Laura Novich

Mini Paper #3- Public Private

11-19-2012

Power is specific. Power can be dependent upon so many factors that are often out of our hands.  Power is a bureaucratic. Power can be rigid and inflexible and unable to accept new ideas and theories. Power can be a good thing, beneficial, but in the production of sustainable building materials, power plays a pivotal role in the slow development of the sustainable built environment movement.

Lloyd Irland’s article, “Developing Markets for Certified Wood Products”, 2007, is about how wood products that are cut from sustainable, certified forests are not being recognized as such due to lack of comprehension in the multi level supply chains and why this happens. It is important to understand the facts of where a system is failing in order to repair the problems. They did this by analyzing data that they had from the different parts of wood supply chains. Their key findings were that it is hard to market wood as certified through all the levels of supply chain. They explored those problems to help approach the situation and make the marketing of certified wood more apparent.

Power, in this case, takes the form of the supply chain. It is difficult to label a product sustainable when different parts of the company are not abiding by set standards, and often, unintentionally. Higher end employees that dictate how a supply chain should run often do not know what actually takes place in the production. There is a miscommunication happening and it is unfortunate because it is important for the different levels of the supply chain to work together to form a cohesive product. Everyone in the company should understand each leg of the product’s journey; the CEO should know just as much about the production as the factory workers. Without complete understanding, it is hard to believe in your company as a truly sustainable one, and to sell that idea, too.

Cecillia Gravina da Rocha’s article, “A Discussion on the Reuse of Building Components in Brazil: An Analysis of Major Social, Economical and Legal Factors”, 2009, is about how materials can be recycled and reused after construction, because the construction industry produces the greatest amount of waste and, thus, causes severe environmental problems. This is an important task because it will help create a more sustainable production model for others to use. The authors did a single embedded case study by taking available data from Porto Alegre, Brazil and analyzing it. They found through the data and their own supply chain management approach that economical and social factors, and not just the lower socio-economic class, support the reuse of building materials.   The summary argument is that by using their supply chain management approach, they can use it for “close loop” supply chains.

In this article, power was literal: public political power. Because of so many factors and restrictions, it is difficult to set standards in the building industry when it comes to construction waste and reusing it. Even if a country’s government agrees with the proposal, it still will take a long time to put the law or regulation into effect. This article explains how it is feasible to reuse waste from the construction industry, which is great, but you must ask yourself: how long will it actually take to make it happen? This is always the first thing that comes to my mind when I see potential change in the built environment: when will it actually happen?

Claire Cooper- Marcus’ article, “Environmental Memories”, 1992, is about how adults remember their surroundings as children, how they remember the spaces. This is important because it helps us to understand how people view their surroundings and how they react to certain spaces. It also helps to characterize what their preferences are for physical places. The author did this by taking first hand stories from many different people from all over the US and other countries.  Her key findings were that children all reacted to and remembered their surroundings differently. The summary argument is that place has a strong role in people and their upbringing and childhood, which is visible in their adult lives and careers.

Cooper-Marcus’ article explores how people dealt with power as children, how they saw their environment as a refuge from whatever was happening in their lives. The way they interacted with their surroundings mirrored how they would as adults.  For example, the one person who built a junky playhouse with his brother and then his father gave them a perfect one that he had bought. The children played with it to make their father happy, but then quickly returned to their original junky playhouse. That was their reaction to power and how they obeyed it initially, but then continued with what they originally were doing.

This one childhood anecdote could be an example of how companies produce excessive waste and are then targeted by the government to curb their emissions. The company addresses the problem, does what they are expected to do, and then once the government has stopped paying close attention, they revert back to their normal, polluting ways. The children in that story might not have grown up to be the employees implementing such tactics, but it was a strong similarity between how children react to power and how wasteful companies react to power.

Patrick Zou’s article, Managing Risks in Green Building Supply Chain”, 2012, is about how the new methods of green building can have an effect on the supply chain of companies and what risks they faced. This is important because understanding and addressing those problems could help promote and expand the industry. They sent out 250 questionnaires to professionals in Australia with 93 sent back, but only 91 valid. Their key findings were that it seemed possible to improve the green building industry, but there is a definite need for further research and development, education, experience, knowledge sharing and technology. The summary argument is that there was a general “lack of commitment in the supply chain to go green” and that there were financial risks companies felt were a result from green building.

This article explains how there are limitations to trying to achieve a green supply chain. Aside from governmental restrictions making it difficult to become a sustainably produced product, the company itself fears the financial risks. Companies are resistant to becoming a green, sustainably produced product because they think that the financial risks are far higher than what they expected or are prepared to pay. In this case, power is money. As much as we do not want to think that money controls everything, it does. Money is the root of business and, unfortunately, companies need to understand this and abide by it. However, money does not mean that a company cannot be sustainable and still make a profit. A company can very well make a solid profit if they make their production sustainable and change their supply chain approach.

Works Cited

Cooper-Marcus, C. 1992. “Environmental Memories” in Place Attachment, edited by Ian Altman and Setha
Low. NY: Plenum Press, 1-12.

da Rocha, Cecillia Gravina, and Miguel Aloysio Sattler. 2009. “A Discussion on the Reuse of Building Components in Brazil: An Analysis of Major Social, Economical and Legal Factors.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (2) (December): 104–112.

Irland, Lloyd C. 2007. “Developing Markets for Certified Wood Products.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 11 (2): 201–216.

Zou, Patrick X. W., and Paul Couani. 2012. “Managing Risks in Green Building Supply Chain.” Architectural Engineering & Design Management 8 (2): 143–158.