Defining Sustainability: Absolutely — Anjila Hjalsted — TEDxGoodenoughCollege

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven [00:00:19] Speaker 1: How many times this week have you heard something referred to as "sustainable"? It could have been sustainable cotton, sustainable coffee, sustainable single-use cutlery - I've heard that. I've heard another good one: sustainable coal. I think the best one I've heard yet is "sustainable airship hotel." What is that even? I don't know. Yeah. People use the word "sustainability" to mean a lot of things, and the vagueness of the word can be put into two different groups: one of focus and one of numbers. Now, the focus problem arises when we say something is sustainable, but we're only addressing sustainability in one aspect. Take sustainable cotton. Usually, when you dig into it, sustainable cotton is organic cotton, organic cotton is great if you want to reduce the amount of pesticides you use and the toxic pollutants that you emit into the environment. But organic farming is also associated with lower yields, which means we need to use more water, we need to use more land, and there are higher associated carbon emissions. Now, the numbers problem arises when we say something is sustainable, but what we really mean is it's just more sustainable than something else. Take a nice hot cappuccino, maybe one you had this morning. If you had a cow milk cappuccino this morning, it would have emitted around one kilo of carbon. If, on the other hand, you had an oat milk cappuccino this morning, it would have emitted around a third of that, 0.3 kilos. So now that's a lot better, but is it good enough? What if I told you I had done the calculations to find out that a cappuccino is allowed to emit only 0.1 kilos of carbon? That means that your oat milk cappuccino is actually emitting three times its allowance already. I read a newspaper column recently that jokingly said that it could be considered sustainable because of recycling the same ideas. I thought that was pretty good. So what is sustainability? It's so fluffy. But not in a cute way, though, not like this, unfortunately. At the moment, the word sustainability is being used to mean anything and everything. And when a word means everything, it means nothing. Throwing around the word sustainability is actually really dangerous because it means that people like you and me, we purchase things because we think they're sustainable, when really they're not. This leads to misleading claims, confusion around what it even means to be sustainable, sustainability policies which are not good enough, and that's the numbers problem, or misdirected, and that's the focus problem. The closest thing we come to a broadly accepted definition of sustainability is one that revolves around meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to also meet their needs. Now, this is good, it's a good start, but it's also pretty vague, because what does a need mean? Do I need the newest iPhone? This is known as the Brundtland definition. When do you guys think this is from? This definition is literally older than me. So, it still isn't working, because we don't know, we can't agree on what sustainability looks like. And in my entire lifetime, we've not been able to come up with a more accurate or even quantifiable definition of sustainability, really. Well, I say, let's change that. I would like to introduce you absolute sustainability. I would like to show you how we can define sustainability absolutely. Sometimes meaning can be hidden in plain sight. So, take the word sustainable. It is something that is able to sustain itself. It is sustainable. Something that sustains itself into the future. Now, this whole thing about the future has become much more important to me recently, since becoming a parent. I am the mother of a one-year-old. And now, this problem is not just about me. It's about my son. It's about his life. About his future children. And generations to come. But in order to achieve sustainability, we need to know what it looks like. So, let's define absolute sustainability together. And let's build off the notion that something is sustainable when it is able to sustain itself into the future without putting too much strain on the planet. But how do we know if it can or cannot? That's the question, right? Well, like this. We determine how much something is allowed to impact the Earth. And we then compare it to how much it does impact the Earth. Now, these are two numbers that we can compare solving the numbers problem. We then repeat that process for multiple different aspects of sustainability. Not just climate change, but water and land, biodiversity. We solve the focus problem because we broaden our focus. So, through power of calculation, this means that we're actually able to answer the question of whether something is sustainable in absolute terms or not. Yes or no. And the idea that it all comes down to the definition that I want to propose is this. Something is sustainable in absolute terms if it stays within its allowance. So, sticking to your share. That's it. I was told that I couldn't put mathematical equations on these slides because it would scare people off. That's fine. But, these are the words that the mathematical framework boils down to. Sticking to your share. I'll repeat that. Sticking to your share. To your share stick you must. Yeah, I think you're getting it. It's great. But now all of you are left with a question, which is, Angela, that's great, but how do I know how big my share is? And that's an excellent question. It all starts with asking the right questions. So, to answer this, I would like you to picture a cake. Mmm. Well, we need to know three things in order to share this cake. We need to know the size of the cake. How big is it? We need to know who wants to share the cake. And we need to know how to share the cake between the people who want it. So, now for the next step here, I'd like you to do a little mind exercise with me. I'd like you to imagine that this cake is actually the Earth. So, the Earth gives us things that we all want to share, such as air and water and land. Now, let's tackle the first question. How big is the cake? How big is this pool of resources that we have to share? Well, thankfully, some really prominent researchers have come up with this framework. It's called the Planetary Boundary Framework. And it puts numbers on how much we can strain our planet before we reach utter disaster, basically. So, the green area in the middle there, that's where we want to be within the limits. And the red is where we've already exceeded the limits. Now, in one of these focus areas, it tells us exactly how much carbon we can emit into the atmosphere before we experience unacceptable and catastrophic climate change. In another, how much fresh water we can use before we don't have enough. Now, I know this is some pretty grim stuff, but it does one really good thing, which is it answers our first question. It answers how big the cake is, puts numbers on how much wriggle room we have within each of these nine environmental focus areas. So far, so good. The second question is pretty simple. Who wants to share the cake? Well, we all do. Us and future generations. The third question is where it gets really tricky. Interdisciplinary, even. This is where engineering science meets philosophy in a wonderful swirly cocktail. This is where colleagues and I, we took philosophical approaches to sharing and we turned them into mathematical equations, which allowed us to calculate an exact answer as to whether something is sustainable or not in absolute terms. Yes or no. It's as simple as that. And if no, which it will often be, then how far away are we? So this is pretty revolutionary. Because you all now know that the question of whether something is sustainable or not is a scientific question with a simple answer: yes or no. So be critical next time you hear something referred to as sustainable. Is this cotton sustainable in absolute terms? So we need to start designing products and services and even policies with the goal of absolute sustainability in mind. And this will force us to be really radical because better is not good enough. Historically, the combined efforts of the human race have proven to achieve incredible things. I believe we still can. We just need to know what the goal is. And the goal is absolute sustainability. Can we do it? Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. [00:11:30] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you.