The 5 Ws of Sustainability

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is a path toward a better future where resource renewal is inherent in their source and usage and everything we do is guided by a slight modification of the hippocratic oath: do less harm and eventually do no harm.

Sustainability comes when we choose products and ways of living that do less harm to the world around us than the norms. Eventually, hopefully, we can say that meeting our own wants and needs does GOOD rather than any level of harm.

Before we get into the meat here, it is important to remember that sustainability happens one step at a time and one day at a time. It is a marathon, not a sprint. If you charge fearlessly into it, my hat off to you, but you will also be in danger of getting quickly overwhelmed. So, pace yourself.

There are many lists of principles and elements of sustainability, but in an effort to abide by KISS ideals I like to think of them simply as:

People

Planet

Profit

(This is not a new list and comes from the business idea of the triple bottom line first used by John Elkington in 1994).

I prefer to think of the first principle as people rather than society or social because health is a major component of this item. We need to take care of people and reduce chemicals and other elements that can harm them/us. At the same time, pursuing equity and inclusion in this element is also important. Companies that give back are favored here.

Planet is the most showy element of sustainability and the most well known. The idea here is that we need to take care of the ecology, plants, and animals where we live and across the globe. In this element, sustainability advocates seek the elimination or at least the decrease of waste, pollution, and deforestation among many other harms to our planet.

Profit still makes the list in the business world and it should make your list too, but in personal finance it’s probably more accurate to call it cost. You need to be able to afford the sustainability solutions that you put into place. In fact, the best sustainable solutions should be lower cost especially over the long term.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, and Recycle

Who is sustainability for?

Sustainability is for everyone. It’s never too late to start and all that is asked is that you be conscious of how you’re voting with your money. Everyday in our consumer culture we enter the world in person or online and spend money. When you do this, you provide a company with financial support to continue to run their company how and why they do. This is why boycotting is such a strong consumer tactic, but I prefer a more subtle approach by making informed choices everyday.

Sustainability is necessary for both the corporation, individuals, the mom and pop shop (or the mom and mom shop), governments, and even self-less non-profits.

Where

Everywhere all at once, but in this blog we will focus primarily on sustainability in the home: where we as everyday people have the most control over living more sustainable lives.

Here in our home, we are FAR from perfectly sustainable, but we want to share where we are now and then bring you along for the ride to see how much further we can go.

We hope, you’ll take this journey with us and share with our community what steps you’re taking. We will all just have to learn from each other on this ride.

When

Yesterday. Sustainable practices should’ve been the norm for thousands of years and in some places, they were/are. Yet, here (USA) and now we find ourselves surrounded by disposable products and buildings built to fight back against nature rather than live alongside it.

There are many hurdles that stand in our way of being perfectly sustainable yesterday (or even today or tomorrow). First and foremost is our mindset. I can tell you right now that there are several “necessities” in our house right now that I can’t wait until they wear out so I can buy the next one. Even if the next one is some invincible forever perfectly sustainable product, it won’t be as sustainable to buy a new one as it will be to keep the current one in good condition. I’m sure we’ll have a post about how to overcome some of these challenges, but there is a growing urgency to humanity relearning sustainable living and the next section will cover why.

Why

Because I try to have a structured, organized mind (and some days I even succeed), we’ll organize this section according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to illustrate why we’re here. I name these all so you can see the full breath of the why behind sustainability. These are not all problems for you or I to solve individually, but rather issues for the entire human race to solve. All statistics below come from the UN unless stated otherwise and more information can be found here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals. The commentary is my own.

1. Poverty:

There are currently as many as 676 Million people (8.5% of the global population) around the world currently living in EXTREME poverty. AKA this doesn’t even count good old-fashioned poverty.

2. Hunger:

1 in 10 people suffer from hunger and 149.2 Million children under 5 suffer from stunting as a result. Food scarcity and scarcity of healthy foods like fresh vegetables are issues of sustainability for our entire agricultural infrastructure around the world. In the US, we have food deserts in the middle of our cities where fresh produce is impossible to find in walking distance.

3. Health:

According to the World Health Organization in 2017, about 3.5 Billion people lack access to the health services they need with about 100 million being pushed into extreme poverty annually because of healthcare expenses. In addition, many of the products and foods that we use and interact with cause cancer or other health issues that further burden both us as people and the healthcare systems in general.

https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/640121513095868125/pdf/122029-WP-REVISED-PUBLIC.pdf

4. Education:

According to UNICEF, 400 million children and adolescents in school are unable to attain the minimum proficiency in reading and math. Maintaining a sustainable educational system that can support the youth we have is important and here in the US we have concerns about the educational systems we have. In some other countries, it is much worse.

https://www.unicef.org/education

5. Gender Equality:

At the current pace, it would take another 40 years for women to be equally represented in politics. In just 64 countries, only 57% of women are making their own informed decisions about sex and reproductive healthcare. You might be asking what this has to do with sustainability, but remember the second pillar (People). Taking care of the people in our household is part of creating a sustainable home. If only half of the house gets their necessary healthcare or other needs met (mental wellbeing), then we’re only halfway there.

6. Water:

More than 733 million people live in countries with high and critical levels of water stress and 1.9 billion people will lack basic hand hygiene facilities by 2030 at the current rate. We use more water than can replenish. Worst of all, we’re still in the information gathering phase, for 3 billion people, the quality of their water supply in unknown.

7. Affordable and Clean Energy:

“2.4 Billion people still use inefficient and polluting cooking systems.” Moving toward solar, wind, or water power are at the forefront of people’s thoughts here, but there are more solutions being worked on that could also prove critical in building a pollution-free and diverse infrastructure.

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth:

The COVID pandemic has hurt progress on this significantly, as does the war in Ukraine. This idea attaches to the profit pillar and the idea that if you’re not growing, you’re dying. A quote attributed to William S Burroughs, that speaks to me as a reason to keep learning and improving myself fighting to be a better version of myself, but it is also important as the idea that without profit businesses and individuals often cannot keep the lights on or food on the table for long.

9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure:

A large amount of this why is transportation infrastructure, but it also includes maintaining infrastructure in manufacturing for everything that we’ve come to know as stuff or things. Clothing, construction materials, and the new iPhone all put their own dent in sustainability progress as planned obsolenscense takes its toll, but they are still critical infrastructure they may need to be improved they still need to exist.

10. Reduced Inequalities:

Inequality between different groups or classes or income levels of people are not sustainable. They cause tension, mental health issues, and war none of which are good for sustainability.

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities:

Inclusivity, safety, resiliency, and sustainability are the four factors of concern here for the UN. These include issues like waste, polluted air, transportation, disaster risk reduction, and reducing the 1 billion slum dwellers around the world. A key item in this category for individuals is reducing waste.

12. Responsible Consumption and Production:

This area of concern is one root cause of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Food is being wasted, electronic waste is not being safely managed, and our reliance on natural resources like metals is increasing. We need closed loop systems of production that recycle waste.

13. Climate Action:

Only once in my life have wildfires created smoke in my region. That is this week. Medium to Large scale disasters will increase 40% from 2015 to 2030. The sea level will rise almost 2 feet by 2100. Droughts, Coral Reef destruction, and rising global temperatures will displace humans and affect ecosystems in irreversible ways. CO2 emissions actually increased in 2021 to the highest level ever.

14. Life Below Water:

Many sustainability issues touch our oceans including: Pollution, Plastic waste, Ocean Warming, Eutrophication, Acidification, and Over-Fishing.

15. Life on Land:

The full UN name for this item speaks for itself: “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.”

16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions:

The UN uses the following to describe this item: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”. They cite that we have the largest number of violent conflicts since WW2 and 100 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide in as of May 2022.

17. Partnership for the Goals:

This goal for the UN is all about strengthening the global team that addresses these issues. It is an important lesson for us too. Increasing your sustainability at home is not something you’ll likely be able to do on your own. People in your community or across the globe should be added to your team to help you in your journey and in return you can help them in theirs.

Now what?!

After all this information, you may be wondering exactly how to live more sustainably. Well, that's what we're here to talk about, so stay tuned! We'll share what we know, what we learn, and we invite you to share your knowledge, too!