Sustaining Sustainability
Such a big word sustainability is. Everyone is trying to define it. Everyone says they can provide it, and most think it is something you create or buy rather than something that you do indefinitely. For the last five years I worked in sustainable development. I raced everyday to repair the forest’s edge and to get the wild flowers to grow before some salesman decided “sustainability” didn’t sell. I fought for the budgets and screamed on behalf of the trees and the workers who protected and cared for them. Well for something to be sustainable it cannot be a race, or a competition it has to be a collaborative effort from the bottom up. To use a dirty word, it is community organizing with nature as a full fledged participant. Sustain is a verb and you can’t turn it into a noun by claiming to give it ability and using it as something to be sold or proffited from. It is an effort, behavior, and way of life that for it to be successful requires participation of everone involved and recognition of everything involved. It has to be adaptable and evolutionary just like nature, because if any part of the system changes it impacts the whole.
For the last five years I have spent my life designing landscapes, management plans, and financial plans for “sustainable developments” in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Virginia, and Northern Georgia. Prior to that I spent fifteen years designing “sustainable” gardens in urban parts of Kansas City. In both cases the trick was always to design a plan that met the needs and desires of the owners and invoked a management plant that was within their means. Sustainability is always completely relative to those who have to do the sustaining. For a plan to be sustainable it has to be so by the owner, because once we have interfered with nature, it can never be sustainable by itself. By disrupting an environment we assume ownership and have to become stewards. It always felt good to see a plan reach the second and third year, and to see that maintenance drop off. However, about five years ago I started to see the lifestyles of those clients drop off and what was once sustainable to them, was beginning to be so no more.
I have always said that the difference between a garden and a landscape is that the garden requires a gardener. A landscape may not require a gardener, but it does require a steward. This is the paradox of the sustainable landscape. Once nature is disrupted it can no longer be sustainable (self-sustaining) in the truest sense. It has to be sustained unless it can be returned to the natural state. Once you have destroyed the natural cycles, nature can never completely return to what it was. All we can do is create a new eco-system, and help it get to where it can thrive on its own. Hopefully we can do it in a way that won’t disrupt the lifecycle of surrounding ecosystems and set it in another wrong course. The bottom line in all of this is once we have broken it we own it. We suddenly have to maintain it or repair it in a way that it can maintian itself. Suddenly sustainability is no longer about sustaining the beauty around us, but rather a race to stop the damage we have done. Once the decision is made and the damage is done all of the sudden sustainability or more precise, sustaining starts and the cycle set in motion may never end.
In reality if we weren’t doing things that weren’t sustainable, we wouldn’t have a need for sustainability. So rather than start this vicious cycle, why don’t we start with conservation and protection. If there is any lesson we should all know as people it is that we are not good at creating sustainable systems for ourselves. Be it justice, economics, agriculture health care or common respect for each other as human beings, we don’t have a great track record at doing this. So what makes us think we would be better at sustaining nature than it would itself. I have been ranting a lot lately about having to know nature to love it. That it because understanding is where sustainability starts. Rather than everyone running around claiming to have the right answers, maybe we need to start with just trying to gain a better understanding of the world around us. Maybe then we will stop creating environments that need sustained and start loving what we have been given for what it is.
Hi botany buddy. I’m a Landscape Architect and I’m starting a master thesis with a theme around sustainability and design. I’ve been reading some things and in my research I came across this article of yours. I enjoyed reading it and I mostly agree with what you say although I’m not really sure about some aspects. Like the division between human and nature: we have the tendency to set us apart from everything else and I think that doesn’t make sense, humans are part of the earth and the universe and their impact is as natural as everything else in it, all things have influence in all other things, for example the appearance of photosynthetic beings on earth caused a major impact that allowed for other species to evolve. We are along with everything on earth natural and part of a very complex system were all actions have unpredictable outcomes. Right and wrong are what we believe is right and wrong, and sustainability for me is very basic it means to use resources (whatever they might be) at a rate that allows them to regenerate. So if we have much of something we can use more of it and if we don’t we can’t use as much. So if we want to stay alive and specially if we want to live instead of survive we have to be consciously sustainable also we have to be careful with things like destroying ecosystems by the simple fact that it’s very hard to predict (although most of the times we believe to know) what changes it will cause, being this changes unfavorable to us sometimes. This brings me to something that you talk about and I agree about the commercialization of sustainability: which most of the times picks up on a good thing and distorts it to fulfill economic interest. And I say this because we hear sustainability as a doctrine (you should do this and this and buy this and that) instead of having knowledge from which to conclude what is the best behavior.
Anyway, I see you have some experience and strong positions on this issue so I would appreciate it if you could give me pointers on good sources to look at regarding design and sustainability.
peace
@Mario
Thanks very much for your comments. Sometimes when I write this stuff I wonder if anyone is in the forest to hear the tree fall. This is particularly true when it comes to topics as weighty as this. As for you point of us being part of nature and our usage of its resources being part of natural processes, that is very much a thread of what I am trying to convey. I think the term and conept of sustainability has been turned into some sort of iconic utopia that people try to reach or lay claim to, but as we all know utopia’s literal transalation is ‘nowhere”. My point being that there isn’t so much a “thing” as sustainability, but that since we are participants in the natural process we have to “act” sustainably. Explicitley, we must take into account the world around us in all of our decisions and make the most resopnsible decisions possible for ourselves as well as everything we touch.
I have to warn you right now that while I have spent my entire life in horticulture and a large portion working with sustainability my formal education is in philosophy, theology, and political science. That has guided me and formed me more in sustainablity than any plant or science book. Where we make the leap to a higher responsibility in these relationships is that we are not mere blind participants in nature, but rather cogent and formative participants with an advanced free will. To be socratic about his I truly believe that eveything on this earth has as soul and an essence. With living beings I also believe there are varying levels of selfconsciousness that lets participants be (or not be) aware or their emotions. I don’t believe my grass can feel it when I mow, but it does have natural instincs to guide its reaction to my mowing. I believe full well my dogs are capable of feeling remorse, lonliness, fear, pain and love, as well as sense it in others, particularly myself. I do not however believe they can empathize it. Where my dog can sense my remorse and feel pain, it cannot “feel my pain”.
As human beings our ability to empathize plus our advanced free will give us a moral awareness that requires us to take responsibility for our actions. We have an inherint sense of right and wrong. We can rationalize our way around it, but in the end right and wrong remains. I don’t think morality is possible unless you can make that leap into another being’s heart. This ability unfortunealy also gives us the ability to make decisions that knowingly destroy the essence of or harm other beings or environment. No matter how much we rationalize it, this is just wrong, and being moral beings we need to be able to own that awareness and take responsibility. We have a resonsiblity to recognize and protect the essence of the earth in everything we do whenever possible.
For example, the idea of a resort development being claimed (or worse marketed) as “sustainable” because it sets aside thirty-percent of the environment is rediculous. No matter how much you do (or don’t do) with that 30%, destroying 70% to profit off of people evading taxes with second homes or experience personal enjoyment one week out of the year is rediculous. You cannot justify this as sustainable when we have one of the highest homeless rates in the world and a huge shortage of affordable housing as it is. Those financial resources could have been used to help people who need homes for survival on land that was already damaged and in need of remediation. Making decisions that knowingly rob nature of it’s essence when there is no need to do so, even it to protect our existence is not natural in keeping to our intrinsic obligations as moral beings.
There are limitless sources of information on how to do things sustainably, sustainable products, and even more printed marketing material promoting it. When you read these things look for people who tackle morality and focus on a thought and decision making process rather than answers. In the plant world my favorite right now is Rick Darke, I am also a fan of the masters such as Church, Olmstead, Kessler, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Though they weren’t talking about sustainability they we wrestling with it and relating the aesthetics of nature to what they were doing, which is where it all starts. Read some metaphysics too. I think it is cruicial to understanding the moral foundation. School wise I am continually impressed with students from the Conway School and Warren Wilson College. These are definietly two of the best programs out there. Most importantly pick your genre and learn it. To approach a topic sustainably you must love it in that you must know it and understand it and care for it. Remember sustainability isn’t the topic but how you approach it so know your field first. I don’t konw if this is what you are looking for but for me being sustainable is a journey not an answer.
Thanks again for replying and I hope I didn’t turn mine into another blog post. While everyone wants to claim something as sustainable we need to focus on “being” sustainable. This is a discussion that needs to be had.
Hello,
botany buddy and mario. Such an excellent thread to read. Philosophy is SO important to approaching sustainability…the only thing I might add, is that I believe that sustainability is an approach to life in all fields, not just one. It helps to have expertise in a specified field…but we need to do resource/energy audits on every aspect of our life….or at least consider it. To illustrate, in Mario’s field, many architects have a hard time viewing anything other than the actual house in regards to sustainability…they look at materials, space and perhaps throw on some solar panels…and call it sustainable. Very few have the ability to see the house as a part of the neighboring community and consider how the house could feed the soil with compost toilets…how gray-water could water plants, how the roof could harvest rainwater…or even grow food…or how the landscaping could use plants that provide food and preventative medicine instead of just shade with splashes of color. Very few see the house as a member of the surrounding community….let alone see how that a household could interact with its neighbors to create a productive community as opposed to just one big stylish consumption sink. Just as Mario mentioned the fact that many humans have forgotten how to see ourselves as active members of nature. Members that need to re-learn how to cooperate with each other if we wish to sustainably survive on this planet. Indeed, we need to focus on “being” sustainable, and sustainability involves our entire lives….not just the garden, and not just our house…it’s a necessary approach to life…not just a life-”style.” I’ve been meaning to write an article on my blog for a long while now about sustainable-happiness. Perhaps it’s time I start. Thanks again for the fodder for thought.
Scott A. Meister
sustainable lifestyle designer
http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/
Hi botany buddy (bb) and scott
This turned out into a very interesting reading
Bb Somehow I felt more in tune with what you say in the comment than with your first post. I agree that sustainability is a very broad concept (as scott mentions) as broad as we like, we can consider sustainability of self and widen the concept till we reach sustainability of the universe which can in turn blend together with self or maybe the sustainability of all the different systems that compose the universe represent the global sustainability. For fact This is a very philosophical issue and ideas might be corrupted or misinterpreted when converted to words.
As for my field of work I’ve decided to concentrate in what small contribution the landscape architect can have towards a non destructive evolution of society (sustainability). For example as a designer of space if I can decide between using indigenous species or not, local materials or not, save the fertile soil or natural drainage systems I’ll be in a position to have a good contribution towards sustainability.
And off course sustainability should be taken at heart as our and future generation lives depend on it. One just has to make the exercise of separating the propaganda from the useful knowledge to be able to make informed decisions.
Scott I definitely agree that most of the times projects are looked at out of context. This is frequently due to lack of territorial planning (and I say territorial because it involves rural and urban planning). This leads to bad interventions masked by good architecture lots of times. For good interventions it’s obligatory to have an holistic vision and approach.
Thank you for bb for a good post and tips and scott for the thoughts. Ideas have been swirling in my head as I get further into the theme and it’s good to be able do discuss and share them and learn more from other perspectives.
Peace