Sustainability as a current reality
Sustainability resonates ever stronger and has come to stay, which valued and accelerated. However, it is a term that in many cases is poorly associated with the future, “what comes.” Let us try to lower the concept to earth, speak in concrete terms to leave behind the aspirational vision of sustainability and turn it into a reality that involves us and calls on everyone today.
Sustainable practices are the actions that aim to avoid or reduce negative environmental impacts that have been generated by man for hundreds of years to ensure the well-being of current and future generations. Global warming, water risk and biodiversity loss are some of the problems that are sought to solve. However, the advancement of these practices is often prevented because there is a very marked contrast between the principles that move sustainability and the terms in which the current world is managed.
On the one hand, the culture of the inmediateness in which we are immersed makes it, in some cases, to assimilate sustainable to a vague or illusory idea. Let's say that the immediate results are not of the whole characteristic of sustainable actions, which in change, contemplate a much wider time window. The interval of time that is encompassed is transcendental, and totally opposite to what has accustomed us to the present world. But not so, less important, but all the opposite.
On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize that if you ask us for the main reasons of sustainable practices, the first in what we think is in environmental protection, health and well-being. Which are reasons more than enough and valid for themselves. However, sustainability requires a more immediate benefit to gain a place in the modern world, which is nothing but economic profitability. This is, the biggest challenge and, in turn, the greatest opportunity for sustainable projects: to generate an economic benefit from environmental protection, and that, in possible, this benefit is even greater than what can be achieved with a conventional alternative. Fortunately, sustainable practices have shown that they have a lot to offer in this sense, as they bring associated improvements in process efficiency and productivity. This is how they position themselves as promising alternatives with a very high potential for development.
In any case, to pave the way for a sustainable reality, society needs to be involved in the matter. Companies, the State and consumers play a key role; but it is important to understand that each of them participates differently in the context. For example, environmental measures taken in a PyME will not have the same scope or magnitude as those taken by a multinational company; as well as environmental regulation will be the same in all countries of the world; or for an oil company that for a chain of gyms. That is, it is always correct to know and understand the perspective from which sustainable actions are considered.
Now, to get full on the subject, let's talk about the role that, as consumers, we have within this panorama. First, it is up to highlight our responsibility in choosing to buy something. After all, companies offer only products and services that customers are willing to consume. Obviously, it is not always easy to opt for sustainable products. On certain occasions, our decision-making power is limited. In some cases for lack of practicality, in others, for low supply, or for high prices. But what makes this choice even more difficult is the lack of information, or better, disinformation, how many times have you heard of a product, a service or an “eco-friendly” company, “sustainable”, “respectful with the environment”, “ecological”? These are deceptive expressions, this is because not always (almost never) these products and services have environmental information that supports them. In most cases, there is no way to know if they are generated with renewable energies, the amount and type of waste they produce, their carbon footprint, their water footprint, the impacts throughout their life cycle, or what measures are carried out to improve their environmental performance, among other issues.
As summer, they are a set of many factors that come into play and, as consumers, it is not always possible to evaluate them all. What we can do from our place is to be coherent and form a critical opinion. Take care, do not get the first idea, or the first impression. As I said before, assessing the context, starting to put an eye on the main companies, which have resources available to change their environmental performance, but which often do not do so because they do not want to resign profits, or by comfort. They do not provide for significant environmental improvements, unless the State (since legal) or we, as consumers, impose it.
Now, always this good look from an integrative perspective and not fall into the extremes. It is necessary to recognize that in the modern world there are resources that we cannot afford (at least at the moment) and that inevitably man generates and will continue generating negative environmental impacts. The theme is how to make these impacts of the lowest possible magnitude. That is why we need to take account of the context and evaluate what solutions are best adapted to each situation. Starting to rethink our consumption habits is a starting point: avoid plastics of a single use, choose products with recyclable packaging, consume local brands, read the product label, know what material they are made, where they are manufactured, etc.
The important thing is to get involved to the extent possible. Sustainability takes more and more weight in business and political decisions, and will continue to do so whenever and when as a society we demand it to be.
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