We did come and enjoy the music, food, people and the festival this weekend. It was awesome! The music was great, food was incredible and we left with a fistful of information and a gratifying feeling about being part of something good.
No really, I’m asking you – what does sustainability really mean?
To some, sustainability means choosing the lesser of two evils. Wikipedia tells me sustainable is “the capacity to endure” (sounds a bit painful, doesn’t it?). It can mean ensuring life for the next seven generations, or indefinitely. To others, it is a word that has a comfortable vagueness allowing for marketability. Conversely, It may be a mathematical calculation of population and greed. The trouble with sustainability today is as much about finding out how it’s done as what it genuinely means.
The theme of this year’s Organic Islands Festival is sustainable transportation, sustainable buildings, and sustainable food production. I’m writing this because I want to challenge you. I want you to get the most out of this festival. I want you to put meaning back into the word: sustainable. How do we measure sustainability? What does it look like when it’s transferred from a proposal to a reality?
I have a couple of good ideas (okay okay, they’re not my ideas).
First, I think that sustainable means cradle-to-cradle design, a phrase coined by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Cradle-to-cradle means that new items are composed of only two categories of materials, either technical nutrients, which can be recycled in industrial cycles or biological nutrients, which can re-enter natural cycles. This also means that all waste can either be recycled or composted, without introducing toxicants into the earth and without downcycling products.
We can’t ignore energy either – which is why I think something called embodied energy is important. Embodied energy is the energy required to create a product from extraction of raw materials to delivery to the consumer. Choosing products with low embodied energy values and choosing clean energy sources would seem as an important factor in sustainability.
Lastly, I have a hunch that sustainability means consuming less.
These are difficult questions, and I admit that I may be glossing over some details, but please, I want you to join into this dialogue. Here, if you want, but more importantly, at the festival. Even, if the dialogue is only in your head.
“Imagine what a world of prosperity and health in the future will look like, and begin designing for it right now. What would it mean to become, once again, native to this place, the Earth – the home of all our relations? This is going to take us all, and it is going to take forever.
But then, that’s the point.”
- William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Tags: sustainability, Sustainable
I am so happy to see your group going the distance in sustainability and zero waste. I am a festivals and events zero waste consultant and I am finding it is a hard sell to the average organizer. I will look around your site some more to see how you are implementing zero waste but the commitment and energy I have witnessed so far is inspiring. I have a post on the six tenets of zero waste and a few other things you may find interesting. I look forward to attending the fair.
Valerie Jenner
Hey Valerie! I would really love to connect directly with you given our common passion for creating green events. I would like to know more about what you do. We’ve wanted to start blogging about our zero waste commitment but we are all so busy making it happen. This year, we’ll be aiming to start benchmarks for Carbon Neutrality. Please drop by the Small Feet Tent and take the Transportation Survey. We’ll be collecting info to set benchmarks for the festival’s transportation footprint. Hope we connect up!
My favorite way to look at what sustainable means I learnt from Stacey Toews, Free Trade advocate, and a partner in Level Ground Trading, one of this festival’s key sponsors. For him, the essence of sustainability is linked to long-term relationships.
I like his view because a long-term view makes it easier to deal with the ebb and flow common to relationships, knowing we’ll each be here tomorrow, for each other! Knowing we are in a long-term relationship gives us a measure of security. It frees us to practice business in sustainable ways; no need to grab and run!
Ben, I think Level Ground is a great example. Long term relationships are really about caring for people. If we care for people then we’ll be sure to include clean water, clean air, healthy food systems etc. in our definition of sustainability. And in a world with instant everything it’s important to stop and consider how we’re building our own families and communities.
Hi Guys! Would you mind if I share your blog on my myspace group? There’s a lot of people that I think would really appreciate your site. Please let me know. Cheers