Janis Birkeland

Dr. Birkeland's first degree was from Bennington College, Vermont (B Arts, 1966), and she initially worked as an artist and art teacher. While studying architecture at Berkeley, California (MA, 1972) she began working as an advocacy planner in under-served communities in San Francisco.Birkeland, J. (1971) The Value and Limitations of Advocacy Planning, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley.{{Cite web |title=Community Design Center |url=http://www.communitydesigncentersf.com/}} This experience led her to decision to better understand the structural impediments to socio-ecological sustainability.{{Cite journal |date=2021 |title=Dr. Janis Birkeland |url=https://www.totalprestigemagazine.com/dr-janis-birkeland/2021 |journal=Total Prestige}} Therefore, in 1974, she became an Urban Designer and later a City Planner with the San Francisco City Planning Department. She also continued to do architectural projects and became a registered architect in 1977. Concurrently, she obtained a Juris Doctor degree at UC California College of the Law (1979), was admitted to the California Bar (1980), and worked in the City Attorney's office on City Planning.

When BIrkeland moved to Australia for family reasons, her professional qualifications were not recognized by the Queen's dominions.{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=Net Positive: Designing Regenerative Cities |url=https://accidentalgods.life/designing-regenerative-cities/}} She therefore applied her transdisciplinary background to a PhD in Planning for a Sustainable Society (1993) at the University of Tasmania.{{Cite thesis |date=1993 |title=Planning for Sustainability |doi=10.25959/23236847.v1 |url=https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Planning_for_a_sustainable_society_institutional_reform_social_transformation/23236847 |last1=Birkeland |first1=JL |publisher=University of Tasmania }} This research deconstructed and redesigned a system of eco-governance that could make nature and ethics integral to decision-making frameworks and processes.{{Cite web |date=1993 |title=Environmental Governance |url=https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Towards-a-new-system-of-environmental-governance-Birkeland/}}Birkeland, J. (1995) 'Ethics-Based Planning' in Australian Planner 33:1, pp. 47-49. Since then, she continued to refine the new "mindsets, models, methods, and metrics"{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }} that, in her view, are necessary to transform the built environment into a generator of net (whole-system) sustainability.{{Cite web |date=1997 |title=Pathways to Ecological Sustainability |url=https://www.routledge.com/Human-Ecology-Human-Economy/Hamilton/p/book/9781864482881}}{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=Dr. Janis Birkeland |url=https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/people/sustainability-summit-2020}}

Birkeland's teaching and research career focused on sustainable planning and design. She began teaching at the University of Tasmania (1992–1994), she then at the University of Canberra (1994–2004). Throughout the 1990s, she taught what are now called the regenerative design and circular systems paradigms.{{Cite web |date=2003 |title=Mapping Regional Metabolism |url=https://library.dbca.wa.gov.au/static/FullTextFiles/070622.pdf}} Her teaching materials were later published later as Design for Sustainability (2002).{{Cite web |date=2002 |title=Design for Sustainability |url=https://www.routledge.com/Design-for-Sustainability-A-Sourcebook-of-Integrated-Ecological-Solutions/Birkeland/p/book/9781853838972}} She also organized conferences, seminars and professional development courses to raise public awareness about proactive, positive solutions to diverse sustainability challenges. In 2001, she took a year off from teaching to serve as the Senior Environmental Education Officer for the Australian federal government.{{Cite web |title=Janis Birkeland |url=https://www.outdoordesign.com.au/news-info/green-development-forum/2386.htm}} These combined educational, professional, academic and government perspectives prompted her critical reassessment of leading-edge sustainable design and development standards and strategies.

Upon returning to the University of Canberra in 2002, she began to challenge the regenerative design and circular systems models that were, by then, gaining wider acceptance.Birkeland, J. (2003) Beyond Zero Waste in Societies for a Sustainable Future, Proceedings of the Third UKM-UC Conference, University of Canberra. 14–15 April 2003. Birkeland identified what she deemed to be fundamental flaws in these 'weak' sustainability frameworks. These included their failure to address planetary overshoot and its many repercussions, such as climate change, biodiversity losses, social disparities, environmental risks, etc.{{Cite web |date=2007 |title=Positive Development |url=https://acumen.architecture.com.au/globalassets/gen04_edited.pdf}} From 2002 onwards, she formulated Positive Development theory to address these crucial sustainability issues, along with net-positive design principles and processes and, later on, the STARfish net-positive design app.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }}

To find time to advance these concepts, Birkeland took a Visiting Fellow position at the Australian National University (2004–2007). She then assumed full professorship roles at the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Auckland in 2007 and 2011, respectively.{{Cite web |title=Birkeland |url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/janis-birkeland-84135120/ |website=LinkedIn}} In 2016, she joined the University of Melbourne as an honorary professor, where she continues to advance the frontiers of the sustainable design disciplines in more positive directions.{{Cite web |date=2018 |title=Eco-Positive Cities |url=https://degrowth.org/2018/04/14/new-book-pluriverse-a-post-development-dictionary/ |access-date=2024-05-28 |archive-date=2022-04-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220404134528/https://degrowth.org/2018/04/14/new-book-pluriverse-a-post-development-dictionary/ |url-status=dead }} The current number of publications in the sustainable building industries, professions and academia that mention net-positive design and development - albeit in diluted forms - indicate a growing acceptance of the need to redesign the systems and concepts that shape the built environment.

In the 1980s, Birkeland applied an Ecofeminist lens to deconstruct the 'Dominant Paradigm':{{Cite journal |date=1991 |title=An Ecofeminist Critique |journal=The Trumpeter |volume=8 |issue=2 |url=https://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/785/1152 |pages=72–84 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis }} a world view that reified a value system described as industrial, androcentric, mechanistic, reductionist, anthropocentric, power-based, etc. She exposed vestiges of that anachronistic worldview that still permeate contemporary sustainable development decision-making systems and design practices.{{Cite journal |date=1993 |title=Some Pitfalls of |journal=Environmentalist |volume=13 |issue=4 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01902028 |pages=263–275|doi=10.1007/BF01902028 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |date=1997 |title=Our Common Future or Neo-colonialism? |isbn=978-0-9655732-0-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/villagewisdomfut00inte |last1=Register |first1=Richard |last2=Peeks |first2=Brady |publisher=Ecocity Builders }} Ecofeminism was chosen because it addresses human-nature relationships but also explores the systemic roots of exploitative interrelationships at personal and political levels.{{Cite web |date=1993 |title=Linking Theory and Practice |url=https://www.google.com/search?q=Ecofeminism%3A++Living+Interconnections+with+Animals |pages=12–59}} Power-based decision structures and development models evolved, inadvertently, from this dualistic conceptual framework. Today, these social, structural and institutional constructs still close off future options.{{Cite web |date=2013 |title=The Emergence of Design for Sustainability |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280099076 |pages=73–92}} Positive Development (PD) aims to invert the Dominant Paradigm (DP) and expand future sustainable options.

Birkeland taught that the built environment had the latent but unique potential to address nearly all sustainability challenges, except perhaps warfare.{{Cite web |date=2015 |title=Planning for Positive Development |url=https://www.routledge.com/Australian-Environmental-Planning-Challenges-and-Future-Prospects/Byrne-Sipe-Dodson/p/book/9781138000711 |pages=246–257}} However, current forms of development control, strategic planning, urban design and so on, are not fit for purpose.{{Cite web |date=1988 |title=Land Use Planning and Conflict Resolution |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rapl20/26/1?nav=tocList |pages=8–11}} For instance, as she often said, 'objective' (reductionist) sustainability assessment methods "measure all the wrong things in all the wrong ways",Birkeland, J. (2005) Building Assessment Systems: Reversing Environmental Impacts, in Time for New Tools, Australian Institute of Planners, Queensland.{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=Are Green Building Tools ready for a Paradigm Shift |url=https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/are-green-building-rating-tools-ready-for-a-paradigm-shift/}} while 'subjective' design review processes use vague incrementalist standards, such as "better than before" or "more good than bad".{{Cite book |date=2022 |title='A software tool for Net-positive |url=https://shop.elsevier.com/books/intelligent-environments/droege/978-0-12-820247-0 |pages=449–529|isbn=978-0-12-820247-0 |last1=Droege |first1=P. |publisher=Elsevier Science }} Her proposed standards, processes and metrics for evaluating 'net' sustainability outcomes differ radically from contemporary tools.{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=What is Net-Positive Design? |url=https://sourceable.net/what-is-net-positive-design-and-how-to-create-eco-positive-cities/}} STARfish shows how to assess crucial issues that are omitted by virtually all building rating schemes,{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }} such as the need to increase equity, environmental security and justice, democracy, ecological space, nature, etc. - beyond project and supply chain boundaries.{{Cite web |date=2022 |title=Starfish App |url=https://researchfeatures.com/starfish-app-new-sustainable-design-tool-aid-net-positive-sustainability-outcomes/}}

To safeguard democracy as well as planetary health, Birkeland reasoned that institutional structures must be remodelled to prevent corruption and abusive power relationships,{{Cite thesis |date=1993 |title=Planning for Sustainability |doi=10.25959/23236847.v1 |url=https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Planning_for_a_sustainable_society_institutional_reform_social_transformation/23236847 |last1=Birkeland |first1=JL |publisher=University of Tasmania }}{{Cite web |date=1995 |title=Cultures of Institutional Corruption |url=https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781863244176/Cultures-Crime-Violence-Australian-Experience-1863244174/plp}} as intended by the US Constitution,{{Cite web |date=1993 |title=Towards an Ecological Constitution |url=https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/74VKKGgRPo4b |pages=255–261}} and to increase social and natural life-support systems in absolute terms. She taught that 'sustainability is a design problem', whereas the dualistic Dominant Paradigm elevates decision making or 'making choices' over design or 'creating' structures that fix things.{{Cite journal |date=2012 |title=Design blindness in Sustainable Development |journal=Journal of Urban Design |volume=17 |issue=2 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |pages=163–187|doi=10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |url-access=subscription }} The dominant decision-based processes in the economic, technological, executive, or political spheres are suited for contrasting known options. Thus, they limit the ability to envision and implement new sustainable solutions.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }} Birkeland's proposed reforms are design-based and turn current frameworks on their heads.{{Cite web |title=Net-Positive Design and Development |url=http://netpositivedesign.org}}

In lectures and publications, Birkeland challenged what she considered anachronistic ideas in contemporary sustainable or regenerative design theory, practice and strategy.{{Cite book |date=2013 |title=Business Opportunities through Positive Development |publisher=Ellen MacArthur Foundation |isbn=978-0-9927784-0-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kb7ssgEACAAJ}}{{Cite journal |date=2016 |title=Net-Positive Biophilic Urbanism |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0034/full/html |pages=9–14|doi=10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0034 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis Lynn |journal=Smart and Sustainable Built Environment |volume=5 |url-access=subscription }} She taught that critique, substantive debate and design thinking are prerequisites to systems change, as subconscious theories cause blind spots.{{Cite journal |date=2012 |title=Design blindness in Sustainable Development |journal=Journal of Urban Design |volume=17 |issue=2 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |pages=163–187|doi=10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |url-access=subscription }} To invite debate, she made her contact details publicly available.{{Cite web |title=Net-Positive Design and Development |url=http://netpositivedesign.org}} Some of her general positions of a critical or contestable nature are summarized here:

• Regenerative design generally calls for development that stays within planetary boundaries - when those limits have been breached.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }} This ignores accelerating nature destruction, social disparities, consumption, pollution, or overshoot.{{Cite journal |date=2018 |title=Challenging Policy Barriers |journal=Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series |issue=40 |pages=41–56 |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=738103 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |doi=10.2478/bog-2018-0013 |doi-access=free }} For instance, regenerative buildings have only aimed to restore nature relative to 'pre-construction' conditions (versus pre-development).{{Cite journal |date=2007 |title=Ecological Waste |jstor=26148729 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26148729 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |journal=Environment Design Guide |pages=1–9 }} Nature's surplus should be increased beyond its pre-urban state.{{Cite journal |date=2017 |title=Net-Positive Design and Development |journal=Smart and Sustainable Built Environment |volume=5 |issue=1 |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0034/full/html |pages=83–87|doi=10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0034 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis Lynn |editor1=Yang, Jay |editor2=Desha, Cheryl |url-access=subscription }}
• Circular systems generally only close loops in linear systems which is 'recycling' - not a new paradigm. While absolutely essential, recycling cannot achieve net-positive outcomes due to the laws of physics.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }} Reliance on circularity can lock in suboptimal solutions and delay the redesign of products, buildings and systems to design waste out entirely.{{Cite web |date=2008 |title=Positive Development |url=https://www.routledge.com/Positive-Development-From-Vicious-Circles-to-Virtuous-Cycles-through-Built/Birkeland/p/book/9781844075799}} Design (open systems thinking) create net-positive outcomes through multifunctional and adaptable structures and systems.
• Donut models depict traditional 'closed-system thinking' and use system boundaries.{{Cite journal |date=2012 |title=Design Blindmess in Sustainable Development |journal=Journal of Urban Design |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=163–187 |doi=10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2012.666209 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |url-access=subscription }} Like regenerative design and circular systems thinking, it suggests staying within planetary boundaries is enough. This ignores the cumulative pressures and impacts of growth overall.{{Cite journal |date=2022 |title=Nature Positive |journal=Urban Science |volume=6 |issue=2 |page=35 |doi=10.3390/urbansci6020035 |doi-access=free |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis }} To even achieve impact neutrality, development must over-compensate for its share of overall impacts as well as its own impacts.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }}
• Nature positive usually means just repairing the environmental damage caused during production. To be 'positive' (versus less negative) requires increasing nature relative to pre-industrial conditions. Restoring nature to past depleted conditions cannot meet current demands.{{Cite web |date=2021 |title=Nature must mean more ... |url=https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/nature-positive-must-mean-more-than-just-slowing-down-natures-extermination}}{{Cite journal |date=2015 |title=Prospects for Nature ... |journal=Smart and Sustainable Built Environment |volume=4 |issue=3 |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0033/full/html |pages=310–314|doi=10.1108/SASBE-10-2015-0033 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis Lynn |url-access=subscription }} In Positive Development, buildings cannot be 'nature positive' unless they leave nature in a better state than if nothing had been built in the region.{{Cite journal |date=2022 |title=Nature Positive |journal=Urban Science |volume=6 |issue=2 |page=35 |doi=10.3390/urbansci6020035 |doi-access=free |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis }}
• Resilience and robustness are associated with engineering strength and are usually framed as defensive concepts. Durable structures can seldom adapt to changing conditions easily. Democracy requires environmental security and direct access to the means of survival, such as clean air, food, water, shelter. This requires (multifunctional, adaptable) net-positive design{{Cite web |date=2008 |title=Positive Development |url=https://www.routledge.com/Positive-Development-From-Vicious-Circles-to-Virtuous-Cycles-through-Built/Birkeland/p/book/9781844075799}}{{Cite web |date=2014 |title=Resilient and Sustainable Buildings |url=https://www.routledge.com/Resilient-Sustainable-Cities-A-Future/Pearson-Newton-Roberts/p/book/9780415816212 |pages=146–159}} that enables future retrofitting to meet unexpected challenges.Birkeland, J. (2009) Eco-Retrofitting: From Managerialism to Design, in Business as an Agent of World Benefit, Cleveland Ohio, BAWB Global Forum, June 5.{{Cite book |date=2020 |title=Net-Positive Design |doi=10.4324/9780429290213 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429290213/net-positive-design-sustainable-urban-development-janis-birkeland |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |isbn=978-0-429-29021-3 }}
• Net-zero targets only, at best, maintain the status quo. This is a negative state in the context of diminishing social and natural life-support systems,Birkeland, J. (2009) Zero equals Nothing', Sustainable Business Network, Ministry of Environment, and Design Institute of NZ, February 15–19. especially since net-positive design outcomes are now possible.{{Cite web |date=2015 |title=Net Positive Building Carbon Sequestration |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4SY66WxuDqDB5ZmfnRwX/full |pages=11–24}} Moreover, net zero usually deemed achieved by ignoring many crucial impacts and by counting impact 'reduction' (via offsetting or efficiencies) as 'positive' gains.{{Cite web |date=2006 |title=Eco-service Trading: Business as Usual? |url=http://issuu.com/commstrat/docs/}}{{Cite journal |date=2016 |title=Biodiversity Offsetting and Net Positive Design |doi=10.1080/13574809.2015.1129891 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2015.1129891 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |last2=Knight-Lenihan |first2=Stephen |journal=Journal of Urban Design |volume=21 |pages=50–66 |url-access=subscription }} However, negative impacts bioaccumulate.
• Rating tools greenwash development by omitting crucial issues and concealing negative outcomes. They use closed-system accounting methods to avoid dealing with complexity or total cumulative impacts and material stocks and flows.{{Cite web |date=2012 |title=Biases in Building Assessment Tools |url=http://issuu.com/commstrat/docs/sp_2012}}Birkeland, J. (2005) 'Building Assessment Systems: Reversing Environmental Impacts', Time for New Tools, Australian Institute of Planners, Queensland. Their benchmarks and metrics are relative to current green building standards, site conditions, construction norms, etc. - not genuine sustainability standards.{{Cite book |date=2022 |title=Software Tool for Net-Positive Design |url=https://shop.elsevier.com/books/intelligent-environments/droege/978-0-12-820247-0 |pages=449–529|isbn=978-0-12-820247-0 |last1=Droege |first1=P. |publisher=Elsevier Science }}{{Cite web |title=Net-Positive Design and Development |url=http://netpositivedesign.org}}
• Social change, or the focus on changing the values and behaviors of others,{{Cite web |date=1997 |title=Values and Ethics |url=https://www.routledge.com/Human-Ecology-Human-Economy/Hamilton/p/book/9781864482881 |pages=125–147}} has been overemphasized by sustainable design advocates.{{Cite web |date=2014 |title=Systems and Social Change |url=https://www.routledge.com/Resilient-Sustainable-Cities-A-Future/Pearson-Newton-Roberts/p/book/9780415816212 |pages=66–82}} Reliance on indirect levers of change and nudging the populace through 'politics, policies, and participation', ignore the power dynamics that tend to corrupt democratic systems.Birkeland, J. (1995) Cultural Impediments to Sustainability', in Furnass, B. (Ed) Survival, health and wellbeing into the twenty first century, Conference Proceedings, ANU. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2687136{{Cite web |date=1995 |title=Cultures of Institutional Corruption |url=https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781863244176/Cultures-Crime-Violence-Australian-Experience-1863244174/plp |pages=199–212}} More designers could apply their special skills to developing systems redesign proposals to raise the level of public debate.
• Business-led sustainability schemes and innovations often disempower communities if not, in effect, transfer wealth vertically.{{Cite journal |date=2018 |title=Challenging Policy Barriers |journal=Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series |issue=40 |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=738103 |pages=41–56 |last1=Birkeland |first1=Janis |doi=10.2478/bog-2018-0013 |doi-access=free }}{{Cite web |date=2008 |title=Positive Development |url=https://www.routledge.com/Positive-Development-From-Vicious-Circles-to-Virtuous-Cycles-through-Built/Birkeland/p/book/9781844075799}} Instead of preaching to the converted, design-led on-ground actions, such as community design programs (e.g. nature playgardens), can educate people and influence their values while meeting myriad sustainability criteria.{{Cite web |date=1985 |title=Playground Design |url=https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/ielapa.860503307}}Birkeland, J. (1993) Organic Playgardens in the World Play Summit, Conference Proceedings, International Association for the Child's Right to Play 1, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 142-148.   Birkeland designed and built the first real 'nature playgardens' in the 1980s that immerse children in nature while creating urban biodiversity incubators.{{Cite web |date=2002 |title=Playgardens and Community Development |url=https://www.routledge.com/Design-for-Sustainability-A-Sourcebook-of-Integrated-Ecological-Solutions/Birkeland/p/book/9781853838972}}Birkeland, J. (1994) 'Ecofeminist Playgardens' in International Play Journal 2, pp. 49-59.

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Category:1945 births

Category:American architects

Category:Ecofeminists

Category:Living people