I certainly agree with the sentiment of leaving the planet better than when we found it, but suggest that there is a time component built in: do we return things as they were 10 years ago, 100 years ago, or in the case of oil, 10,000,000 years ago? The current trend of saying “by 2050 we will be (fill in the blank) neutral” is an example trying to put a time basis on it.
There is an saying that we should not worry about things we have no control over. Humans did not have control over things before humans arrived. (Boy, what a statement!)
Marketers must prove ‘sustainable consumption’ is not an oxymoron Brands need to encourage better – not more – consumption, if they are to have a place in a sustainable future for our planet and society.
I’m confident there is a climate friendly response to what ‘better’ consumption defines.
Using less is better for somethings,
Efficiency, smarter use can be better,
Alternatives can be better,
…
It’s not self evident where it ends.
True but that was over a period of 3 to 4 billion years when we have only been around for about the last 250,000. Over the last 10,000 we have done quite a good job in terms of species gone per hundred years.
This forum, I think, is sponsored by CHOICE for people to discuss what CHOICE is about, which are consumers. If CHOICE recommends something, and a consumer buys it and is pleased and satisfied with the purchase of that something, then CHOICE has done its job.
CHOICE has ratings, where some ratings are higher than others across a range of metrics. If a consumer thinks one metric is the most important to them (cost, convenience, cleaning, ethical, sustainable) then they may buy based mainly on that metric. Metrics have a range, not just yes and no.
I have said arriving at a useful metric for consumer sustainability is very difficult, I have not seen anything yet that looks any good. I don’t say it is impossible just not yet accomplished. If you think it has been done show me where.
Let me tell you a true story. I worked in a large organisation that had many offices supplying services. They wanted to compare offices’ performance but each was in a different place and worked under different circumstances and sensible comparison was very hard to do as the challenges each faced were different.
A very senior person said that we ought to group the offices into like groups so that they were comparable. I asked if that was possible. He couldn’t understand my problem and thought I was being an obstruction. I said what if there are no such groups that you are looking for? How can you find them then? They spent a lot of effort on the project and turned up nothing useful. He continued to think that somehow this was my fault and if I had tried hard enough it could have been done.
And I have also said that arriving at consumer sustainability metrics (there will be more than one) is difficult. We agree.
It is not for this Forum to develop those metrics. As said before, get some people who know a lot more about this stuff, and get CHOICE to maybe take on some of their views, and then set the metrics, which will change over time, as the world changes.
And I think your story is good, it shows, as in my long time in the corporate and in-the-field world, that most of the guys wanting the numbers don’t know how they are collected and don’t really know where they came from and when they get them don’t know what to do with them. Enter the “explainer” or the lucky stiff that prepares the slides for the presentation to the seniors on what they “really” should be looking at.
So what happens now with this? Does someone alert a CHOICE person that this group has had a discussion and maybe CHOICE should look at collecting metrics for sustainability if they think it is valuable for their audience, the consumers?
If those who have contributed to this topic cannot think of some definition of sustainability that seems in any way consistent, then what do you think the employees of the ACA could come up with?
And if one cannot define what you are measuring, then trying to collect any form of metrics is a largely useless exercise.
That’s my view, which was asked for in this topic.
No doubt you are searching for something but so far you have not found what you are looking for.
The responders to this forum are not necessarily sustainability knowledgeable people, and that is not a slight on anyone, please. I am not knowledgeable about what could be very detailed analyses on sustainability, but some people are, somewhere. CHOICE very often request input from those with more knowledge than their staff, and rely on their input for recommendations.
Absolutely, if you don’t know what you are intending to be measuring, but more to the point, for what reason or purpose, then the metrics for the measurements are difficult to set up. There are several layers in setting up the collection and analyses of data, and sometimes you really don’t know where the data results take you, and of course that could lead towards innovation, and that should be good.
You are right, I (or We) have not settled on what sustainability means for CHOICE people, but we have collected a lot of knowledge that maybe CHOICE can use to help consumers in their search for sustainable products.
Over geological time scales the Earth certainly does change. If nothing else, it is estimated that in about 500 million years the oceans will boil due to the gradual increase in intensity of the Sun, killing all remaining life.
However, we are destroying the planet, by which I mean simplifying and altering the ecosphere, on a time scale which is no more than a few (human) generations.
The contraction you allude to will happen, most likely some time this century when our agricultural systems, which depend absolutely on the natural environment, fail. It will be catastrophic and brutal, resulting in most humans dying of starvation or war. There was an article some years ago in New Scientist which covered this scenario with convincing evidence.
That is well within the lifetime of someone who is born today.
Regarding the original topic, I regard all claims I’ve seen of “sustainability” to be nothing more than greenwash.
I would be content if the ecosphere was as healthy when I died as it was when I was born. This does not have to mean that it is exactly the same.
Unfortunately it is clear to me that this is not even close to the case. In my lifetime more than half of old growth rainforests have been lost around the world, we have killed most of the fish, and so on. Human population has more than doubled.
It is not possible for somebody to live in our society and economy without contributing to the problem. We would have to collectively adopt a lifestyle more akin to that of Australian Aboriginals (before European settlement) for that to be possible. Yes, I am part of the problem.
This excludes any external event such as a large meteor crashing into the planet. That is clearly beyond our control.
Agree, that to exist we must each take something from the world around us. Consumption.
Unless we are putting back what we take it’s a death spiral. At best what we put back needs to be in the same place. What is put back needs to restore where it came from. That’s without looking to how we fix everything else that is broken.
The majority of our leadership IMO struggles with understanding the scale and commitment needed. It’s just not between now and 2050. It’s what comes next after 2050. 2050 is simply a target to advert a short term crisis.
What actions, timescale and costs are needed to give our children and grandchildren an equal opportunity in 2051, 2081, or 2101? There is neither a vision or a plan. There is little realisation that doing more sooner is going to make the daunting prospects for the up and coming generations that little bit less challenging.
If we can’t do the small things that need to be done between now and 2050, the prospects beyond are grim?
Sustainability is a much broader challenge than reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
I can’t object to being asked to be consuming less/differently, with more consideration of the consequences, and improving our personal direct offsets. It’s more difficult to do so though when others are taking advantage of those outcomes at no cost. It’s an argument for mandatory binding of all in the community to act in unison.
