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SUSTAINABILITY PERSPECTIVES: #1: The meaning of "sustainable" This is the first in our series of articles describing the Sustainability Visioning project that SaskFlax is working on.
I am a word person. For some reason I have always been interested in words – how they are used, the historical background of the word and of course, how words become used, abused and misused over time. Few have held such fascination for me as the word “sustainable” and the phrase “sustainable development”. Common use of sustainable and sustainable development arrived in our modern vocabulary after the 1987 United Nation’s Bruntland Commission agreed upon the definition as: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs. The three pillars of sustainable development were economic, environmental and social. Since that time, the word sustainable has made its way into common usage. I have participated in programs, used products, belonged to organizations, and implemented techniques and methods all proclaiming they are sustainable. I have heard the word used in everything from advertising campaigns to political speeches. And being a self-proclaimed word person, the use of sustainable and sustainable development has begged the question – Is there an agreed upon definition of the word as it is bandied about in all these varied situations? I’m willing to venture a guess, that many who use the word aren’t being at all mindful of the Bruntland Commission’s original definition or intention of the word/phrase. In some recent reading of a Canadian federal government document the authors used the Bruntland Commission’s definition and added, “In the context of Canadian agriculture and agri-food production, sustainable development means producing, processing and distributing agricultural products in a manner that supports or enhances the high quality of life we enjoy in Canada, both today and in the future.* I have asked in the course of many conversations when the term comes up, what the definition is of sustainable within the context of the current discussion; most often I am met with a blank stare. Has sustainable come to be so overused it no longer has much meaning? When Linda Braun, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission, inquired if I would be interested in participating as member of the SaskFlax Sustainability Planning Group I eagerly accepted the opportunity. This sounded like exactly what I had been looking for in my search for an applied application of sustainability. * Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-2009, Making Progress Together, page 1. |
