ABC Radio - National Antony Funnell,
Future Tense
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Some experts have labelled sustainability efforts as
"greenwashing". (Getty Images: gollykim)
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Sustainable development is a priority for anyone genuinely concerned about
the environment.
Unless we as a society rethink our use of global resources, life, as we know it,
will one day cease to exist.
The United Nations has made this an international imperative, setting out a
series of 17 broad sustainability goals which it hopes can be met by 2030.
The corporate world has also come on board, with an ever-growing number of
companies developing their own green reporting standards and committing to a
sustainable future. Meeting those objectives is now a trillion-dollar industry.
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The UN set out the Sustainable Development Goals "to achieve a
better and more sustainable future". (Getty Images: SOPA)
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The problem is, there's no consensus about what "sustainable development"
actually means and how it should be measured.
Some researchers believe it's little more than corporate "greenwashing."
While others see it as a misplaced ideal that could exacerbate — rather than
avert — social and environmental destruction.
Is sustainability even possible?
Academic Christopher Barnatt, from the website ExplainingTheFuture.com,
describes sustainability as a "dangerous" concept.
"It gives the impression that we could all go on living exactly as we live
today but sustainably — with this sort of magic thing wrapped around it,"
he
tells ABC RN's Future Tense.
Sustainable development may be "politically
convenient", he argues, but it has no real meaning in a world driven by
exponential consumption and powered by unlimited extraction.
"As a physical concept, [sustainability] is impossible. Life itself is a
physically consumptive process.
"The only way we can actually preserve things for the future and look after the
environment is to change how we live, to use fewer resources, to value things in
another way."
Climatologist Chirag Dhara agrees. While a focus on reducing fossil
fuel use is laudable, he says, we have to be careful not to ignore the greater
threat posed by the exponential consumption of resources.
"Our economy is highly extractive, whether it's agriculture [or] manufacturing.
What's happening is our use of the raw materials, our material footprint, is
growing in lockstep with the growth of GDP, our economic growth."
And that, says Professor Dhara, an assistant professor at Krea University in
India, can't continue forever.
Even renewable energy technologies eventually need to be replaced, he points
out. While they might be better for the environment, they're not cost neutral.
They consume resources over the course of their lifespan and through the
systems constructed to distribute the energy they generate.
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Chirag Dhara warns that unbridled economic growth will have dire
consequences for the planet. (Supplied: Chirag Dhara)
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"All of this technology is made possible through principles of physics and
chemistry and mathematics that allows them to happen, but the same principles
inevitably limit them.
"That means that if we want to preserve the current paradise of limitless
economic growth," he says, "it has to be completely decoupled from the use of
material resources."
And under the current system of global consumer capitalism, he warns, that's
never going to happen.
An instrument of division
For Melissa Checker, the term sustainable development conjures up very different
thoughts – ones of displacement and social inequality.
"The way it's playing out, it's undermining its stated intention," she says. And
there are contradictions in its application.
Melissa Checker is one of several experts urging a rethink around
sustainable development. (Supplied: Melissa Checker)
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Building a perfect Green Star-rated building loses all sustainable
credentials, she says, if the land it's built on is a converted wetland.
An associate professor of urban studies at City University of New York, Dr
Checker believes true sustainability and environmental justice are incompatible
with dominant forms of urban development.
"Sustainability became a very useful concept in an effort to market New York
city to more affluent residents and to promote the redevelopment needed to
attract those upscale residents."
But, time and again, says Dr Checker, the end result has been a rise in property
values which, in turn, has forced residents from lower socio-economic groups out
of their homes and neighbourhoods.
It's also led to growing inequality in the provision of services and
opportunities, she contends.
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Another skyscraper is added to New York City's ever-growing
skyline. (Getty Images: Robert Nickelsberg)
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"As some neighbourhoods are being greened, other neighbourhoods are becoming
more brown.
"Neighbourhoods that are not slated for gentrification or redevelopment are
getting more toxic facilities, more industrial facilities and no green
amenities. They are being sacrificed for the sake of redevelopment in these
other places."
No consistent measurements
Dr Checker argues the concept of sustainable development has been hijacked by
corporate interests. In the case of New York, she cites the powerful real estate
and development sectors.
Her suspicions chime with recent research from Renard Siew, a climate change
advisor with the Centre for Governance and Political Studies, headquartered in
Malaysia.
Dr Siew, who also advises the World Economic Forum, says a
lack of global consistency in the way sustainability standards are measured has
allowed companies to game the system by picking and choosing the assessment
tools that best suit their corporate interests.
"It's not surprising
to see common indicators, common criteria such as carbon emissions reported
differently. Which means it's very difficult to make an apples-to-apples
comparison."
A lack of standardisation, Dr Siew says, is also an issue with the rating
systems used to assess the eco-credentials of new and refurbished buildings. But
at the heart of the problem, he says, is the voluntary nature of reporting.
"It should be made mandatory, with really detailed requirements of what is
expected in terms of certain criteria, to avoid situations where a company can
cherry-pick indicators that they want to report on to put them in a good light."
He notes that both the European Union and the UN are now making moves toward
compulsory sustainability reporting measures. But progress is slow.
Back to the future Design expert Stuart Walker from
Lancaster University advocates a return to the original concept of
sustainable development.
The UN's Brundtland Commission developed the term as a way of structuring
international assistance to the developing world. It provided a framework to
ensure future development in countries didn't inadvertently destroy people's
livelihoods and the environment.
It was a multi-faceted approach, says Dr Checker.
"They called for prioritising of ecological, economic and social sustainability.
"European cities really took it on. Also environmental justice activists really
embraced the term as a way to think about the kind of calls they were issuing
for racial justice and social justice along with environmental justice."
But, according to Professor Walker, the embrace of the sustainability ethos was
soon corrupted and is now predominantly viewed through the lens of business and
finance.
"It's very easy to create a nice, green annual report about all the
environmental things a company might be doing – but what is that in
proportion to the whole of their operation?" he says.
"If you separate them out, you're not getting that holistic picture."
For Christopher Barnatt, the elephant in the room is modern capitalism and the
theory of planned obsolescence, where objects are deliberately manufactured to
be disposable in order to maximise the potential for future sales.
"Economics basically tells us to consume as much as we want and it doesn't
cost-in the consequences: recognising there isn't an infinite supply of
resources and that there are implications for the planet and the
environment."
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It's time to phase out the theory of planned obsolescence and
return to valuing things, say some experts.
(Getty Images: Bloomberg)
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The answer, he says, is not only to consume less but to value more.
"We don't have to go back that far to find generations of people who saved up to
purchase objects which they kept, in many cases, for a lifetime. They valued the
things they had."
"Consuming less doesn't necessarily mean having a less material world," says Dr
Barnatt. "It just has to be a material world in which we have the things we have
for a longer period of time."
A world where disposability is once again considered a waste, not a virtue.
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