Making Sustainability Convenient

According to a USA Today article last
month, California’s Clean Air Sticker
(aka carpool or HOV lane sticker) is
worth $4,000 on the open market.

This brings up two points I’d like to
address – first, do the hybrids
deserve a sticker (from a sustainability point of view), and second,
how convenience can be incorporated into sustainable design.

According to a life cycle assessment done at Seikei university in 2001, hybrids end up producing more CO2 during manufacture, but less overall in its lifetime. Total CO2 drops from 24 to 14 Mg. So, based on CO2 emissions alone (which closely track total energy used), hybrids clearly don’t belong in the carpool lane. All the other cars there at least double their passenger number to cut CO2 per person in half (there is some extra weight which means more mass, but in today’s cars at highway speeds that is negligible). I won’t even mention carpool lanes that require 3 or more people. If we throw in disposal costs and toxicity issues of the battery, hybrids seem even less appealing. It’s clear that the hybrids don’t deserve to be in the carpool lane, but maybe we should allow them there anyway.

The argument can be made that these stickers are really more for drawing consumers into buying hybrids and indirectly causing a shift in consumption and market-driven technology development. This is an argument I might buy, since the stickers are temporary. They expire Jan 1, 2011 according to the CA law that enacted them. I do wonder if anyone has decided that the hassle of carpooling just isn’t worth it any more since the car pool lanes have slowed down from 85,000 new hybrids. In that case, maybe we are encouraging some technology development but discouraging carpooling – which would be a shame but may be a necessary hit we take in the short run to develop sustainable transportation technology. And these stickers are obviously very valuable. People have even been stealing them!

As a more general second point, convenience seems to be another front from which we can look for sustainable solutions. Economics is not always on the side of sustainability, at least not while oil and other limited resources are cheap and plentiful. However, people are always willing to take a hit in the pocketbook if it saves them lots of time and energy. I still like the idea of grocery stores that have dedicated check stands for people who bring their own bags. One thing to consider though is if the reward is proportional to the increase in sustainability. For hybrids, the reward is clearly too large – unless we are using it only temporarily to change long-term technology development and consumption patterns. For reusable grocery bags, we would probably need a grocery store manager’s opinion. Governments seem to be particularly well poised to create convenience for sustainable designs. Who else can better change our daily routines from smooth sailing to complete hassles with just a bit of bureaucracy and red tape? What other government resources (besides carpool lanes) can we sell in the name of sustainability?