Working for a sustainable society

The sorry state in which our planet has come to find itself and the far from comforting forecasts as to energy source availability and air, water and soil pollution have risen awareness as to the need to put a stop to the ongoing use and abuse of natural resources.

In the late eighties a new concept, sustainable development, used for the first time in a report of the World Commission for Environment and Development called Our Common Future, began creeping into the conversation on these issues. It refers to the systemic conditions on a global and regional scale originating from human activity that fall within the geo- and biospheres’ resilience threshold.

Irreversible degradation phenomena set in once this threshold is overcome. When it isn’t, though, and natural capital, that is the set of non-renewable resources, is not dissipated but passed on to future generations and the environment retains its systemic capacity to reproduce renewable resources then human activity can be said to sustainable. Another important concept should be added, namely the equity principle. Its tenet is that within a sustainable scenario each and every individual is entitled to the same environmental space, that is to have access to the same natural resources on a global scale.

Sustainable development has ceased being merely a catch-word. The general public, however, is not yet fully aware of the extent of the change required for such a model to be thoroughly put into practice.

Assuming continued population growth and an increase in the social demand for a materially improved lifestyle in underdeveloped countries (as is only fair), some scholars reckon that the use of natural resources for unit of service yielded has to be at least ninety percent less than that currently recorded in industrially developed countries for a production and consumption system to keep pace with these trends while at the same time being sustainable. As approximate as this evaluation may be, it nevertheless provides a clear idea of the extent of the change required over the next fifty years for the system to continue working fairly and indeed at all.

It’s a radical change that calls for systemic discontinuity, that is a clean cut with current policies and practices. In other words, when sustainability is taken into due account, the very model of development currently prevailing necessarily becomes obsolete. Over the next decades we’ll in fact have to learn to make the transition from a society in which a healthy and prosperous economy is measured in terms of growth in production and material consumption to one in which we’ll be better off the less (far less) we consume.

On the basis of our current scientific models and forecasts, that’s the scenario we can pretty well be sure we’ll be confronted with. At this point in time it is imperative that we start remedying the damage caused by our prevailing production and consumption system. But what’s even more important is preventive action. In other words, as from now our options have to be in favour of minimum-impact processes and resources.

More in general, concerted action needs to be taken to ensure proper product and service design and development. Added to and upstream of changes in the production system, consumption models also need to be radically reviewed and amended. It’s a sort of change that doesn’t only require technological innovations (even though any means for minimizing environmental impact has to be promptly adopted), but sociological and cultural ones as well.

The innovative and systemic framework put forward in these proposals calls for all social and economic actors to do their bit, to play their role. And that goes for body corporates, public bodies and agencies, research and training centres, nongovernment associations, right down to each and every single individual, none excluded.

By way of a conclusion, below are set out (only briefly for want of space) several basic concepts that should be borne in mind by industry and anyone involved in developing product, service and system innovations along eco-efficient lines.

VADEMECUM
• Hyper-efficiency: refers to state-of-the-art cost-saving technology and product interfaces obtained thanks to energy and resource consumption minimisation.
• Renewability: refers to state-of-the-art power systems and alternative materials obtained from renewable sources.
• Useful Life: refers to quality after-sales services to extend product life and hence minimize environmental, production, purchase, and waste disposal costs.
• Lightness: refers to state-of-the-art products obtained by construction material and hence cost minimisation.
• Zero waste: refers to advanced processes such as product recovery and recall for material recycling, energy recovery, and the reuse or reworking of parts.
• Non-toxicity: refers to advanced processes and quality products that ensure against toxic or hazardous emissions or their absorption before, during, and after processing and use.