On sustainability and buying stuff
by Ralph Copleman
Can we understand sustainability as the opposite of consumption?
One key implication of that question is this. Any purchase you make – any purchase – is counter to sustainability. Can this be true?
What’s your opinion about this? Here’s mine: it’s absolutely true. For now. It does not have to be true in the future, but today we’re there.
I think this might be the test for the proposition: name something you can buy that, in making and using the item, you use the same or less resources than it took to make, distribute and maintain the item in question for its useful life.
Possible exception: purchase of a tract of land for the purpose of preserving it in its natural state in perpetuity. Can you think of any others?
Of course, I wish I could say I get my food, clothing, transportation, medicine, and baseball bats – crucial for a truly good life – through systems that lived up to the Natural Step’s system conditions for sustainability (see details on the Sustainable Lawrence website), but I cannot.
How did things get this way?
We ignored two key facts of life: 1) Earth’s resources have always been, are, and will always be finite, and 2) long-term system considerations always win, no matter how shiny that new car looks in the showroom.
Ralph Copleman is the executive director of Sustainable Lawrence. This essay first appeared on his blog.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I can think of lots if you look at handprint rather than just footprint. This means of, course that we have to look at products/consumption/impact as a system (but hey, isn’t that the point). NZ’s new air traffic control system, for example, for the footprint of a computer had a huge impact on the amount of fuel used by airlines. Similarly, any product that aims to change behaviour will have a positive impact on the overall equation.