Dear Manvendra,

you are raising a fundamental question. I see it as a vision, and after all the years a few useful strategies have developed out of is but we are far from having a consistent approach.

A few papers on this

http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/SustainableDevt.pdf

https://sustainabilityhistory.org/2010/05/27/critiquing-sustainability/

https://leonardoboff.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/sustainable-development-a-critique-of-the-standard-model/

Probably it would be good to have a discussion on all this arguements, it find it not so easy to put detailed substance on the concept of sustainability

best regards

Johannes

Façade is one way of seeing 'sustainability'. Another way is our arrogance at our attempts at 'domination, control and improvement' of Nature and her 4.5 billion years of evolution. We haven't learned Nature is the master and our attempts at control generally result in generations of externalities and unintended consequences. Sustainability requires the simultaneous integration of environmental health, economic vitality and social equality. Painfully few even consider this integration. Thus we have compromised ecosystems (Millennium Ecosystem assessment says 60% of ecosystem functions are in decline), economic systems which provide a short boom followed by a protracted bust every time and  societies which undermined jobs with off-shoring, down-sizing and automation. Population increasing geometrically and resources depleted with legacy consequences. So what are we sustaining? Why is it so difficult for educated people to connect the dots??? The only thing that has been sustained are SHORT TERM profits, followed by an extended bust every time in the environmental, economic and social arenas.

Dear Manvendra,

short answer: Yes, for some it indeed is a facade for benefitting themselves.

However, trust is a vital issue and increasingly corporations intentions are questioned, often beyond reason.

On the other hand does your question raise a point why we/you would feel justified the current lifestyle at the expense of future generations? Fundamentally we need to make a decision here and ultimately I believe we can find a sustainable path to increase our living standards. Not at the pace of unsustainable development but hopefully with prudence and a more equal distribution of global wealth.

Kind Regards

Roland

It is one of many fads that have captured the hearts and minds of planners. Sustainability, creating downtown malls, one-way streets, traffic calming, and constraining "lower" land uses are among these many fads. Instead, what is needed is the use of higher level criteria. Cost-benefit analysis and welfare maximization are among these higher level criteria. Some things should be sustained and some things should be discarded. Focus on the criteria that allow someone to distinguish one from the other.

Yes. And, there seems to be a co-evolutionary process occurring between our organizations, our society, and our theories. Hmmm... instead of sustainability, perhaps we might try something like "purposeful evolution"?

Steven,

More like inter-generational extinction.....and we package it as sustainability....

My grandfather had an 8th grade education and worked in the forest/timber Industries all his life. I worked with him between high school and college (1967). He worked hard and had the American dream as many who worked hard did. That is calorically not available today as there are NO thriving rural timber dependent communities anywhere in America. Even a vice-president of the National Forest Foundation confirmed that to me. So sustainability is a total bust.... time to get honest...

Dear Manvendra,

You right! the idea is not new, particularly passive design, but what about technology, as we can't ignore technology and technological advancements to renew our ideas, particularly in active design!

@Farzaneh, Craig, Steven, Peter, Roland Dear all, If sustainability is a fad  then what we are actually doing. I believe it is very old and cultured practice exercised by our ancestors but due to economic development and fire for wealth, we left every thing as "Craig" just told. 

Why don't we communicate to our younger generations and work on them as Japan is doing. They are practicing Human values in primary education. I believe if we can practice sustainability in same manner along with the efforts we are putting on other fronts. Results will be better..

The idea that humankind was more environmentally conscious in the pre-(you fill in the rest: industrial, iron, bronze) age is a delightful fantasy. There was a time when starting a forest fire was a preparation for an overland trip or for gardening. Or driving a herd of animals over a cliff was a substitute for hunting. Our ancestors were quite capable of driving whole species into extinction. It should be obvious that, in the modern age, we need to manage natural resources in a conscious way. The debate should be about priorities and the best ways to accomplish what we intend to do.

Peter, while I understand how your pay check prevents you from seeing the obvious, your comments are disingenuous at best. For you to equate primitive cultures who largely held that Nature is the master - not us or our management had very little impacts and certainly no legacy issues like we have today, thanks to technology, science, greed and short term profits. When Indigenous cultures started fires ..... guess what... the forests were still forests with multi story and species which could support a beneficial surface fire. Our conversion of forests into plantations have effectively eliminated surface fire. I've asked forest scientists how much separation would be required to have a beneficial surface fire in a plantation. I was told, that's a good question which we haven't asked. A plantation is no more a forest than a golf course is a prairie. Pay attention to the vast differences which are absolutely NOT SUSTAINABLE..... and they are a stand replacing fire waiting to happen.

I believe Peter's blind spot is a major part of the problem where one's pay check prevents them for seeing the real forests from planted trees. If you disagree, please share specifics regarding where communities are simultaneously integrating environmental, economic and social needs and concerns???? I've been looking for 40 years now and other than those who reject Industrial forest and adopt true selective harvesting all represent a short boom followed by  protracted BUST.... every time.

If that is 'conscious' management as you call it...... all our ancestors will curse our greed as they realize their future has been sold down the river..."The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying we see beyond our own time" Terry Tempest Williams.

Currently the need for sustainability is generally accepted.   Over time the concept of sustaina­bil­ity has become increasingly complex particularly due to the lack of a clear definition and the emergence of various often conflicting ideas, visions and approaches.   Depending on who you are and what you find important, your concept of sustain­ability will likely vary from others.   The growing demand for sustainability has placed greater responsibility on organi­sations to develop and transmit information about their sustainability performance.   This has led to a growing demand for and supply of tools to measure, manage and transmit the sustainability perfor­mance of buildings and its components.

Attached herein.

Sustainable design is directly related to an older idea known as good craft. I'm consistently suprised by the great lengths of planning and execution in older structures. They are usually thick walled for good insulation with small windows. In hotter areas they had shapes to increase convection. With the invention of the air conditioner much of this was temporarily forgotten. For 40-50 years AC allowed the shapes of buildings to increase indefinitely. Look at these massive structures!

With a new generation of designers plus these great innovations, design will be taken even further. By harnessing older concepts as well technology from the 20th century, 21st century design will accomplish the impossible as well as protect the interests of market, client and environment. Efficiency is smart for all parties involved.

Sustainablility is not a facade, unless it is treated that way. As market forces require organizations to become more efficient, they naturally ask for more efficient resources. The future holds two outcomes and the mixtures of these. One watches sustainable design flourish due to the above. The other involves the cost of energy.  If the cost of energy goes down, the market will respond by relaxing efforts towards efficient design. I believe there is a solar energy renaissance in some parts of the world. Watch as this relatively green/efficient energy source causes design practices in these places to stablalize near to the level that we use in the states. Sheetrock 2x4 framed construction is cheap and efficient. For the vast majority of a market the nature of design is obvious in the use of cheap but effective materials. The extent of this innovation in mass, is directly linked to the cost of the energy.

Large aspirational architecture naturally inspires sustainable thought. These ideas are in old construction and only got forgotten for a few decades. Efficiency has happened in the market at large but with cheaper materials. To idealists that are seeking less wasteful construction, these materials lack luster. But they are more efficient. Green construction practices come to mind.

Of course some may see it as a facade but in reality certainly not.  Some here have talked of earlier times but so far I think missed a vital point.  Technology has always been ahead of social adaptation.  When we developed the capability to use iron structurally the first bridge (Ironbridge at Coalbrookdale, England) was designed as if it was really in stone with iron members following the lines that would have been joints and even immitatting voussoirs.  Our generation is the first to develop technology so quickly and fundamentally that change is great within a lifetime.  Society in general and profesional expertise in particular takes time to work out how to make use of new technology.  But now we dont have that time.  We are through a generation of technology before we have learned how to use it.  Take sound recording.  In my lifetime we have moved from vinyl, through open reel tapes to cassettes, then minidiscs, cds, to soild state memory and of course arrived at realtime streaming.  Such waste but driven by a technological powerhouse that is quicker than we are.  

In my field of architecture we are struggling to understand how new technologies might be used in actual, not theoretical structures in social orders and economic circumstances.  All these change more quickly than we can adapt to them.  We are inevitably struggling to keep up as our questioner pointed out.  But the need to find new sustainable approaches is never more urgent.  Only this month we have been told that the total weight of plastic refuse in the seas and oceans will exceed that of the fish within a few decades.  So we can do damage more quickly than we can invent new ways of behaving.  We are the first generation on the planet to face this problem.  It is therefore no facade but the problem of our age.

Bryan Lawson,

*Green construction practices such as the resourceful use of recycled material as insulators and building materials come to mind. The ocean looks to be filled to the brim with an expensive non-renewable resource. Through automation we'll likely find  way to make the sweeping of large areas of ocean for trash, cost effective. It could be compacted into 2x4 plastic boards on-site and shipped inland.

Kevin

I really hope you are right, but I remain a touch sceptical.  You clearly believe in 'technology fix' but so often history tells us that we have been driven by 'technology push' rather than 'market pull'.  Often new technologies may solve one problem but introduce several new ones.  The motor car is a very obvious example. The trouble is that we have got hooked on the new technology in a way that causes the damage long before we wake up and find the new answer.  I think sweeping the oceans sounds a scale problem to me.  Look how we cannot even find a Malaysian plane!

A problem for architects and I suspect many other professionals is that unless sustainability is your personal thing, it seems impossible to make good decisions while actually working.  You specify a certain material or technology in good faith only to discover a few months later that there are new figures about the embodied energy from manufacture or transport etc that makes it a bad chaoice.  In other words while working a normal professional life you still cannot keep up with developments.  Of course we ar doing massively better than we were, but given our growth not just of population but of wealth spreading high technology is now so rapid that we are playing catch up.

Take the street I live on here.  It is a relatively medium sized English village on the outskirts of one of our largest cities.  Mostly housing is old and makes no provision for parking vehicles.  When we moved here in 1974 there were just a few cars parked along the road.  Now there are cars parked both sides and still people cannot find a place to park.  But it is also a bus route and now the buses often cannot get through.  The local authority doesnt know what to do about it.  it could be a metaphor for the problem.  I dont see any imminent technological fix.  Nor do I see a socially acceptable behavioural solution.  So we keep struggling along.  Meanwhile the vehicle technology rushes forward.  My current car is hybrid and four wheel drive and reads road signs and can park itself.  Again a metaphor.

Agreed, I appreciate your point to the deepest extent. I am an optimist. However, I also find the places where we fail often involve the overlap of the past and present.

Superfund sites are one of the worst examples of this in the states. These are sites where companies have created real environmental problems. Pesticides like lead arsenic and even worst were used without discretion. Sounds bad right. It was before research showed that these chemicals are really hazardous. Legally it creates a quagmire. In these cases it isn't ethical to prosecute because it wasn't a crime during the time of execution. These sites had a minimal amount of remediation funding provided by the federal government. Most didn't get cleaned up.

Thanks all for your views on sustainability as a facade.. Few of us believe that it is facade whereas few of us disagree. Sustainability is a reality and we need to be optimistic otherwise it's a great 2 da environment and society.

Sustainability is a real necessity no matter how this expression is used variably. The depletion of our planet's resources impose the understanding of this need.

Regards

SM Najim

Sustainability is a real and urgent need. Not only in the way we imagine, in the mode of production, and in generating less pollutants or reducing the degradation of nature, but in a way that preserves life as a whole, improving survival conditions for all living beings. Fundamental tripod: social, economic and environmental sustainability. Without the balance of the three areas, there will be no sustainability.

Spinelli

For as long as resources are consumed and wastes are involved, then, there will be need for effective control whether in terms of the acquisition or in terms of the usage of the resource. Therefore, the issue of sustainability cannot be wished away in a hurry. The whole wide world has become a global village, hence the difficulty in framing ignorance of the challenges that are being or to be faced with by all especially from the perspective of the advancement in technology.which has brought about very serious need for more caution with respect to the way we deal with the ultimate outcome of the output of technological empowerment. This then brings about the issue of sustainability that we are going to contend with for a long time to come if the human race is to be more comfortable and live a quality life always hoped for by all. Hence, those in the behavioural and social sciences have a lot of work to do with a view to guaranteeing a better future for all no matter the race, gender, colour, age, location, religion, legal systems, etc.