Co-sustainment and Sustainability

Does the Toyota Prius offer us 'sustainable' motoring?
...probably not, if it encourages us all to travel further
and more often than we did a decade ago...

A world of difference

The term 'sustainability' can be traced back to the late 1980's.
Before that time many of us talked about "Alternative Technology".
'Alternative' to what?
The idea sounds strange to us, nowadays.
It was borne out of a divided world that polarised capitalism and socialism.
For many, the idea of 'alternative' (e.g. 'Alternative Technology') had positive political and economic overtones.
In 1983, the British Ecological Party renamed itself as Green Party and gained an impressive 14.9% of the vote.
Everybody wanted to be 'green'.
Only after a year or two did some of its members begin to realise how different their respective political views were.

Sustainable Development

Similarly, just before the end of the Cold War, the (1987) Brundtland Report popularised the notion of 'sustainability'.
Economic development for the poorer nations needed to be squared with Capitalism's vision of endless growth.
(...oh yes, and with a concern for the environment.)
In this sense 'sustainability' is difficult to separate from the rise of globalisation.
After a while we began to use the word in its own right...as though it was clear and simple..

The idea of sustainability

Arguably, most things are interdependent and non-linear.
It may therefore be dangerous to think of 'sustainability' as a simple idea.
When we try to explain something using a basic logic of cause and effect, we may soon find it limited.
We may realise that it is better to analyse many different things in relation to one another.

'Sustaining' may mean either integrating or prolonging

We are inclined to forget that there is both a temporal and a non-temporal meaning for the verb 'to sustain'.
Arguably, we usually assume that sustainability refers to the making permanent of our existing lifestyle and status quo.
Yet even this instrumentalist, or technological mode of thinking is insufficient to explain how things work.
Often the direction of causation is unclear. What we assume to be cause and effect are usually co-creative.
Whereas the syntax of sustainability is linear and causal, ecology itself is emergent and manifold.
The verb to 'sustain' is transitive, and implies that there is clear distinction between subject and predicate.
What difference is there between 'something that sustains', and 'something that is sustained'?

What sustains what - and for how long?

For example:

what is it that sustains our lifestyle?
what is it that sustains food, shelter, and health?
what is it that sustains our technology?
what is it that sustains our capital?
what is it that sustains our society?
what is it that sustains our culture?
what is it that sustains our belief system?
what is it that sustains the environment?
what is it that sustains Natureâ€¦?
what is it that sustains God?

Do we sustain Nature?

We need to consider what sustains what, and for how long.
Do we sustain technology or does technology sustain us?
Where is the source of economic exchange?
Isnâ€™t money a self-organising system?
At a deeper level, aren't we implying that 'green' industries can sustain Natureâ€¦?
(Surely, Nature sustains us?).

Should sustainability be sustained?

Not everything can be sustained.
Nor would we expect to sustain time, for example.
Birth and death are intrinsically part of a process of flow.
We may want to sustain our supply of fresh food, but the freshness itself cannot be sustained.
Designers may need to redesign their language to make their thinking more ecological.
Consuming means using up, yet the United Nation use the contradictory idea of sustainable consumption.
Entrepreneurs use the term 'sustainable business' when they really mean business as usual
Arguably co-sustainment? would be a better term than sustainability.

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