A new word has sashayed into
popular use. It’ soft slinky syllables are inviting— increasingly irresistible
to advertisers, manufacturers, grocers, scientists, and especially
environmentalists. They rush to embrace its six vowels and eight consonants.
Let’s face it, the word is hip—which
is an old fashioned slang for “in style,”
“voguish,” “with it,” and, ah,
“so cooool.” In other words, utterly seductive.
Now the ideas underlying the term “sustainability”
are not only good they’re really important.
Trouble is it’s hard to figure out
what the word means in its different usages.
Sure, you can look up the meaning
and it seems remarkably clear. The Miriam
Webster Dictionary states:
“Sustainability:
1. Capable of being
sustained. 2. a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a
resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged…b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the
use of sustainable methods.”
Dictonary.com
explains sustainability as “1. The ability to be sustained, supported, upheld,
or confirmed. 2. Environmental Science, the quality of not being harmful to the
environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term
ecological balance.”
Both those explanations seem
straightforward enough.
But what do you make of the
announcement over the food store loud speaker urging, “Shoppers, check out our
sustainable products?”
Are
potatoes sustainable? Beets? Eggs? Would you say tomatoes can be used without
being depleted or permanently damaged? Not around our house.
The
Center for a Sustainable Economy offers a lengthy online “Ecological Footprint
Quiz.” The curious can answer the questions to get an idea of how big a chunk
of earth’s resources the quiz-taker is using. It can be shocking. Even if you
drive a fuel efficient hybrid, turn out the lights when not in use, and use the
dishwasher only when it’s chock full, you can end up feeling like a parasite—especially
if you’re notified, “If everyone on the planet lived [your] lifestyle, we would
need 4.34 earths.”
The quiz asks about income level,
size of home and grounds, type of car owned, and such. The questions become
frustrating when they ask about sustainability though. How do you answer when
asked if your home employs sustainable materials and if your house is built of
sustainable materials?
Is
concrete sustainable? How about brick, cedar siding, roofing shingles,
flagstone, glass, steel, aluminum? Which are or aren’t “sustainable.”?
Certainly
building a mud hut with thatched roof is likely to do little damage to the
environment. But surely many environmentally conscious folks would opt not to
exercise that option.
Some smart vendors are helping us
to determine what’s sustainable and what might not be. At a tile store, for
instance, some of the lovely ceramic, quartz, granite, marble and glass tiles
have little green stickers on them to indicate they’re “sustainable.” But why?
Why do they have, “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or
depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological
balance”?
Without
knowing the answer, should we take it on faith that we’ll be more
environmentally virtuous if we buy the stickered tiles? I guess so. It would be
unheard of for any marketer to deceive us.
Another
thing:
The various levels of
government—national, state, county, city—have or are creating “Sustainability
Offices” or departments. They have big ambitions.
Consider
Baltimore’s Office of Sustainability. The way the office describes itself is
similar to the way the other Sustainability Offices do. For instance, it has a
“Baltimore Sustainability Plan,” and the Office “integrates sustainability into
City government operations….”
Wow.
That’s certainly commendable. But some wiseacres might think the explanation’s
vague.
What we need truly need is a
sustainable way to incorporate some specificity and caution in the way
marketers and others use this newly ubiquitous buzz word. Otherwise we’re
likely to see the word has the quality of being harmful and confusing in our
attempts to understand environmental protection.
----Gus Gribbin
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