Are we sustainable?

It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves a lot lately. So we decided to look for some answers and to record our search here in our notebook. For starters, we wanted to know: what does sustainable actually mean?

What is sustainability?

The influential Brundtland report defines sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. On the Sustainable Development website, DEFRA has provided more guidance on what sustainability means.

Basically, you can think of it like this. Our planet is like a big savings account that’s got to support everyone for years to come. If we spend it all now, there’ll be none left for our children. So we need to live off the interest of the Earth, rather than its capital.

Why does sustainability matter?

As reports such as the Stern Review have pointed out, if everyone were to keep living as we do in the developed world today, the consequences could include:
  • irreversible climate change
  • rising sea levels
  • drought and famine in many regions
  • loss of biodiversity
  • running out of finite resources like oil and metals
It’s simple, really - becoming more sustainable is in our own best interests. But how can we tell whether our activities are sustainable or not?

Measuring sustainability

One way of measuring sustainability is by looking at an ecological footprint. The Earth has a limited amount of things like oceans and rainforests which can absorb carbon dioxide. And there’s a fixed amount of land which we can use to produce food or live on. So we can express each of our activities as the amount of land needed to support it. The total area for all our actions makes up our ecological footprint. Multiplying our personal footprint by the number of people on Earth shows us whether we are exceeding our share.

Ecological footprints

There are several online tools and consultancies which specialise in measuring Ecological footprints. You can find out your personal footprint at sites like www.ecologicalfootprint.com or at footprint.wwf.org.uk.

For example, two people living in a terraced house, driving around 8,000 miles a year in a small car, shopping exclusively at the supermarket, taking one long-haul flight each year and recycling 30 per cent of their waste would have a footprint of just under one hectare per person.

By switching to renewable electricity, swapping 25 per cent of car journeys for the bus or the train, avoiding air-freighted produce, recycling more waste and holidaying in the UK, they could reduce this to 0.54 hectares per person. To put this into context, to be sustainable at a national level, each person would need to have a footprint of 0.57 hectares or less. And to be sustainable at a global level everyone would need to keep under 0.67 hectares each.

Carbon footprinting works in a similar way, but it only takes into account activities that produce carbon dioxide, so it’s less useful in determining overall sustainability.

British Standard 14001 aims to translate this type of analysis into a measurement framework for businesses. Measuring our sustainability is certainly something we at Polon need to consider. But we also want to know what being sustainable means for day-to-day business.

Becoming more sustainable

There are small steps we can take, things which we might already be doing such as turning off appliances that aren’t in use, reducing packaging and not wasting food and energy.

Then there are wider issues we can tackle too. Since our writers work remotely around the country we don’t have a traditional office base. Instead, we use a virtual office. This means we’re able to reduce the number of office buildings taking up land and using energy. And it means we cut out commuting altogether.

We travel to meetings using public transport and, since our clients have bases in the UK, we never have to fly on business. If we can hold meetings by phone or exchange documents over email it all helps. We know that there’s a lot more we can do and we’re thinking hard about everything from suppliers to IT.

Sustainable words

Perhaps the most powerful tool we have for making a bigger difference is using our talents to write about sustainability for our clients. We help them to launch new initiatives, to involve their employees, and to ensure that their customers have clear information so they can make wise choices.

Maybe we’ll be able to persuade some of our clients to talk about sustainability here in our notebook. In any case, we’re going to record our efforts to measure and improve our sustainability. Watch this space...

noted by Janet on 11.07.08