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The Sustainability Elephant or Roaring Mouse?

Paul Hobcraft's picture
Paul Hobcraft 8,865
Innovation & Energy Knowledge Provider, Agility Innovation

I work as a transition advocate for innovation, ecosystems, within IIoT, and the energy system as my points of focus. I relate content to context to give greater knowledge and build the...

  • Member since 2020
  • 139 items added with 66,392 views
  • Apr 21, 2021
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 A question keeps running around in  my head,

I was wondering how the community views the treatment of sustainability as a critical part of the energy mix?

Sustainability is getting reported by all the Energy providers, as an essential document for Stakeholders and Shareholders can evaluate them for their "green" credentials and Corporate plans around the Environment, the Social aspects and the Governance they have put into place.

Are these sustainability reports worth the paper they are written upon, do you think they match to the business or today or what you can envisage in the future?

Any different suggestions on addressing Sustainabiity in tackling this longer term very large elephant in the energy room?

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Audra Drazga's picture
Audra Drazga on Apr 22, 2021

For Fun - here is the definition of Sustainability

Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources.

Therefore, sustainability is made up of three pillars: the economy, society, and the environment. These principles are also informally used as profit, people and planet.

Dick White's picture
Dick White on Apr 23, 2021

I vote for "elephant."  Decarbonizing the economy is a necessary condition for sustainability, because climate change threatens to destabilize the environment and human civilization along with it.  However, we have to go further, first to dematerialize the economy, doing the best we can to create a "circular economy" that minimizes material inputs.  Getting to zero might be impossible in principle, but we could start with a 90% reduction and then address the more difficult challenges.  However, being sustainable also means that we stop encroaching on the natural world; climate change and the biodiversity crisis are symptoms of a human economy grown too large for the health of the planet.  What is ultimately needed is to slow and then stop the growth of the human population, but then also to abandon the mantra of eternal economic growth.  Decarbonizing the energy system is the "easy" part of this transition. 

 

Paul Hobcraft's picture
Thank Paul for the Post!
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