Sustainability Is A Subtraction Game
Let’s start with a bit of old school English. Imagine I’m your teacher at school, you know the one, thinks he’s really funny but everyone is laughing at him not with him (always a man). “Can anyone give me the definition of sustainability?”
The teacher’s pet’s hand shoots up, we all know who they are.
“ It’s a noun sir meaning that something can be maintained at a certain rate or level.In recent times it has been popularised by the liberal green lefts pertaining to the environment…..”
Interjection of the teacher before Norman really gets going,
“ Well thank you Norman, insightful as always. You really norman-ised that word!”
Cue tumbleweeds rolling through the classroom with the only laughter to be heard being that of the teacher laughing at his own joke. Brilliant.
So, where’s all this leading I hear you ask?
To the point that, we are missing the point. We are trying to innovate our way out of the problems that we have created using the same methods. We are looking for the golden bullet that is going to save us from ourselves, so we don’t need to do the real work of realising that it is us and our societies that need to change. Economic growth is not sustainable based on a manufacturing economy, as it is today. In 2023, it only took us 7 months to use up all the resources that it takes the world 12 months to regenerate(world overshoot day) and it’s not slowing down in 2024. That’s why we need to change the rules of the game, change them from addition to subtraction.
Enter Leidy Klotz, a professor at the University of Virginia and author of the book, Subtract: The Untapped Science Of Less. Klotz’s rigorous research shows that humans neglect subtraction in favour of addition even when subtraction is the best solution. But why is this? Well, it’s multifactoral as you’d expect, but primarily rooted in biology from our fear of scarcity (not enough food) to finding a mate. The argument being that showing competency to the opposite sex is difficult using subtraction thus once again, we can lay the blame of our economies of excess firmly at the feet of men trying to impress women.
Klotz’s book comes at a relevant time and illustrates the way we as a people need to start thinking, ie. subtracting before adding. If we could find a way to reward subtraction as a means of economic growth (sounds completely counterintuitive as I write it) then I think we would move a lot quicker towards a more sustainable economy and world. What about if you passed legislation that meant clothing companies had to sell 90% of that season's clothes before they could manufacture new? They would obviously start manufacturing less clothes.
The same with supermarkets and fresh food that goes out of date, obviously supermarkets can buy in such bulk that they can push prices down with the supplier but there are no repercussions for those supermarkets if they end up throwing half of what they buy. Not to mention the carbon footprint on those bananas that have been shipped from Costa Rica.
Once you start thinking about subtraction you begin to realise that there is so much we can do in order to generate a more sustainable and circular economy/planet, we just need to go against our better nature.
xx
Alex Nash