This week in St Albans is Sustfest 21 (23rd May - 6th June) – the Sustainability Festival 2021:
It is all about living sustainably: the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance and conserve the environment. To achieve this aim inevitably means reducing our consumption but how is this compatible with modern lifestyles?
The threat of climate change has sharpened our awareness of the need to protect the planet and reduce the consumption of natural resources. At the same time, measures will now be put in place, increasing consumerism, in an attempt to ensure we recover from the damage to the economy caused by the Covid pandemic. This conundrum will highlight the problem we, as a society based upon economic growth, have with consumption. While governments will be thinking about how to encourage the economy to recover through increased spending we also need to ensure that we are helping the climate to recover from emissions caused by growing consumption. Therefore, while we are being encouraged to consume in order to revive the economy we also have to recognise this problematic relationship with consumption.
So what can be done?
Eighty per cent of all human-produced carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil. The consumption of these natural resources needs to be drastically decreased and there are several areas where real differences can be made by reducing emissions and pollution:
earlier target dates to ban the combustion engine and switching to electric, not only for vehicles - road transport is responsible for 74% of CO2 emissions;
industrial processes as well as domestic uses, like hot water and heating need to move to renewable energy;
the air travel industry, which causes around 2% of all human-created carbon dioxide emissions, needs to be carefully managed: for example, the phasing out all internal flights within a country;
the construction industry can also make a huge contribution by ensuring all new build uses low carbon materials.
food consumption can also have a part to play with public institutions, like schools and colleges, setting an example to us all by adjusting menus to provide low-carbon diets.
recycling - the process of converting waste materials into new and renewable materials and products - should be increased. Recycling should prevent the waste of what are potentially useful materials and curb the consumption of fresh raw materials, thereby reducing the use of energy and decreasing pollution both from the incineration of waste and landfill.
Cities are at the nub of reducing consumption; they are big consumers and are crucial in the challenge of reducing the emissions which are destroying the ecological balance of the Earth. If we are to meet the danger of climate change it has been estimated that cities need to reduce their consumption and emissions by two-thirds within the next decade. Cities and towns should be re-engineered through:
the creation of more green spaces;
the preservation of mature trees and the planting of new trees and vegetation;
the reduction of traffic and more pedestrianisation;
and cycling opportunities.
(see my blog: https://timboatswain.wixsite.com/website/post/greening-the-city)
The message is clear: to promote sustainability we need to reduce our consumption. For modern capitalistic economies, consumerism is associated with economic growth but that can lead to environmental degradation: our planet has finite resources so an increase in the consumption of the planet's resources, inevitably, has a negative impact on the environment. This tells us that economic growth that is totally dependent upon consuming more and more of the Earth's resources is unsustainable. The key then is to separate economic growth from unsustainable resource consumption, and the harmful pollution it creates, so we can have our cake and eat it.