Industrial Harm Reduction*
Industrial harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with contemporary production methods.
*Industrial harm reduction is based on the foundational principles of Harm Reduction, a movement for social justice led by drug users and sex workers, built on a belief in and respect for the rights of people who use drugs.
THE PRINCIPLES OF INDUSTRIAL HARM REDUCTION
Industrial harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of approaches including alternate production timelines, labor organization, use of recycled and regenerative materials, lower impact shipping and packaging methods, and more.
Because design for industrial harm reduction requires decision making in service of specific product, individual and community needs before efficiency or profit, there is no universal definition of it, or formula to apply.
However, we consider the following as central to an industrial harm reduction practice:
- Accept—for better or worse—that industrial production is part of our world. Choose to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or ameliorate them through charity
- Understand that industrial production is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of inputs and outcomes. Seek out partners who take steps to lessen the specific potentials for harm endemic to their discipline
- Establish quality of product, and its impact on individual, community and biological wellbeing—before profit or return on investment—as the criteria for successful industrial production
- Call for products made by non-coercive, organized labor; with an emphasis on cooperatives, union shops and organizations run by marginalized people
- Ensure that industrial workers—and all those who stand to be affected by industrial production—have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve industry
- Affirm labor itself as the primary agent of reducing the harms of industrial production, and seek to empower workers and producers to share information and support each other in strategies which are to their collective advantage
- Recognize that the realities of colonialism, class, racism, and other social inequalities affect both the cost of and capacity for industrial production, and the capacity of a particular jurisdiction to effectively mitigate industrial harm
