“Love your neighbour as yourself,” is a command that we first see in Leviticus (19:18) and it is a powerful theme throughout the Bible. When Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbour?” the man asking perhaps hopes to be told that his neighbours were those who were like him, his friends, his relations, his professional acquaintances. Instead, Jesus challenges him to look beyond the boundaries of race and creed and income bracket and to see his neighbour as anyone who needs his mercy. In today’s global world, particularly if we come from a wealthy country, it can be easy to forget that our neighbours are not just those around us. Our neighbours are those all over the world who are in desperate need of our mercy. The decisions we make, particularly as designers and engineers, have an impact not just on our clients, but on our natural world. In turn, the condition of the natural world can mean life or death to its people. A world which God loves and a people to whom God Himself has called us to show mercy.
In Genesis 1, God created the heavens and the earth, the light and darkness, the waters and the land, seed-bearing plants, trees that bear fruit. He created the sun, moon, and stars, and living creatures in the waters, on the land, and in the sky. Finally, He created man and woman in His own image. He looked at His creation and saw that it was good. And He gave humankind the responsibility to steward creation when He said “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28).
But today we have lost a staggering 50% of the world’s biodiversity in the last 40 years alone. 1.2 billion of our neighbours live in areas where human water use within their water basin exceeds sustainable limits. By 2025 it is projected that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions, which is likely to lead to violent conflicts. 600 million of our neighbours live in coastal areas that are in danger from rising sea levels. Not all of them are in danger of being wiped out completely, like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, or the two islands that are part of Kiribati (a Pacific island nation) that have gone already. However, there will be flooding across huge swathes of coastal wetlands. Fish, birds, wildlife, and plants will lose their habitats, and fresh water supplies will be destroyed by the salination of aquifers. Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and China are among the poorer countries that have large populations in danger areas, but even cities like London and New York are unlikely to escape major damage.
Food security is another key issue for millions of our neighbours. By 2050 it is estimated that the increasing world population will need 50% more food than it does today, but the effects of climate change on food production mean that there is actually likely to be a drop in crop yields of around 25% in food production between now and then.
Anthropologist Rachel Hughes Shah reflects upon the disconnection of food from the land in the developed world and compares this to a time spent living with a people group in the rural highlands of Papua. “We are all dependent on the produce of the land, no matter where we live, what our diets, and what our lifestyle...Don’t you find it easy to forget how fragile we – and the ecosystems we are part of – are?” she challenges. She goes on to say, “So much of our contact with food is in supermarket aisles or online, disconnected from any hint of growing…in Era such blindness was impossible. We were keenly and daily aware of the weather, the labour, and the land’s fertility that went into growing the food that literally kept us alive. We saw too how the waste this process generated was itself generative – it was all biodegradable, eventually becoming part of that fertile land again… In town, waste ended up in huge piles of stinking rubbish, waiting to be burned. In the rural areas, we burned what we could and buried the rest…there is nothing like digging your own personal landfill site next door to the gardens you eat from to make you realise how disastrous it is to poison the soil that grows your food”.
This rural community is hardly exceptional. All over the world there are people groups and communities passing on the traditions of their ancestors and living in a sustainable way with the land. However, for each of these communities there are thousands of other groups who use the earth’s resources without replenishing them and add to the growing piles of waste and increased toxic gas emissions around the planet. What is more, those communities that have fewer material possessions, who live from the land and generate little waste, are often among the poorest and most voiceless communities in the world.
As humans, we have been responsible for catastrophic damage to God’s creation. But as Christians and as design professionals, we have an opportunity to be a voice not just for voiceless people, but for a voiceless planet.
So what does that mean for us as EMI? Is there even anything we can do about this? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding “Yes.” As design and construction professionals in the developing world we have a unique opportunity to reflect God’s love for His creation and the people in it through the way we design and build. As followers of Christ we each have a responsibility to think about how our individual lifestyles are impacting on our neighbours across the globe. We also have a corporate responsibility as a profession to pioneer a design process that reflects God’s care for His creation and the people whose lives are dependent upon its preservation.
In a world that glorifies constant technological advances, and in which we may be pressured by clients for the ‘latest thing,’ we are called to stop and assess the bigger picture. We must pause to ask ourselves about even the most mundane, ‘normal’ design features. One graduate architect and former EMI intern tells of a community school he worked on in a developing country after leaving EMI. This school is low-impact – it uses neither electricity nor running water. Instead of air conditioning, it uses natural cross ventilation, it has no need for electricity as it is naturally lit throughout, and instead of flushing toilets it uses latrines. It is built from locally sourced materials. And yet the community response has been mixed. Some feel that the low-impact design means that it is a low standard design. But this architect understands that this sort of response is to be expected. As a profession we have the opportunity to use our designs to educate people about God’s heart for creation and the need to steward it with care (Gen. 2). Putting in flushing toilets in an area that has very little water might make the local people feel that they had something ‘cutting edge.’ However, this would be ignoring our God-given responsibility to steward creation and the resources available to us.
The challenge is to work with and educate the local people so that they want to guard and steward the resources God has entrusted to them. Questions we must ask ourselves include: What is the long-term cost or benefit of this design, or this construction material, for the people of this community? What about the wider global community? Is there a more low-tech solution that would bring greater harmony with creation? Equally, is there a more high-tech solution that could bring sustainability to people and planet?
As we move forward into a world that is ever changing, we are called to hold new advances in tension with God’s heart for creation and implement that in a way that is culturally appropriate. As a profession, we have the opportunity to make sure that our work reflects God’s heart and glorifies Him.