Dear Dilshad Ara,

I couldn't agree with you more. "Sustainability" has become trendy, that is why it has started losing its original meaning, thus new words come up to fill in this gap (e.g. biomimicry) , until they also lose their meaning and we will searching with new to replace them fast, in our consumist way.

Once with my partner, we had a client, who wanted a bioclimatic house, where the basement, where the living room would be, would be elevated to the 1st floor, so that his guests could enjoy the view. We were trying to convince him that the heating and cooling load we would manage to lower by bioclimatic design would be nothing compared to the energy consumed for lifting up and down a floor, but as he said, he wanted to impress his guests in all ways, including sustainability.

So, yes, unless lifestyle changes, sustainability becomes an ethical code (as permaculture), and not merely a design or decision making process, we will always be ending up with such oxymoron demands. Prof Wright is right that it helps with legislation and requirments, but as long as extravagance is trendy, we will often be asked to 'sustainabilise' extravagance.

You can still make the house environmentally friendly and add some solar powered charging points in the garage (5 cars can be charging during the day whilst the sixth is being driven) and a solar powered filtration system for the pool.

Thank you. Your feedback is much appreciated.

But still it is like creating a problem ( by misalignment of values/ethics - may be the user/client does not need six cars or a swimming pool in the first place) and then trying to fix it...

Your question, Dilshad, is important. Political intervention via stringent environmental regulation would be one kind of restraint and has an important role. But we all know that. What you seem to be getting at is the virtually unlimited material aspiration consumers are educated to accept as humanly desirable. How do we change that? I believe that human happiness doesn’t depend on extravagant lifestyles and that architectural intelligence can deliver human comfort and amenity without abusing the environment. Of course extravagance can be modified, as Stephen Hall suggests, but we need to get to the recognition that money is better expended on worthwhile human activity than on palatial private dwellings. Our insensitivity on the issue is embarrassing. What do you think?

In many places/countries sustainability is more of an event - it is a brand. This makes me ask this question. If concept of sustainability is not grounded in ethics and values it can only be infatuated or illusioned with any thing sustainable. Thank you Prof. Laurence Wright for your insight.

Dear Dilshad Ara,

I couldn't agree with you more. "Sustainability" has become trendy, that is why it has started losing its original meaning, thus new words come up to fill in this gap (e.g. biomimicry) , until they also lose their meaning and we will searching with new to replace them fast, in our consumist way.

Once with my partner, we had a client, who wanted a bioclimatic house, where the basement, where the living room would be, would be elevated to the 1st floor, so that his guests could enjoy the view. We were trying to convince him that the heating and cooling load we would manage to lower by bioclimatic design would be nothing compared to the energy consumed for lifting up and down a floor, but as he said, he wanted to impress his guests in all ways, including sustainability.

So, yes, unless lifestyle changes, sustainability becomes an ethical code (as permaculture), and not merely a design or decision making process, we will always be ending up with such oxymoron demands. Prof Wright is right that it helps with legislation and requirments, but as long as extravagance is trendy, we will often be asked to 'sustainabilise' extravagance.

Well, if there are sustainable solutions to currently unsustainable life-styles, and if these solutions are rationally viable on other parameters that might cause environmentally disinterested actors to choose them, the answer is yes. And the actual answer is no (hehe). Or, I don't know. My gutfeel is that in theory yes, in practice no. Gutfeelepistemology is not well-understood, so you have to trust your gut.

I agree with Dr. Eleftheria Alexandri.

best regard

In such cases where the societal values [ethics] of sustainability are absent, perhaps regulations , codes etc. are the only way to enforce the parameters.

Local matrix set by regulators often follow the international trend of sustainability as a face saving rhetoric. But it does make a difference.