Fixing a three-leg stool
Yesterday afternoon, I was listening with Clélia to the “Bedtime Stories” CD that her father bought in London. I’m not sure that my two and a half month old daughter fully appreciated the narrative that led the donkey, the dog, the cat and the cockerel on their way to be musicians in Bremen to chase thieves out of a hidden cottage, but the seven children of the farmer’s wife whose big pancake ends up being eaten by a pig reminded me of how special the number 7 is.
1987, 1997 and 2007 were all remarkable years for green, cleantech, carbon cap and trade, global climate change and Kyoto to become respectable household words.
1987: birth of sustainable development as a concept (Brundtland Commission‘s Report)
1997: commitment by industrialized nations (minus the USA) to lower their greenhouse gas emissions (Kyoto Protocol)
2007: formal acknowledgment by the international community that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases cause climate change (IPCC’s 4th assessment report).
It took more than 30 years to make the case for businesses to plan their long term growth in a carbon-constrained economy so clear that the oldest consulting firm in the world, Arthur D. Little, recently cautioned against not doing so. Yet, “carbon” (and all the environmental externalities that it has come to represent – remember acid rains, mercury contamination, dead rivers and chemical dumps?) is only one of the three sustainable development stool’s legs. The economic crisis that unfolded in 2008 brought the “economic leg” on the front scene, but what shall we do about the “social” one?
source: http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/Sustainable.png
Although its three legs could be fixed separately, it is very unlikely that this would be the most efficient algorithm for our stool to remain stable, so interconnected are the problems and situations that challenge its balance. The Global Environmental Outlook published by the United Nations Environmental Program in 2007 stated it as clearly as can be, when, after highlighting the fact that fisheries are in dire straits (the laps of today’s commercial fisheries may collapse in less than 40 years), species become extinct 50 times faster than before the industrial revolution (despite efficient conservation efforts) and our average environmental footprint is 30% larger than that which the Earth can sustain, it observed that the current energy, environment and development global crises are all but one same challenge for our civilization.
Will it take another thirty years for private actors and businesses to realize that there is more to looking towards the South than a moral imperative, and that they have a lot to win when sustainably contributing to unleashing the creative forces of the developing world? After all, the strong brick house was not the easiest one to build. It simply was the only one to withstand the wolf’s blowing attempts.
- Blandine