Sustainability - What does it mean?
seems to me it relates to how we see the world – are our resources infinite? Is there another continent to discover and exploit? Can the planet stand 6 billion using energy like the west already does? Obviously not – but we don’t always act like it.
Sustainability is also an umbrella topic – refers to water, energy, waste, resource use, greenhouse gas etc.
We have a project running across the Whitehills cluster schools – and the essence of it is developing a “sustainability” mindset, and putting it into practice.
We had a project launch for the cluster schools last week. A range of speakers from local agencies presented their perspective and programs, including an interesting keynote from Bendigo Bank’s Manager of Strategic Markets, Leigh Watkins – sustainability is becoming big business, triple bottom line etc. Also included visits to St Francis of the Fields, Peppergreen farm etc- and some high quality presentations from local management and sustainability agencies (list of presenters and contacts).
the essence of the project is developing this awareness – and partnering schools with agencies, to work on local projects in schools. The range of activities includes energy audits, water projects, waste projects, recycling, farm units, biodiversity.
we are heading towards an expo day, in partnership with local agencies in late term 3. Might overlap with the Renewable Energy Conference planned for Bendigo, and / or might be at Peppergreen farm.
couple of the speaker powerpoints from Paul Dullard (on sustainable schools framework info), and June Andrew (waste management) will be here soon. Roland Gesthuizen presented a summary of how the Globe project might be used to track and report data from various sites and projects.
(Nb There’s an ASISTM grant supporting this, which we wrote on behalf of the cluster. Tina Morrison is the project coordinator, Gary Griffin had a big role in coordinating speakers for the launch, Brendan Stewart helped write it and link with Peppergreen, Phil Clarkson is our critical friend etc – and last but certainly not least all the schools are working at linking sustainability ideas into their curriculum - thats the key to the project and the hope of a sustainable future).
I wonder how many blog entries these days start with questioning the definition of sustainability? What seems to be the baseline definition comes from the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development report, AKA the Brundtland Report: “Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” I am keen on the response I heard from a contact at ARUP, which may be the leading engineering consultancy in the field, who replied with the extension to the definition: “What does it mean to you?”
Personally, I am a recent convert to the sustainability religion. My industry background tends to lean towards belief in Adam Smith’s circa 1776 proposal of the invisible hand of the Market, which says competition will sort everything out. Yet theory defined in Hardin’s 1968 Tragedy of the Commons as well as practical demonstrations such as Easter Island and our current climate conundrum demonstrate that left unguided, we will eventually destroy ourselves.
While the fatalist in me is not very hopeful for my daughter’s children, I am hopeful that we will at least realize some truths before the end. Mr. Smith’s invisible hand, while proven simplistic, applies with an important caveat: information. This was proven through Nobel award winning work which demonstrated that a perfect self-regulating market can exist in the presence of perfectly available and distributed information.
Applied to sustainability, if we all knew the impact of our actions on future generations, then we would self-regulate. I believe it is in the “knowing” that the challenge lies. We are all “informed” (information passing from sender to recipient) that smoking kills, see the pictures on the packs, watch people die. But we do not “know” until we are facing cancer in its inevitable face in one of those hospital gown that exposes our backside with our 12-year old wondering why daddy isn’t going to walk her down the aisle in 10 years.
I commend agency (e.g., Government, Education) efforts in trying to reconcile the connection between distribution of information and people “knowing”. I am warmed by the education system guiding the mindsets of future CEOs (much easier than changing the current ones). I do not have the answer, but I suspect that it will come upon us in an inevitability that is most bittersweet.
Chad Renando
Senior Project Officer
Sustainable Industries Division
Queensland EPA
Comment by Chad Renando — February 25, 2007 @ 4:23 pm