Making Sustainability Sustainable

Ya what?

Sustainability, eco-friendly, green, conscious, ethical, clean…. all words we hear a lot of right now. But how do we know which words are translating into actions and which are empty? Is this just a trend or marketing or can it really be sustained?

Recently, I read March’s issue of British Vogue – in their designer and business profile pages I was surprised to see so many companies claiming to be sustainable. From swimwear to sandals to designer clothing, profile after profile contained phrases, including ‘sustainability’ or ‘environmentally conscious’. And you’d think this would make for hopeful and happy reading, and to some extent it does. But this examples shows us the importance of understanding and spotting buzzwords and greenwashing, and filtering them out from companies really making changes.

In recent years, sustainability has become a buzzword used in many areas of life, which while is great for generating awareness, can remove our focus from what is urgent. Sustainability is defined as the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or maintaining an ecological balance, in order to leave resources for future generations. We often think of the traditional view of sustainable living, where people only took from nature the exact amount they needed and only took what nature could afford to give by living in tune with the seasons. So now it is important that we translate these views to modern life.

Although the focus of this blog is on environmental sustainability, it is important to note that there are many other types of sustainability. In our daily lives, that might be how long you can sustain a certain style of work without burning out, or the sustainability of a business that has not adapted to modern needs. We need to think holistically about all kinds of sustainability in order to make it work effectively.

As an example, what type of bag do you think is the most sustainable option to take to your supermarket shop: a plastic bag, a paper bag or a cotton bag? The answer is not as simple as it seems…. Though we think of plastic as the ultimate environmental enemy, it takes much less energy to manufacture than a paper bag, and you would need to use a cotton bag around 130 times to make it a more environmentally-friendly option than a single use plastic bag. While paper may be easier to biodegrade, plastic is more durable, and while plastic can be more polluting to our land and seas, paper and cotton require lots of land and resources to produce. ( See Plastic or paper: Which bag is greener? – BBC News for facts and visuals). So what is the most sustainable option? Use whichever option you have to hand and reuse it as many times as possible before replacing it or getting rid of it. Sustainability does not come from a claim on a product’s packaging, but from action and the way we use these items.

So what is the point of all this waffle? To create real action we need to focus on the actions that will make the biggest difference. In regards to climate change, urgency is needed in reducing and stopping greenhouse gas emissions to halt global warming. While it captures our human emotions to see animals caught in litter or the impacts of plastic pollution, just swapping out plastic alternatives will unfortunately not impact as significantly on preventing rising temperatures. To fight climate change we need leaders to keep to emissions targets and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint, then we can also work on restoring our natural habitats and reducing waste etc….

So the biggest message of this post is that we can be improving and be doing better at the same time. We can be cutting out single-use plastic and still need to work on our vehicle emissions, or maybe we have made environmentally-conscious decisions around our diet, but still fly long-haul or use disposable razors. So just because we buy a product that claims to be sustainable doesn’t mean that our entire lifestyle is. Get comfortable with continually learning and changing and adaption will come smoother.

Sustainable living is a long-term goal, and like any other future aim, takes time, practice and cannot be fixed quickly. This post is not one of pessimism, but hopefully makes you question what products and actions are actually helping you create a sustainable lifestyle and which ones only contain a few ‘green’ components or use sustainability as a selling strategy.