results in a far more accurate accounting.

The 2011 paper was in the online journal Sustainability, and as a local PDF. In 2014 a generalized version was developed for discussion at the UN's meetings on Post2015 Sustainable Development Goal, called A World SDG, as a practical system for "internalizing all direct externalities". It would, conceptually, assure fair global accountability for the impacts of all kinds of economic choices, by businesses, consumers, investors and policy makers." (https://www.synapse9.com/SEA/)

Discussion

"What difference it makes:

The total energy cost to the economy for operating businesses is really on the scale of five times what was previously thought. What was overlooked are the large untraceable energy demands of the support services needed to obtain and operate technology and deliver products. They don't record or report their energy needs so businesses haven't been accounting for them.

Per $ of business, the total liability for both visible and hidden energy use impacts, like for CO2 pollution, energy resource depletion, and for employing the energy obtained for altering the earth, are then also on the scale of five times what was previously realized.

The "reality math" is that, lacking information, "average impact per $" is far more accurate than "0". It corrects our largest piece of misinformation about the real accumulative environmental impacts of using money, (and... embarrass those claiming their lack of information is proof of having no impacts!)

The error was picked up because the individual business energy use totals were adding up to be way below the world average energy use per $ of GDP.

The accounting mistake was to count only the reported energy uses, counting the energy for necessary but unreported energy uses as "0". Because all spending ends up as personal incomes and consumption in the end, it's accurate to first estimate any energy demand per/$ as the global average.

Especially environmentalists, green policy advocates and sustainable designers have been tricked into believing more efficient technology reduces total energy use, as if only a business's visible energy uses were the problem. The real problem is the far larger hidden ones.

Complex theories are not needed to confirm this, just the oldest rule of science: "For complex subjects, find the unusually simple questions you can answer with high confidence"." (https://www.synapse9.com/SEA/)