Another one of those terms that can be either extremely annoying or very significant. In other words, it is a term used too often to indicate just how environmentally friendly we are – or at least want to be. Greenwashing is the practice of deceptive marketing where a company or organization provides misleading information about the sustainability of a product or policy.
Despite popular perceptions, sustainability is not only about climate change, it’s generally seen as having three dimensions – environmental, economic, and social. And what makes it all so difficult is that all three dimensions are critical and they are all interconnected.
Sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. In a business context, sustainability seeks to prevent the depletion of natural or physical resources, so they will remain available for the long term. The aim with raw materials is to allow for enough time for their regeneration, but for non-renewal resources like petroleum or coal, there is a different focus – the reduction of consumption, promoting recycling and developing alternative technologies. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
If this sounds like an enormous task, that’s because it is. In fact, many people have criticized the whole idea of sustainability. Their arguments go like this:
- It is not possible to sustain everything, everywhere, forever.
- No country is delivering what its citizens need without transgressing the biophysical planetary boundaries.
- We can’t even quantify sustainability. In fact, it may be impossible to measure as there is no fixed definition.
And yet few people would disagree that we need to keep sustainability as an ideal; an ideal which we might never reach, which may be utopian, but still necessary to pursue.
It is useful to remember that sustainability issues have been with us for a long time. For example, the Roman Empire effectively caused the deforestation of most of the Mediterranean region during their expansion, causing all kinds of economic and social issues. The Soviet Union destroyed the Aral Sea in a matter of three decades due to their diversion of water. There is a long list of such disasters.
There are many reasons why sustainability is so difficult to achieve.
These barriers can be classified as being either intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic barriers are things we cannot realistically change – such things as:
- Nature and its complexity – i.e. everything is related.
- The human condition – e.g. most people do not act according to their convictions.
Extrinsic barriers are ones we could hope to change, for example:
- Existing societies, economies, and cultures encourage increased consumption. There is a structural imperative for growth, and this inhibits necessary societal change.
- Existing market mechanisms fail for public goods.
Yet another thing to keep in mind; sustainability and sustainable development are not the same thing. Put simply, sustainability is a general concept, while sustainable development is a policy or organising principle. Sustainable development has two linked goals – to meet human development goals, and to enable natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services needed for economies and society. In other words, sustainable development is about humans while sustainability is about everything – even if they are obviously interconnected.
Some sources list 11 sustainability issues that we need to address:
- Climate change
- Natural resource use
- Waste production
- Water pollution
- Deforestation
- Overfishing
- Ocean acidification
- Air pollution
- Water scarcity
- Sustainable food production and demand
- Decreasing biodiversity
Once again, they are all critical and they are all interconnected.
Experts argue that the concept of sustainability transitions is like the concept of energy transitions. Both transitions must be supported by a new kind of culture, a new kind of cooperation, and new kind of leadership. These transitions require major changes in societies – they must change their fundamental values and organising principles.
One problem is that societies are already changing rapidly – at least in some places.
Let’s look at changing populations, since people are the major source of non-sustainability issues.
In parts of the world, populations are already declining. European population has been declining for some time now – currently it has 744 million people. The US is still increasing but will go into decline by 2080 when the population will be about 369 million. China’s population is currently 1.4 billion, but is already declining. Even India’s population will start declining by about 2060 at which time it will have 1.7 billion people.
The big increases will come from Africa where, even between now and 2050, more than 50% of the world’s population growth will come from. After that the proportion will increase! By 2050 the African population will be 2.2 billion and half of them (i.e. the population of China!) will live in the cities. Lagos in Nigeria, for example, will be the 6th largest city by 2050 and the largest by 2100.
Catering to the needs of these huge population increases (food, water, energy, waste, etc) in a sustainable manner will be humanity’s major challenge.
Even reading about these challenges can feel daunting and generate doubts about our ability to solve the issues of Spaceship Earth. Yet there is still hope. Significant progress is being made on many fronts. There is not space here to discuss all of the progress being made, but some examples are:
- Global renewable energy capacity hit 50% growth in 2023. It is on course to increase 2.5 times by the end of this decade.
- Over the last decade Australia’s supply of renewables has quadrupled from 77 to 291 petajoules per year. While hydro power has been stable, solar growth has increased 22 fold and wind power has increased 8 fold!
The media has an important role to play too. There are many good news stories out there and they need to be celebrated. Even if the problems are immense, we must not lose hope – because hopelessness breeds apathy.
