Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute spoke today at Autodesk University about whole systems thinking and the importance of working backward from the desired end result. Lovins calls this approach integrative design or whole system thinking, and he’s a recognized genius on the order of Buckminster Fuller, Raymond Kurzweil and other luminaries.
I went for the whole Lovins immersion today, first taking in a 90-minute talk to an engaged audience of roughly 250 prior to his main stage appearance where he addressed more than 8,000. Lovins presented a number of nuggets of wisdom related to his ideas of whole system thinking, with in-depth background in the talk that were supplemented by more concrete examples in the keynote. Like all accessible geniuses, Lovins shines when communicating his unconventional ideas with practical examples that make you question why we all aren’t thinking and acting as he suggests.
Following are a few of the resonating ideas from his talks:
Elegantly Frugal Solutions – Lovins uses a graph to show how standard thinking about the law of diminishing returns gets blown out the window when all elements of a system are considered. His house is the primary example to illustrate this idea, where he super-insulated the home along with high-efficiency windows, putting such an emphasis on insulation that he was able to completely remove the cost of a furnace and air conditioning system. With the elimination of the mechanical system, he saved so much in up-front and ongoing maintenance costs that he was easily able to see a return on the investment by “tunneling through the cost barrier.”
Design as a Rubber Band — The idea of design as a rubber band is that you can only stretch conventional thinking so far before the ideas break down, and others aren’t able to make the necessary leap forward. Lovins encouraged designers to jump forward into the design space and outcome that they want to achieve, demonstrating the possible and allowing people to stretch their thinking back to where we are now.
Institutional Acupuncture — When business processes become so congested, a really good idea can act as an acupuncture needle to relieve the congestion and restore the flow.
The Right Steps in the Right Order — Working on the right problem in the right order was demonstrated by thinking of the problem of cooling buildings. Lovins asserted that cooling people is the better approach, with directional cooling, ceiling fans, and even pictures of water or ice to psychologically expand people’s comfort envelope.
Transformation Not Incrementalism — Rather than minor tweaks that slowly impact the whole process, Lovins advocates for larger and more profound changes that entirely rethink the approaches that we take to problem solving. The central idea to this argument is that nature optimizes without compromise. Over the course of evolution, only the workable design configurations survive, and we need to be more honest with our assessments of what’s working.
Lovins is partnering with Autodesk on a new education and outreach effort called Factor10Engineering (www.10xe.com). Over the course of the next year, there will be a series of case studies that are pulled together that highlight “high brain velcro ideas” that demonstrate the importance of integrative design.
“Factor Ten Engineering (10xE) aims to accelerate this paradigm shift, by providing engineers with a tangible guideline to whole-system thinking to enable radical efficiency gains. Now that nature is scarce, the next innovation revolution can raise natural resource productivity 10- to 100-fold. The initiative will engage academia and industry to help transform engineering pedagogy and practice, unleashing the next wave of engineering innovation that our world and we truly need.”
Lovins has been a pioneer in connecting the idea of efficiency to sustainability and business gains. He doesn’t focus his energy on the detrimental impacts that we’re having on our planet, but on solutions that provide business opportunities that also benefit our planet. He’s enlightened many businesses and governments over the years and now with the 10XE effort, he’s engaging like-minded people in the design realm to band together and promote design change for a cooler and safer world that is also fairer and richer.
Visit the 10XE website to learn more about the effort, to contribute your own case studies, or to become a “wizard-class collaborator” on this project.
