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Impact Chart Introduction

Introduction

Before digging into actual chat data, we thought it would be good to give a little background information. These charts take into consideration, or sometimes put more focus on, how far-reaching the effects are. For example, community level impact is weighted more highly than individual impact.

It also takes into account the full life-cycle of solutions, "Does this solve a problem in the short term, but create difficult to manage waste that will last for thousands of years?" Options that have long lasting negative impacts like PFAS are scored as Hazardous. Options that are less impactful are counted as neutral. Options with long term positive impact, like ground-water restoration, are scored as Regenerative.

Roof Garden Example

Waste

The Roof Gardening's waste rating includes "Hazardous" because there are plastic/non-biodegradable linings and other equipment used. The same rating portion extends to regenerative because compost can be included in the medium, and trimmings from the garden can be reused as mulch or compost.

Welfare & Equity

Roof Gardens get high scores in Welfare and Equality because they can reduce flooding for people far down hill, and in addition to providing better insulation for the home/building-owners, they also reduce the local heat island effect for other residents too. The orange portion of the rating was given because of our uncertainty about the welfare of workers who extract resources or work in factories producing the roofing materials.

I tried to reserve purple in that category for when we know slavery and murder as part of the production, such as the fishing industry.