However, notwithstanding this powerful argument, it is possible to establish a reasonable counter argument based on not so much the consumption of material but the displacement of material.

A far more damning argument against architecture and architects however has to do with the intellectual and economic traditions they adhere to and which impede the necessary changes towards a sustainable society. This argument makes the case that a common thread in critiques of industrialised development is that its monumental waste, environmental degradation and social dislocation is a manifestation of poor systems design, supported by academic and professional ideologies.

As a result, green critiques, from both within and outside of academia, have challenged the mainstream professional disciplines and germinated new fields of intellectual inquiry, notably eco-branches of planning, law, economics and design. Regrettably this has set up these new fields as fringe activities and relieved any obligation on the part of the design professionals to build a coherent and holistic defence. Those who have taken up the challenge have themselves fallen into hybrid reactions, namely build only with renewable materials (in response to the opening riposte) and the technocrats who seek to alter while being locked into the embedded paradigms of planning, design and construction.

Environmental management processes remain exactly that; managing and controlling nature while encouraging growth, rather than working with natural processes to achieve health and well-being. The history of the Industrial Revolution is a history of domination, social, economic and environmental. The built environment designers have therefore to date not been seen as environmental managers, although their decisions directly impact upon the environment on which other people depend.

Relatively few designers have as yet explored the transformative potential of ecological design and have preferred to remain apolitical and unconcerned with the distributional impacts of design as they affect the health of humans and ecosystems.

The idea of design as a method of social and environmental problem prevention and problem solving is still largely dormant in the environmental design professions.

The genuine attempt of this guideline is to enable architects to realise their role as potential agents of change whose decisions can constrain, alter, guide or enhance the future decisions of others.

“For design to become relevant to social and environmental problem solving, however, design processes and design education itself must be dramatically reformed. First, it needs to be recognised that ecological design is a highly intellectual activity: any technology, building or product must function within an existing context of anachronistic social, political and institutional structures, as well as within its natural environment. And yet it must also function to transform those very systems, as these mitigate against life quality, social justice and healthy, symbiotic relationships. Second, design needs to shift from a paradigm of ‘transforming nature’ to one of ‘transforming society’ towards sustainability by improving the life quality of, and relationships between, all living things, communities and the natural/built environment. This means that designers in all fields need to:

Re-examine human needs, and set appropriate goals which prioritise ecological sustainability and social equity;

Rethink the basic nature, methods, and goals of the design process itself;

Integrate knowledge from other fields concerned with human and ecosystem health; and