Profitability in Sustainability?

Moderated by James O'nions, editor of Red Pepper, the event was a mixture of presentation and discussion with Kirsty Wright, campaigner for the World Development Movement, and Heather Rodgers who is a journalist and author, with the small but informed audience offering debate. Giving examples from the research she carried out whilst writing her book Green Gone Wrong, Heather offered a critique of some of the market-based solutions to climate change that are presented to consumers. For example, she travelled to Paraguay where organic sugar cane is farmed and discovered that the ever increasing demand for organic sugar has lead to deforestation. She also pointed out that whilst the US has one of the biggest markets for organic products, only 7% of its land is available for organic farming. The result is huge amounts of organic products have to be imported from overseas where farming methods maybe detrimental to the environment. However, it was Heather's focus on the relationship between profit and sustainability that I found most intriguing. She pointed out that in the majority of cases, we have the technology to live sustainably, there just isn't enough of a profit margin in it. This was shockingly highlighted with case of low-emission vehicles where car companies admit to having the technology to produce fuel-efficient or hybrid vehicles, there just enough profit in making them compared to gas-guzzlers. She therefore emphasized the need to make it more profitable to be eco, the responsibility of which ultimately lies with governments.

Kirsty's talk was also focused on real world examples, this time focusing on parts of the planet being affected by climate change right now. Having attended the World People's Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia, she spoke passionately about the disparity between those countries largely responsible for climate change and those countries that are actually affected by it the most. Here she introduced the concept of climate debt, a notion that means richer countries with larger emissions have used up more than their fair share of "atmospheric space" and so should pay a monetary contribution to developing countries who are now being forced to switch to renewable energy sources. The event then disseminated into discussion and audience input, with some rather passionate audience members putting their views and questions to the panel. For me, this part of the evening offered the most insights into what people actually feel about climate change and many people simply wanting advice on how to play their part.

Despite a range of interesting issues being discussed, for me there were a few particularly useful nuggets of information. Heather put forward that when it comes to getting people to act, fear and guilt are useless. The key is education, and if people could only do one thing towards sustainability then they should educate themselves about environmental issues (and in our opinion, there's nothing better for educating the masses than a good film!). But perhaps the most valuable thing I took away from the talk was that it's not the fact that we consume that's the problem but rather how we consume. This was perfectly illustrated by the statistic that the US is the world's largest consumer yet it contains only 5% of the world's population and here surely there lies a message for all of us. We live in a consumer society and we won't escape that any time soon, but rather than feeling guilty for chowing down on the odd McDonalds or lusting after the latest i-gadget, we should instead look to encourage transparency in the companies we buy from, support those that are trying to be ethical and above all try to encourage some profitability in sustainability.