Sustainability - what's our vision?

When asked if I would write the first blog for Sustainable Newham about an overall vision of sustainability, to be honest I felt a bit daunted. How could I possibly do justice the enthusiasm, skill, expertise, knowledge and wide variety of organisations and individuals involved in Sustainable Newham? So, I did what I often do in times such as these and reached for a dictionary. Not a book - but an on-line one. Even the act of looking for a dictionary definition made me think about sustainability – of dictionaries – and that to sustain something doesn’t mean we don’t have to think about change, in this case from books to on-line.

The dictionaries told me sustainability is about being able to continue something over a long period of time and maintaining something at length without interruption or weakness. My thoughts turned to distinguishing between those things we want to sustain and those things we would rather not have continue over a long period of time without interruption or weakness, like the fire alarm going off continuously during an adult education class I attended recently, or the all-night party, a street away, when our second child was a few days old. For each of us there are things we don’t want sustained, and things we do want sustained, recognising that sustaining some things may mean change.

However, not all the things we might want to sustain are the focus of Sustainable Newham. Here, the word has a specific meaning. In the past half century, the word sustainable has come to be used more and more in the context of the way we live, specifically in relation to the environment. In 1972 an article in a special issue of The Ecologist critiqued life as they saw it being lived in the UK and other rich countries, opening their article with: “The principal defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable.” This was possibly the first public use of the word sustainable in the context of the way we live. Over the intervening decades, sustainable development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable growth have become familiar phrases, and yet, the hard-hitting message of the authors of that early article, that they believed that the unsustainable industrial way of life would necessarily end at some time either against the will of those living that way of life in a series of crises or “because we want it to, in a succession of thoughtful, humane and measured changes” has largely gone unnoticed. Unlike the incessant fire alarm or all-night party, ironically, the message itself has been hard to sustain despite the efforts of organisations like Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, The Henry Double Day Research Institute and Survival International, all of which were part of the coalition behind the thinking of that article that eventually led to the formation of the Green Party.

Sustainable Newham and many other similar groups, now springing up all over the country, could be seen as developing communities of people who want to be instrumental in -in the words of the 1972 article - thoughtful, humane and measured changes working towards the sustainability of society, humanity and all life on earth. These communities recognise that the changes needed are multivarious but working towards the same end, and understand that now only a concerted effort will do. Whether it be recycling or cycling, making jam or jamming, gardening or farming, greener roofs or greener streets, energy conservation or energy justice, working from a faith perspective or a non-faith perspective, coming together may be as important as what we do.

As Antonio Gutierrez, Secretary General of the United Nations has said, to sustain a liveable planet, the world now needs to do “everything, everywhere, all at once.” But doing everything, everywhere, all at once, could be a recipe for chaos and duplication. Working together, perhaps we can learn more quickly from each other about what works and what doesn’t work, how to turn our creativity and innovation into successful and growing projects, how to get what we are doing noticed, and how to keep going when it seems tough. Sustainable Newham’s very successful inaugural Green Fair in May was a chance to do just that. I learnt a bit more about more energy efficient buildings, was inspired by the wonderful bottle-top murals to think about how much more of the stuff in my house I could actually re-use creatively, noticed a lot of activity I never knew was going on in Newham, and the range of groups and organisations involved doing so many different things renewed my enthusiasm.

So, I seem to be back where this blog started, with the variety of organisations and individuals involved in Sustainable Newham, but perhaps with a slightly different viewpoint. This variety may be one of Sustainable Newham’s essential ingredients, along with a focus on a way of life that will enable society, humanity and life on earth to continue into the future. And, of course, to achieve this sustainability we still need thoughtful, humane and measured approach to necessary changes.

This blog was written by Forest Gate resident Sandra Eldridge. Sandra is the Diocesan of Chelmsford's Environmental Officer.