Guest Lecture: Richard Brubaker
Last week’s lecture was particularly enlightening. I had always had a heightened interest in sustainability and was very glad to have the chance to absorb some of our guest speaker’s impressive knowledge about sustainability. The speaker was Richard Brubaker and he is the founder of Collective Responsibility. In his talk, he addressed the ways in which he works with a multitude of well-known brands such as Adidas and Nike to educate them about ways to grow their business while at the same time limiting the harmful impact that economic development can have on the environment and its natural resources. He addressed multiple issues such as the wastefulness of the textile industry and the lack of sustainable solutions for the disposal of recyclable material.
Readings:
In the “Concepts of Sustainability” reading, there were several interesting ideas brought up. The reading addressed the various discrepancies that arise when attempting to define sustainability and the myriad definitions it has had through the years. The article mentions that the U.S. has now entered the third environmental epoch in its history and addresses the newfound dilemma the U.S. now faces with China’s new waste import policy which limits the amount of recyclables China will be accepting from the rest of the world. The articles draws an important distinction between sustainability and environmental protection, claiming that sustainability is less about targeting specific environmental issues and more about finding a steady state so that the Earth can support the human population and its need for economic growth, without threatening the health of its species and biosphere. Another point of distinction is that sustainability focuses on long-term dynamic processes, while environmental protection focuses on tackling specific environmental threats.
The reading defines the 3 E’s of sustainability as: environment, economy and equity. The importance of this concept is that sustainability can be achieved only by simultaneously protecting the environment, preserving economic growth and development and promoting equality. the theory rejects the notion that there is necessarily a trade-off between economic growth and the environment or between economic growth and equity. Brown focused on “sustainable biological resources use”, “sustainable agriculture”, “carrying capacity”, “sustainable energy”, “sustainable economy”, “sustainable society”, “sustainable development”.
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