There is real money and goodwill to be made from investing in ecologically sustainable research and development

This is the final article in a three-part series. See Part 1 here and Part 2 here

South Africa has the legislative framework in place for the decentralised, “frontline development agency” of local government necessary to progressively realise the right in Section 24 of the Constitution, which is to achieve ecologically sustainable self-development.

As explained in Part 2, Section 16 of the Municipal Systems Act, under the heading “Community Participation”, effectively makes lawful participation in the realisation of the Section 24 right the second, and most vital role for each municipal community, and the Greater Plettenberg Bay RDP Forum set the precedent for how to go about doing it.

But with no precedent for a sustainable self-development outcome, it is going to be difficult to manifest in practice. How then to proceed? Another aspect of Scott’s revelations (outlined in Part 1) provides the clue to turning that key.

First, he pointed out that the linear, bureaucratic system was simply not capable of codifying the complex “living” practices of community and nature which — while already marginalised — had long preceded it. Second, that in the oblivious application of this bureaucratic law the immense, inherent value in the practices of both systems were ignored.

In aiming to achieve the ecologically sustainable self-development of Section 24, it follows that a new system needs to be put in place which is capable of codifying this living complexity and which does value the outcomes of these practices — or in brief, a system which can organise and value the complex outcomes of constantly adapting, social and natural-capital practice.

This being said, and because metros have largely displaced their original natural environments, this effectively means that a fully “ecological” plan could only be implemented in rural areas where the natural environment is still relatively intact — an inescapable rural bias that does, however, create two great potentials.

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   Establishing and building the rural, hi-tech ecological infrastructure and innovation systems could prove to be the greatest work creator in the whole country.

   
   


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   The increase of work opportunities in rural areas would mitigate, and possibly eliminate, the perpetual rural population migration caused by the strong, metro-centric bias of work opportunities available in the centralised economy. Rural population migration to metropolitan centres has long destabilised the socio-economic fabric of both habitats, so, in rurally mitigating this migration, the metros would also gain an indirect, but significant benefit from the relief of its pressure.

   
   

Accordingly, the first part of a rural solution could be to de-bureaucratise the linear boundaries of state land-law by using standard GPS technology to re-humanise and re-naturalise these boundaries. Doing so could free up the collaborative commonage and natural biodiversity corridors necessary for both systems to restore their original values without, necessarily, the need for land expropriation.

In this way individual property rights would still be protected and the life-enabling land would be released for hi-tech and mixed-use community infrastructure as well as for biodiversity-corridor restoration.

In the former case this could be areas of practical value adjoining rural towns and villages, and in the latter the low-value, water catchment courses which would make the highest-value biodiversity corridors.

The release of the vital land for restoring the local system of Community and the local ecosystem of Nature would thus bring the truly ancient essence of “life” back into both systems.

The second, inter-related part of the solution would be to introduce complementary value systems for social and natural capital that could be used to:

1. 
   

   Fairly and adequately value the freed-up commonage and corridor land; and

   
   


2. 
   

   Introduce the added values of their capital-output trading practices into the existing formal economy.

   
   

For this second part a “market-maker” would be required to create the trading market for social and natural-capital currencies. (Market-maker is the term for a specialist innovator who creates new value streams in the free-market economy).

In this regard, and using the “Mutual Credit” token of exchange, Community Exchange Systems Ltd in Cape Town is already hosting social-capital exchanges in more than 1,000 communities in 97 countries around the world. So a precedent does exist for how this could be achieved.

My preliminary research suggests that a similar, natural-capital system based on the energy-sink value of photosynthesis in local ecosystems could be a viable proposition when that captured solar energy is given the same monetary value as the same sequestered energy in fossil-oil.

This energy-sink value of photosynthesis is relevant in that any solar irradiation not captured in this way is converted on land-contact into heat, which adds impact to anthropogenic climate change.

The whole de-bureaucratisation exercise would obviously be spatially context-specific, so it would require full participation on the part of each contextual community.

The Plettenberg Bay RDP Forum created the ideal dialectical system to organise and mediate such a fully representative discourse, so a precedent does exist for applying it in the different spatial contexts in South Africa.

The penultimate question is, however, how could all this be financed? Four factors would play a major role in raising the necessary “start-up” investment.

First, and with no precedent of ecologically sustainable outcomes to draw upon, a pilot project will be an inescapable necessity in order to research and develop prototype versions of the technology, infrastructure and skill-sets required to generate ecologically sustainable practice.

In this regard, and in order to raise the very-low level of research and development (R&D) investment in the South African economy, the SA Treasury has agreed to a 150% tax rebate for accredited R&D.

Because the pilot project will in fact be based in pure R&D, and by first accrediting it as such with Treasury, the risk for project investors could be eliminated with a 100% tax rebate on audited R&D investment along with a Return on Investment in not having to pay tax on other revenue to the value of 50% of that audited investment.

Second, and given the all-encompassing scope and scale of transformative development implied, it would be prudent to minimise the pilot-project risks involved down to the minimum and manageable economy-of-scale that will still produce viable ecological outcomes.

Third, the organic complexity implied in managing and co-ordinating the pilot project’s ecological activities will require a purpose-built ICT system and connectivity network specifically designed to efficiently serve its multiple, “frontline” local governments and the participatory engagement of its very-large district citizenries.

The critical imperative to address disparity at the district-scale of transformation therefore provides:

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  The moral leverage to implement the much-maligned, government ICT policy objective of the Wireless Open Access Network (WOAN) necessary to secure universal district connectivity;

  
  


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  The optimal scale of cost-effectiveness to financially motivate the positive collaboration of all telecoms role-players in speedily getting the pilot WOAN project into operation;

  
  


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  The R&D tax-rebate scheme to mitigate investment risks and make return on that investment; and

  
  


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  With the WOAN in place, the “real-time” data-flow and feedback necessary to codify and inform very-high efficiency in all district activities.

  
  

Fourth, and in order to resolve the chronic level of income disparity in the economy, the National Development Plan (NDP) set the long-term target to more-than-double GDP turnover in the economy.

In order to meet that NDP target, the above, “transformative leveraging” scenario for the ICT industry could be similarly applied in the case of the many technology and services industries which will be necessary to affect the equivalent, more-than-doubling of productive output required in rural district economies.

There are 46 rural districts in South Africa. The speedy deployment to them of proven, pilot-project practices and outcomes would create the huge potential of further opportunities for all industries which participate in piloting transformative development on the ground in rural South Africa.

Summing up, it is quite possible that the scenario plan projected above may indeed attract the necessary start-up capital for a pilot project, but what about the finance required for maintaining sustainable continuity in high-efficiency, rural ecological economies?

This answer is relatively simple to explain. The virtuous cycle of ongoing R&D is fundamental to the constant regeneration that maintains continuity in every successful economy (see example bar chart here).

A 3%, and 150% tax-deductible, self-benefiting R&D levy from the GDP generators in a district economy would therefore enable the economy to self-fund its own, high-efficiency regeneration in self-sustainable perpetuity, without the need for an inefficiency-induced, perpetual growth in size.

In their book Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawkins and Hunter and Amory Lovins tell the story about how one company in the US — Interface Corporation — whose product ended its lifespan as being one of the most toxic contributors to waste landfills — decided to become the first “eco-efficient” company in the world.

It took that company four years of “tunnelling through the cost barrier” to achieve its objective, but the results of that arduous period of change-R&D investment were spectacularly successful.

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  It halved its energy and resource use and doubled its productivity;

  
  


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  It doubled its revenue;

  
  


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  It nearly doubled its workforce;

  
  


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  It tripled its profitability; and

  
  


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  It reduced its radically-high toxic footprint on the environment down to very-nearly zero.

  
  

This example of ecologically efficient, or eco-efficient business practice not only set a precedent for the fact that it is indeed possible, it reveals that there is real money and goodwill to be made from investing in ecologically sustainable R&D.

With this example I rest my case that commerce can make sustainable self-development happen.

The paramount question of this treatise is, therefore, can South Africa’s government once more become unified in a collaborative political leadership that holistically serves the needs of its people, their economy and nature, by speedily getting on with doing lawful Section 24 transformation on the ground?

Doing so would surely honour Nelson Mandela’s heartfelt wish for a government RDP of the soul. DM

Dewar is a community-mandated researcher for the Greater Plettenberg Bay RDP Forum. He has been designing a “whole-system” cluster project for the implementation of an ecologically sustainable, rural self-development pilot project in South Africa.