Undeniably
sustainability is a word used to mean long lasting. However, it dawns on me
that at the age of 17, long lasting reaches as far as applying for a job.
Sustainability is a choice more than a necessity; one doesn’t have to think long-term
because, simply, there is no immediate benefit from doing something that
doesn’t aid the present. Why is it that, currently, recycling seems like a
superfluous undertaking when it should be recognised as a responsibility to
society? Why is it that energy saving weeks (in school) act as novelty token
gestures to satisfy our green awareness? Essentially there is no tangible
perceptible reward for being sustainable. There is no instantaneous change
because the effects are for the long-term. Yes, the occasional recycled pencil
case or recycling bin might cross my path, yet it provides no real motivation
to endlessly sort rubbish, prohibit 4x4’s and deter me from my nearest goal.
Absolutely, sustainability doesn’t appeal.
I use
sustainability as a word to assuage my guilt or promote an argument and I fail
to put sustainability in the present. Sustainability is the capacity to endure,
yet to endure we must begin (being sustainable). All too often the assumption
is that all sustainability is positive, and to an extent there can be no flaw
in thinking about future generations, but, when this detracts from the richness
of life that each of us desires than surely this is cause to presuppose that
sustainability is time wasting and thinning our limited time on earth.
Obviously sustainability means different things in different mediums, but the
question remains the same (whether it is business sustainability or ones carbon
footprint): why is sustainability worth fighting for?
I too ‘endorse the idea of starting small’[1]
but where is the impetus. Essentially, when thinking of sustainability
in ‘green’ terms, it is fighting a losing battle. The polluting world we have
constructed is far too developed to deconstruct and reverse its corrosive
effects. We can slow effects admittedly, but inevitably one must accept that
with growing population, whatever we do the quell pollution in, for instance,
Britain or our own homes; energy consumption elsewhere is increasing quicker,
so there is no improvement. Why should I recycle two cans of beans when GlaxoSmithKline is building a new factory in
Ulverston? It seems to be like disarmament in the 1920’s; unless
everyone universally disarms then no one will do it. Yes we agree it’s a fine
idea, nonetheless we don’t want to move first, and thus we keep arming (or
negating sustainability). If I don’t feel that everyone is making the same
efforts as me and giving as much time as I am, why bother? To assuage guilt by
means of ‘five minutes a day’ [2] doing
‘something green’? Well not if GlaxoSmithKline
feels no culpability. Yes, this
case isn't immediately transferable to business, but arguably, why would a
business reduce short-term profits to maintain smaller profits over 100 years,
when bluntly the people working there won’t receive the award. This raises
moral questions about how much we value the future over our own personal gain
but essentially it brings me back to my first point: why doesn't sustainability
appeal, and now ,more importantly, how can we make it appeal?
There is no easy way
to make people aid something they will never experience and will never know
about, but inherently there is a desire to leave a legacy. What should be
promoted is the power of legacy and the prospect of people in 2120 admiring the
’17-year-old boy who recycled his whole life, so that we could live in a better
world’. Thus, sustainability should be passed down, recycled through
generations, so that despite it not being universal, it becomes tradition or
your inheritance. Legacy appeals!
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