2021 JULY
GREEN IS THE
NEW BLACK
By Caroline Kopas
Sustainability—defined officially by McGill University as “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”—is a word that is appearing at an increasing level in everything from education to politics. Despite being often understood at a basic level, usually regarding climate change, it is a practice that needs a further understanding and greater implementation in order to preserve life as we know it.
In order to further understand sustainability, I interviewed Angie Kim, the Sustainability Coordinator of Purchase College, a part of the New York State University system. Her answers were very informative.
Kim’s informal definition of sustainability is that it’s “just a step beyond this conservation and preservation. It’s not just about cutting back, but it’s more about maintaining resources so that they can be long lasting and have as little impact on the environment and the global community as possible.” The earth, of course only has finite resources, and our population is only growing. In fact, the earth reached the one billion mark in terms of population in 1820. In the two hundred years since then, it has risen by nearly seven billion. And every human, of course, deserves some of the finite resources earth has to offer, such as food and clean water. Unfortunately, however, the earth does not have enough resources for that basic standard of living coupled with a booming population, so efforts to conserve and preserve what we already have should be prioritized. “And this isn’t just subject to environmental or natural resources, but it also includes social and economic resources as well,” she also mentions.
Regarding that interconnectedness and the wide range of issues the sustainability umbrella covers, Kim suggests that the United Nations’ Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are a good place to start in understanding this. “You can take any number of those goals, any two, three, five, seven, and they’ll connect in some way,” she comments. “It’s about using sustainability to think about any decision that you’re making and looking at the holistic impact of everything.” These goals were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 and work towards a better future in all aspects of life.
Care for sustainability is only growing, especially amongst younger generations who are concerned about the quality of the earth they are going to inherit. That’s why, Kim says, sustainability education is crucial at all ages. “Higher education plays such an important role in society as a whole because colleges are educating the future generation: the people who are literally going to make the world work. We need to make sure these students are thinking about and doing everything they can about sustainability, because they are going to be charged with solving these issues in the future.” She went on to remark about how some institutions are even creating a sustainability requirement as a prerequisite to graduate and how by this point, many middle and high schools are beginning to offer more earth and environmental science courses. “We need to equip [students] with the knowledge, the tool kits, the skill sets in order to face these issues in their professional lives,” Kim declares.
And they’re going to need to. This past decade has been the warmest ever on record and carbon dioxide emissions have risen by about twenty-five parts per million. The earth’s atmox4sphere has not contained this much carbon dioxide in millions of years. These issues are far from easy to reverse and are currently being exacerbated, so it is imperative that efforts to curtail this climate change are implemented as soon as possible.
So what can you do to help?
It is true that large corporations contribute mostly to climate change rather than the average person, but as Kim says, they don’t have sustainable practices because their consumers aren’t pushing for them. It wouldn’t be in their best business interests to rework and change their entire system for something their consumers haven’t even shown that they want in the first place. Therefore, she concludes, the common person’s sustainable mindset and practices are more important to start. They are the catalyst for greater change.
You’ll create this community pipeline. It won’t be just you. it’ll become your family, and your peers, and your colleagues who are all concerned about these sustainable or unsustainable things that are happening. What happens then, is that you have this collective impact. You have this growing concern and that’s when these businesses and industries will hop on and be like ‘Oh, if this is something that our consumers want—if they’re asking for transparency and sustainable practices—we need to change what we’re doing.’ …It’s that advocacy piece that starts as an individual that will eventually be incredibly difficult to go unnoticed.”
Kim compared the collective impact of sustainable practices to voting. It’s easy to write off your vote because it’s only one in millions. But in the grand scheme of things, widespread voting is what actually causes change.
To start, Kim advises, “just look at your daily activity. Look at how much waste you’re creating, or take notice of the energy that you use or how long your showers are, or that if you’re leaving your sink running when you’re brushing your teeth. Look at your daily lifestyle and take one or two small shifts. You can maybe choose to eat vegan/vegetarian once a week. You can choose to walk to the grocery store instead of taking your car. You can choose to carpool to work instead of driving by yourself. And as these small shifts become more natural to you, and you can start adding more and more”.
She also suggested using a carbon footprint calculator to start, because it shows its users just how sustainable or unsustainable they are, and provides reality checks if needed. Here is one right here if you wish to utilize this amazing tool.
Another way sustainability can be implemented is the creation of a circular economy. Right now, with the way our economy works, products are manufactured, shipped, used, and then eventually end up in a landfill. “It all goes to waste. The concept of a circular economy means that instead of wasting it, you can reuse it or repurpose it so it is a closed loop cycle of all of the materials and resources that we’re using.”
Under this system, materials could be salvaged and given a new life, so to speak. This would greatly diminish the waste produced and therefore the environmental impact of many industries.
The fashion industry, for example. “You’re seeing these brands and companies starting to do these take back programs for recycling older-season garments and they’re creating a sustainability line within their store. For example, H&M is a classic fast fashion store, but now they’re taking back these old fabrics and they reuse them in this special line.” (This line is titled ‘Conscious’ and their website states that ‘at least 50% of each piece is made from more sustainable materials, like organic cotton or recycled polyester.’ Their website even has a whole sustainability tab where they share their efforts and goals!).
“You’re also seeing individual behaviors change with people going thrift shopping, people repurposing old clothes,” she also says. In fact, according to a 2020 report by Thredup, an online thrift store that utilizes GlobalData to create annual reports about the resale and thrift markets concerning clothing, traditional thrift stores are projected to grow a whopping thirty-four percent from 2019 to 2024 and resale is projected to grow an even more impressive four hundred and fourteen percent within the same period of time while all retail clothing is projected to decline by four percent. Based on Kim’s theory, more clothing brands will take after H&M with sustainable practices and the rise of thrift shopping will help reduce the amount of waste fast fashion makes.
And to those who feel as if a sustainable lifestyle isn’t within their means, think again. Not only is the goal of sustainability far from perfection, but the whole concept is about meeting people where they are and with what they are comfortable with. Also, Kim has found that “sustainability is typically actually embedded in a lot of cultural practices. A lot of marginalized and low-income communities practice sustainability without it actually being called sustainability…. It’s not this showy ‘look at us being green,” it’s just what they do and have been doing.” Purchasing new and fancy sustainable things is not the solution. Instead people should try to work with what they have by repurposing and reusing, a practice that tends to actually be cheaper. “Sustainability can be as affordable or as accessible as you make it.” She says, “There’s a lot that you can do within your means.”
Finally, as her parting words of advice, Kim simply says this: “The biggest thing you can do is educate yourself, raise awareness, and be incredibly curious… Even if you’re making a small impact, that is such a big first step. Don’t give up! If we persevere through this, we can really change the world.”
