In today’s rapidly changing world, the term “sustainability” has become ubiquitous across various industries and sectors. From environmental activists to business leaders, everyone seems to be talking about it. But what exactly is sustainability, and why is it so important? In this blog post, we’ll delve into the concept of sustainability and explore why it matters now more than ever.
Definition
You might think that sustainability is a new concept and something that was born only in the recent years(since nowadays we hear about it on almost every corner). However, the term sustainability was defined way back in 1987 by the. United Nations report titled Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report). And sustainability was defined as:
meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
Why is Sustainability Important?
Sustainability is a fundamental part of our lives and everything we do. Sustainability efforts greatly improve the quality of our lives, protects our planet and its ecosystem and preserves natural resources for future generations (because not all resources are renewable or are being used at a sustainable rate).
For corporations, businesses and governments, sustainability is associated with an organization’s holistic approach, taking into account everything – from manufacturing to logistics to customer service to how the products or services affect the planet after end of their life. Being a more sustainable business is beneficial for businesses in more ways than one – improving the overall brand image; being more attractive to potential future employees; having tax benefits in certain legislations as well as smaller running costs and improved productivity in the long term.
Natural Resource Preservation
With the world’s population predicted to reach a whopping 10.4 billion by the end of the century, it is paramount for us to advance our current natural resource consumption to a rate that is not only sustainable until the much-talked 2050 but many years beyond that. Many experts believe that the current rate at which we are consuming planet’s resources is simply unsustainable to support more than 10 billion inhabitants if we don’t make any significant changes.
While natural resource mining and drilling is unlikely to stop any time soon, we need to shift our food and product manufacturing to replace non-renewable materials with renewable. Renewable and non-renewable resources are two categories of natural resources distinguished by their ability to replenish over relatively short amount of time.
Examples of renewable resources include elements like sun, wind, water, organic biomass (wood, plant residue) as well as heat from the Earth’s core that can be harnessed for heating buildings or generating electricity. Renewable resources are generally considered sustainable because they are continuously available and do not deplete the Earth’s finite reserves.
On the other hand, non-renewable resources are finite and cannot be replenished on within human lifetime. Once they are used up, they cannot be replaced. Examples include coal, oil, natural gas, most metallic (iron, copper, aluminium) and non-metallic minerals like salt and gypsum that are mined from the Earth’s surface or underground as well as nuclear fuels such as uranium and plutonium. In addition to being finite and non-generative materials, usually extraction and processing of these materials are highly energy consumptive and polluting which contributes to degradation of environment.
The distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources highlights the importance of sustainable resource management and the transition to renewable energy sources. While non-renewable resources have fueled economic growth and development, their finite nature necessitates the adoption of more sustainable practices to ensure the long-term well-being of both human societies and the planet.
Reduction of Pollution
According to the United Nations Environment Programme1 (this is an awesome visual feature about all things plastic), humans generate more than 400 million tons of plastic every single year. If the current rate of plastic production and consumption continues, this number is predicted to nearly triple to 1,100 million tons by 2050.
A large portion of these plastics (around 40%) are from single-use plastic used in packaging, including single-use plastic products for food and beverage containers. The was majority – 86% of them – end up in our landfills or oceans. And only staggering 2% of single-use plastics are actually recycled while the rest are known as virgin plastics – plastics that are manufactured from fossil fuels instead of being fully or partially recycled.
Tackling the plastic pollution and recyclability issues requires overcoming multiple technological, logistical and economical obstacles in order to make a meaningful and systematic change. While recycling could be part of the solution, the vast majority of plastics produced these days are simply non-recyclable due to them being damage due to lack of durability or simply not being economically feasible to do so. On top of that, a lot of the countries and local authorities don’t have the resources or technology to establish and maintain recycling centres that could cope to all different types of plastic (while there are 7 “big” categories, there are hundreds of different variations of plastic with different physical and chemical properties which can make recycling very hard or even most cases impossible).
While some people might say that plastic pollution does not directly affect our everyday life, this is simply untrue. While we might not see vast amounts of plastic waste on our doorstep, it does not mean it’s not out there. Research shows that plastic is making its way into our water and food supply with traces of microplastics found in human microbiome, human placenta and even fruit and vegetable that we eat.
1 This is an awesome visual feature about all things plastic – our current trends, statistics and proposals.
Reversing Climate Change
Climate change has been a particularly important and talked-about topic in the last couple of years, regularly being mentioned in news headlines and casual conversations. Sustainability and climate are interconnected because a lot of the efforts that go into sustainability directly mitigates and helps fight climate change. There are many different ways how you can help but some of the most talked about ones are reduction of carbon emissions which directly contributes to the so-called greenhouse effect which heats up the planet and therefore causes changes in our climate (such as more frequent hurricanes, flash floods, long periods of draught, forest fires etc).
Reduction of carbon emissions essentially is an umbrella term to many different efforts. Nearly everything we do, consume or produce generates carbon dioxide as a result. These emissions are attributed to things like petrol- and diesel-powered cars (and not just your personal car, but many other forms of transportation that form parts of the supply chain of everything around us), manufacturing, energy production using fossil fuels and even agriculture.