Green Transformation
What was once a minor concern is now front and center: doing business sustainably is considered crucial to a viable future on our overburdened planet. What has already changed? Where are the remaining problems? And is sustainability an issue dividing the generations?
1.75 Earths
is what humanity needs to meet the current demand for renewable resources. To put it another way: on 2 August 2023, humankind exhausted nature’s budget for the year. That date, known as Earth Overshoot Day, is determined annually by the Global Footprint Network. With a few exceptions, we have been using more natural resources year on year since calculations began in 1971. To amplify the point: were everyone on the planet to live the way people do in the United States, they would need the resources of 5.1 Earths. If their way of life resembled that of India’s population, 0.8 Earths would suffice.
The color of revolution
The color green has come to stand for sustainability. But not for the first time in human history has the color been thus associated. As far back as ancient Egypt, green symbolized regeneration and rebirth. Etymologically speaking, the word green stems from the Germanic ‘grho’, meaning to grow, adopted almost verbatim into the English language. The word for the green pigment found in plants that makes life possible on Earth, chlorophyll, is a portmanteau of the ancient Greek words for ‘light green’ and ‘leaf’. And although green has also been a proxy for love, poison or envy, depending on the century or region, today it once again symbolizes awareness of nature. But caution is advisable: the color green must be deserving of its name. Greenwashing, or creating a facade of seemingly green accomplishments, is widely disparaged.
Back to the roots
In 1713 Hans Carl von Carlowitz, a tax accountant and mining administrator in the German province of Saxony, formulated the foundations of sustainability. At issue was the primary raw material in the fields of construction, energy and industry at that time: wood. In his work ‘Sylvicultura oeconomica’, von Carlowitz explained: “The quantity of felled trees should be limited to that which can be re-grown through planned reforestation, seeding and planting.” This basic tenet still holds today, although the term sustainability only came into being later. Along the way, our understanding has also changed to the current meaning: meeting present needs without impairing the opportunities of future generations.
