“Even the most rigorous and eco-efficient business paradigm does not challenge basic methods and practices…our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right
things…instead of making the wrong things less bad.” – Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
That is essentially the basis for the difference between eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness. Efficiency, as the authors claim, is “doing more with less.” It
is the idea that we must reduce the bad…unfortunately, by maintaining
the same system, the same set of parameters, the same destructive, toxic
patterns, making things “less bad” is not making them “more good.” Rather, efficiency maintains the status quo, while giving the impression of improvement.
Eco-effectiveness has, at its core, the concept of innovation. Being
effective is not simply trying to make the current system less harmful,
it is reinventing, rethinking, and reinvesting in our planet and its
inhabitants. The term eco-effective calls for not just improvements to poor or failed designs, it demands redesign, to ensure that something isn’t just being
efficient, but also productive, healthy, good for the environment and
those in it.
I was amused by their use of the analogy of sex…but truthfully…it’s the perfect example, one that most people can truly understand and get behind. If
sex were efficient, it would dilute, if not eliminate altogether, the
fun factor as well as the many helpful and healthful benefits derived
from its practice.
While efficient and effective could be used in everyday language to represent the same or at least similar concepts, it is understandable that a newly
coined term was needed in order to signify a total flip in reality, a
complete redesign, rather than indicating an attempt to fix the current
design that was bad to begin with and not worth saving.
By Pebble Haniford, Sustainabiilty Studies student, IU South Bend
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