Economic growth

Activity title

The efficiency challenge

Overview

In two rounds, participants build boats which should carry as many coins as possible. In the second round, they are instructed to increase efficiency in construction. Afterwards participants discuss the possibilities and limitations of decoupling. 

Objectives

• To deal with the possibilities and limitations of decoupling in a playful way

Materials

1 cent coins, Paper, Cardboard, Glue stick, Sticky tape, additional material of your choice

Optional: PowerPoint slide or print out of figures 1 + 2 ‘Annual carbon dioxide…’

Time

30 minutes

Group size

Works for all group sizes

Instructions for trainers

Preparation: Prepare a set of building material for every group. Make sure to have every set in the same composition twice (for round one and round two). The resources included in the set of materials for the different groups should not be the same. One group might for example only get one paper and glue stick, while another group might additionally get a piece of cardboard and sticky tape. Give the groups rather limited material, as the aim is not to keep on building forever. 

1. Ask participants to form small groups (e.g. 3 – 5 people).
2. Tell the groups that there will be two phases of 7 minutes of construction. 
3. Hand out one set of materials to every group.
4. Instruct the groups in the first round to use the material they have in order to build boats that can carry as many 1 cent coins as possible.
5. Seven minutes of construction time.
6. Tell the group to monitor their building success.
7. Hand out the materials for the second round and instruct the groups to again build boats that can carry as many coins as possible. However, this time the boats need to be able to carry more coins than before, and less material than in round one needs to be used. Challenge the groups to construct their boat as efficiently as possible.
8. 7 minutes of construction time are followed by again monitoring the building success. 

Debriefing and evaluation

The additional carrying capacity and the saved materials are the efficiency gain. Start a discussion around the following questions: How much more efficient were you able to get? In how many rounds do you think you could get every more efficient? How much more efficient do you think our economies can get? How did the different sets of resources, influence the size of the efficiency gains your group could realise?

Introduce participants to decoupling as the aim of the green economy, where increasing efficiency should lead to sustainability. Discuss the aim of green growth, that through decoupling economic growth from emissions and material resource use, sustainability can be reached. Sticking to the boat example, relative decoupling would mean that the groups would manage to build a boat, which can carry the same amount of coins as in the first round, with less material. If that succeeded (very likely), ask the participants if they think that they could build twice, or three times as many boats with less than the material used for the one boat in the first round. Absolute decoupling is only reached in the case of a growing output (economic growth) where less material is used than for the initial, smaller output. Can we keep on growing endlessly while ever using less material and emitting less greenhouse gases? Should we use efficiency gains for ‘making up’ for growth or to (faster) reduce the pressure on our planet?

End the activity with a short input about empirical observations on decoupling: relative decoupling has happened, but globally no absolute decoupling has happened. Relative decoupling does not help us to reach climate goals, as emissions need to be drastically reduced and not only increased at a lower rate which is what happens when economies grow and emissions decline but only relative to the economic growth. Optional: show the trends of absolute and relative decoupling with the ppt slide or print out of figures 1+2. 

Tips for trainers

For the debriefing of the exercise read chapter 3, ‘Economic growth’

An additional, interesting layer of reflection could be about the output of carrying coins. This exercise shows growth in ‘more of the same’ (capacity to carry coins). However, did anyone consider constructing the new ships for a different purpose? Did anyone think about deviating from ‘the rules of the game’? Efficiency is about input and output. Who determines what a good output is? What is efficiency geared towards?