11 billion! There will be more than 11 billion people on this planet by the end of this century. Each person consumes more than 600,000 kWh of energy over an average lifetime. For context, the largest battery pack in the fanciest electric sedan (Tesla Model S Plaid!) can hold up to 100 kWh. The energy demand from humankind is going off the charts!
This is not a micro-blog on sustainability. On the contrary, it is an attempt to talk about a potential problem with the current focus of the sustainability narrative.
Bill Gates wants to remove carbon from the atmosphere, Elon Musk wants to electrify mobility, Jeff Bezos wants to move heavy industry to outer space. There are hundreds of courses being offered at Stanford and thousands of students taking them on Jane Stanford Way alone. All of which focus on the SUPPLY SIDE of solving sustainability issues. There is excess carbon in the atmosphere — let’s try carbon capture, so that we can keep emitting at the current rate. Internal combustion engines pollute the air — let’s transition to electric battery packs, so that we can maintain our driving lifestyles.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the debate on the DEMAND SIDE of the sustainability problem? I.e. How do we think about consumption? How much is too much? Does the Earth have a maximum carrying capacity for its finite resources?
I am sure all of us have taken a high school lesson or two that talked about ecological food pyramids and concerns about unchecked population growth. Have you wondered what happened to that debate?
Have we conveniently swept it under the carpet because we as humanity are so wedded to the idea of capitalism on steroids — our need to grow everything year on year by either expanding markets or increasing per capita consumption — that we are petrified by the very thought of rationalizing demand, tempering marketplaces, or reducing the size of the overall market? We seem to have replaced these questions with macroeconomic ideas that only imply that we need more people, and they need to consume more.
Japan has an aging population problem, China has botched its one child policy, Europe has labor shortages, South Asia and LATAM are reaping demographic dividends, Africa’s youth is driving capital flows from the west, the global population will eventually moderate due to falling fertility rates etc.
All of which subconsciously re-enforce our own flawed behavior and consumption patterns. Humans are incredibly resourceful, resilient, and creative beings. By constantly peddling pro-consumption stories, we are merely undermining our ability to adapt and find efficiencies.
I acknowledge that this is an incredibly difficult conversation.
But at this moment in our history, when the planet is already warmer by 1.5`C, and 2022 was the year with the highest per capita energy consumption ever (a trend that will likely continue in the near future), ‘we the people’ stand at an inflection point of our own existence.
This is not a fight that can be won by ingenious supply side solutions alone, but will need concerted efforts on policy, societal, and individual levels to address the demand side.
Humanity has multiplied 10-fold over the past 300 years and our appetite for energy has increased exponentially. What gives us the right to consume at this rate? Why does this growth have to go unchecked? Perpetual growth in demand for energy will always put strains on the planet’s resources, and its future at risk.
At times, we are beings of primal identities; we are Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic and African, even before we are human. Our national fervor and religious cacophony drowns any semblance of rationality that science may have to offer. But at our core, we are a species that can show empathy towards pain that we don’t see, hear, or feel. Our tryst for justice transcends borders and our charity reaches shores afar. All I am asking right now is, “what about the pain of this planet?”
There are no more lands to discover or frontiers to conquer (on this planet at least!); we are a pale blue dot beyond which life as we know it will not sustain. This conversation cannot be limited to addressing climate change and global warming alone. True sustainability should encompass our overall resource consumption from its finite source, Planet Earth!
As an example, there are 38 million gas powered vehicles in California alone. Replacing all of them like for like with electric vehicles should not be the solution that we advocate. Have you wondered what happens when the salt mines in Bolivia run out of the lithium needed to build the battery packs going into these EVs? Less than 6% of the energy we pump into a 2-ton electric car is actually used to transport the individual — more than 65% is used to move the car itself and the rest is lost in heat.
This pattern of inefficiency repeats itself in every avenue where the focus is solely on managing the supply side without altering our consumption patterns on the demand side. The ROI on supply-side innovation far exceeds the social capital required to conjure demand side consensus, therefore driving a skewed short-term, venture capital-driven, replacement tech-themed narrative. For instance, Elon Musk became the CEO of Tesla Motors in 2008, the same year California voted on Proposition 1A to implement high speed electric rail connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. While Tesla, which focuses on the supply side of sustainability, has catapulted Elon to among the world’s richest people, the high speed rail project which essentially changes the way we travel and reduces the energy we consume for transportation per capita, is still stuck with funding and regulatory issues along with a significant cost overrun!
Wouldn’t it be truly sustainable, if in the example above, we choose to transition to an electric ecosystem that prioritizes mass transit and e-bikes, thereby minimizing our per capita energy consumption? This would require a fundamental change to how we envision our own lives, society, and the cities we live in.
As the developing world progresses towards prosperity out of poverty, it is even more important for developed economies to lead the way in finding solutions to moderate demand, given their per capita consumption of energy is relatively higher many times over. As an example, the energy used for decorative holiday lighting alone in the US exceeds the total energy consumed across the GDPs of small emerging economies.
It is no longer just about going green, but also quantifiably reducing consumption so that we can bring both the absolute and global average down.
Going forward, I think it is imperative that we incorporate basic principles of optimizing resource intake to achieve true sustainability. There are smarter and more well-informed people on this topic around us, who I am sure will come up with tenable frameworks at policy and societal scales, something that we should follow, support and advocate for. But at an individual level, these are the things that I would commit to and strongly encourage my peers to consider.
- Reduce food waste. Think about the entire supply chain and the energy it took to bring that burger onto your plate!
- Be thoughtful when replenishing your wardrobe. While not all fashion choices are created equal, let’s admit it, all of us already have more clothes than we will ever need. Let’s educate ourselves on microfiber pollution and the collosal water consumption across the supply chain in the Textile industry.
- Be mindful about your travel footprint. Think of strategies to minimize the total energy it takes to move you from point A to B.
- Think about ways to reduce your essential consumption of electricity and water year over year. As the GSB has taught us, if you set a target and write it down, you will likely hit your mark.
- Reduce your digital presence where possible. Every photo / video we take goes on the cloud where servers need to be cooled, and every time we post it anywhere this gets replicated onto another server, with even more cooling requirements. Same for search, chatrooms, AI etc. Think about all the voluntary and involuntary data flow that happens through mobiles, laptops, routers, cell towers, optical cables, fiber optics and the power needed to make it happen.
- Learn and Talk. We are going to have a fancy degree from the world’s most prestigious academic brand. I am told on good authority that most people would like to listen to what we have to say. Let’s make it count.
For the privilege that Stanford has to offer us, we have a choice to either be those well informed, highly educated, pseudo intellectuals who will buy that electric vehicle with the 100 KwH battery pack and plaster our green credentials all over social media!, or maybe use our time at the GSB and beyond to really ponder on, ‘what matters to us and why?’, and through our actions, advocacy and voice do something to address the demand side of the sustainability conundrum.
