Have you ever wondered what’s in a name: that by which we call a rose, and all that? Well, the Three R's and the goal of resource conservation, which organizations like BRING have espoused since the beginning, have slowly been eclipsed by a new concept, called Sustainability. Not that the Three R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) are done for, they have merely become a means to an end, and that end is now summed up by that one word, Sustainability. I, for one, think it’s a change for the better.
Fresh and fashionable, Sustainability rolls off of more tongues than the stale Three R's ever did. Nowadays, everyone seems to be looking for Sustainability, or at least talking as if they are. Governments and business, even everyday citizens like you and me, seek the elusive Eden that that word implies. But what is Sustainability? For all their chunkiness, at least the Three R's were self-descriptive and easy to understand. If it reduced waste, it was Waste Reduction. If it could be used again, it was Reuse. If it could be remanufactured, it was Recycling. But Sustainability is not a single action, but an outlook and a lifestyle, and therefore much harder to place a finger on. And while the old goal of resource conservation is an outlook towards the future, it is largely materialistic and implies hoarding things as the way to make them last. Sustainability more dynamically implies a continuum of self-renewal.
The best definition of Sustainability also happens to be one of the oldest. It comes to us by way of the Shawnee. “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” This humbling acknowledgment that our material actions today have influence for years to come - at least seven generations - is also Biblical: Do unto the future, as we would have had the past do unto us. Sustainability is not a one-time fix, but a way of life that recognizes a connection between the present, the future, and the past. It is choices made again and again. We would no sooner want to receive the legacy of a Love Canal from our parents, than leave that legacy for our children.
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The understanding that the effects of our actions linger, that they ripple outward to include great expanses of time, is Sustainability’s greatest contribution to the environmental movement, and is a big advance over the more static Three R's. The most widely accepted modern definition of Sustainability comes from Our Common Future, a 1987 report by the U.N.'s Commission on the Environment and Development. “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While this is less poetic than the Shawnee’s vision, more of a calculation than a way of life, it does manage to convey the need to consider consequences before acting.
Too often, meeting the needs of the future is thought of as purely economics, but it is not the consequences to our pocketbook that will determine our fate seven generations out. While that is an undeniably important consideration for our short-term comfort, it has little to do with the ultimate fate of the planet and future inhabitants. We need to arbitrate ecosystems more than economics. If we make up our minds to, it is as easy making a buck saving the planet as destroying it.
So, what does the concept of Sustainability mean for the average person? Foremost, it means that we are very powerful. The choices we make day to day resonate far beyond the limits of our own lifetime. But with power comes responsibility. We must begin to embrace this understanding in our everyday lives. Here are a few easy suggestions: Recycling simply does not look far enough ahead. Our environmental vision needs to change from one of recycling mountains of disposable goods into one of consuming less while still fully enjoying life. Simplifying our needs, investing in efficient technologies, eliminating poisonous chemicals from our homes and gardens, eating less meat, buying local, growing our own food, driving less, walking and biking more - these are the choices seven generations ahead of our time.
We need to act as if the future depended upon it, which, in a nutshell, is what Sustainability’s all about.—David Wollner
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