Sustainability - a better concept than Green?

We here about Going Green everywhere. So much so that I believe that the concept is too vague and needs to be given context when we make a "Green" claim (some say it's never meant anything but we won't address the extreme ideologues who believe that.)  Is it reducing energy use? Is it removing toxins from the environment? Is it living with a lighter footprint, consuming fewer resources and spewing less waste, the three Rs of Reduce, Reuse, and Re-cycle?  Is it a "more just" distribution of the world's resources and goods? Localism? Veganism?

I think "Green" means all these things, which is both its power and its limitation. I prefer to focus on the notion of Sustainability in Green Man Thriving. Sustainability is, I believe, a more narrow notion of how we produce an optimal economy in relation to the enviroment for the foreseeable future. Sustainability is about the inadequacy of the price mechanism in markets to build an economy which brings the most happiness to the most people.  So, unlike Green, Sustainability has no pre-conceived commitment to any mechanism or any way of being or even who benefits or loses-- any "isms" -- that I think are part and parcel of "Being Green."   I think that makes Sustainability a more rigorous and less controversial notion which opens these concepts to more people. That is its power, and where I prefer to focus now.

Comments

[David]

Restorative or regenerative may be an even better term.