Local environmental sustainability efforts have some positive metrics, but global environmental sustainability is still failing. This often comes from judging sustainability progress on a per-unit basis. For example, I could cite you statistics showing how we’ve improved energy efficiency, but have grown our overall energy consumption. There are similar numbers for consumption of various materials.
But honestly, I don’t think any more facts are helpful here. Facts usually focus on one part of the whole picture, and we use facts all the time to provide support for what we already believe to be true. Using selective facts to make concrete statements about the world seems to be easier than opening ourselves up to what might be a messy, complex reality.
Reality is complex, and it is messy. So instead, let’s look a bit more closely at what seems to be going on here.
Production and consumption-related sustainability in businesses and government has been primarily focused on reducing our per-unit consumption of materials and energy. Previously eco-efficiency, now circular economy – or whatever you want to call it – rests on the idea that there is waste either locally in a product or even in the system overall. This isn’t incorrect – there is a massive amount of waste that could be reduced.
Ignoring the fact that waste is only a problem when we don’t align with natural cycles (a topic for another day), our collective mistake has been focusing primarily on this waste to the exclusion of an even bigger issue. And as such, we’re not even maintaining the status quo with our environmental impact. We have failed, and continue to fail, if our true goal is to reduce our negative impact on the environment.
And what is that bigger issue? We haven’t created any mechanisms to limit overall consumption, to limit total volumes of extraction, product, consumption, and disposal. Volumes are naturally pushed higher in our system in which economic growth is seen as highly desirable (if not absolutely necessary). As a result, any work we do on efficiency will be outpaced by volume. If we are growing volumes by 3%, for example, then our efficiency has to decrease environmental impact by 3%, plus whatever we need to do to stay within planetary boundaries (and we’re already behind there).
Consumption volume is an elephant in our collective room because increasing the volumes – of sales or overall economic activity – is the primary basis by which we judge our success in business and government. Using another animal metaphor, it’s the sacred cow no one wants to touch. What will it take for us to be brave enough to face it?