Why do we focus on sustainability?
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Sustainable is a precisely defined term coined by the Bruntland Commission in their 1987 “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” [1]They defined it as:
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“meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainability has a firm focus on the future. The Brundtland Report talks about 3 interconnected dimensions of sustainability (sometimes referred to as the 3 Pillars of Sustainability). These are Economic, Social and Environmental processes. It is about living within our means upon a planet that has limited resources and space while also reducing pollution.
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Essentially, the report detailed that in our current globalised world, everything we do is interconnected – our communities, our environment, our economic systems – and to be truly sustainable is to consider each element (or pillar) as part of a whole.
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What we think
The Green Greyhound focusses on Sustainability because we believe in more than making vague ‘green’ claims. We believe that by taking small individual steps towards a genuinely more sustainable lifestyle, that together we encourage industry, business and policy-makers to take much larger strides toward a genuinely sustainable future.
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We do however accept there are limitations. Not all industries have yet developed sustainable, or even vaguely green products. Some are making great strides toward sustainability but are not quite there – yet. We also accept that developing truly sustainable manufacturing processes and products takes time and frankly, significant financial investment. To this end, we have made a conscious decision to not only support companies or products who are already producing sustainable products but also support those, wherever relevant to our business ethos, who are making significant efforts to become sustainable. After all, if a company isn’t supported on it’s journey to sustainability by its customers, why will they keep investing significant sums to keep improving and if they don’t feel there is a market (and profit) that justifies their effort and investment.
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For completeness, we have included here a very brief description of what Green and Eco-Friendly means.
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Green
In contrast, the term ‘Green’ is used interchangeably to mean literally anything that might benefit the environment in some way. It is a very broad term with no clear definable or actionable points.
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Eco-friendly
Eco-friendly simply means that something doesn’t harm the environment, or in some cases, it is used to describe something that harms the environment less than it’s standard or traditional equivalent. This is a much more tangible description than the word ‘green’ but is limited by its narrow focus on only one pillar of sustainability.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/brundtland-report