Publisher’s Note

On June 21, I was privileged to attend Our Common Future 2.0, a symposium hosted by Corporate Knights magazine, chaired by the environment policy pioneer Maurice Strong. It marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and recognized the achievements of many environmental veterans, including Jim MacNeill, who introduced the term “sustainable development.”

Despite the vigorous enthusiasm of George Smitherman, Galen Weston, and Elizabeth May, it was noted that civil society’s effect on policy is slipping. While Sylvia Ostry decried the “exhilaration of pessimism”, Maria Ivanova, Director of the Global Environment Governance Project at the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, cited the struggle to determine “what we need to change and what it needs to change to.”

There was no unanimity between the participants. However, a voice from the private sector, Kathy Bardswick, President and CEO of The Co-operators Group, counselled academics and policy makers to MAKE IT SIMPLE for business to act in response to the potential devastation of climate change.

So as Toronto contemplates the aftermath of the G20, where the word “environment” was scarcely uttered, we must wonder what real difference it will make to take a sustainable approach in managing our homes. Even if protesters tried to impose planetary sensibilities on visiting world financial leaders, their voices were displaced by the attention paid to the “security threats” on the streets.  From the large local investment in this world meeting, it seems that the lessons to learn are personal.

It is said that what cannot be measured cannot be managed. While government leaders convened to deal with some very large numbers over the very short term, those of us who believe that environmental, social responsibility needs to take its place alongside profit, pleasure and personal enhancement in society’s permanent value set—we have one major G20 takeaway. Until environmental “replacement value” is monetized and the big stacks of environmental poker chips look like others on the table, the environment will be treated as a government policy luxury.

Policy that doesn’t take sustainability into account is in fact incomplete policy. Look no further than the Gulf of Mexico: the overriding concern in government response to the crisis is commercial: lost income to fishermen, tourism and in fact other oil companies.  Environmental degradation and damage to marine life appear secondary.

Business activity that doesn’t take into account the entire life cycle of its environmental impacts is irresponsible practice. To accept that environmental considerations are a luxury that we cannot afford is no more credible than saying we can’t afford to make cars with seatbelts.

So it’s up to us—the consumers—to support companies that take the environment seriously. They need to further the cause that their visionary owners embrace. When we demonstrate that we’re spending money on green energy, smarter building, sustainable agriculture and responsible travel, and there’s a dollar value on our green economy, then maybe our “common future” will be noticed by those in charge.

By Paul Cassel