quick links

I think when it comes to sustainability, there needs to be an attack on a number of fronts and people are simply too fatigued to fight.  Saturday’s Earth Hour was a great example of people doing something very simple that they think might make a difference.  It isn’t really challenging their hard-earned lifestyle, it looks like sponsoring businesses care about the environment, and everyone goes back to their normal habits after only an hour.  People are working longer and longer to pay for ‘stuff’ that they never knew they always wanted - and as a result have limited time and energy to commit to something that is acknowledged by most as a problem.

So when it comes to sustainability – we either have to drastically and radically change our habits (not something humans have been known to do well) or we have to make our habits less damaging.  This applies equally to social and environmental sustainability and is dependent upon changes to financial (business) sustainability.  Everything from less-polluting industry, environmentally acceptable jet fuel (for a start!), maternity and paternity leave (women going to out to work has made for an unsustainable society – not because they’re women at work, and certainly not because they shouldn’t,  but because their historical non-paid contributions have not been equalled by men not working  - the primary childcare and school/community volunteers have not been ‘replaced’) This is proving challenging for schools, non-profits, as well as for a society of kids who have two part-time, weekend parents - instead of one.  Actually, a number have just one in total. As a feminist, it pains me to say that, because I might be thought of as ‘betraying the sisterhood’ – but it isn’t feminism that has created this problem, it is society’s inability to have adapted to the change.

We’ve had decades of abundance, leading to us wanting more (and more and more!) It’s a natural response. And business has enjoyed unequalled profits – but to what end?  It is only natural to think that if business is ‘winning’ then it stands to reason that someone (or many) are ‘losing’ as a result.  Big profits for businesses -  lay-offs or cuts to conditions for workers, degradation of our natural environment. I would dearly love to work out how an entire economic system built on consumption can adapt and change and I would dearly love to work out how to educate and empower consumers and employees to expect and demand more of their corporations.  In the meantime, it is certainly a dialogue I’d like to continue having!