The Ease of Doing Sustainability
Relying on virtue signalling to save the planet is counter-productive. Photo from Pixabay.
Governments often boast about the ‘ease of doing business’ in their country. What if we instead rated countries on the ‘ease of doing sustainability’?
There is a heady sense that we can save the planet if we just consume more sustainable products. The oxymoron of sustainable consumption notwithstanding, there is an argument to be made that while individual action is important, there are significant limits to glorifying individual action in saving the planet. If we rely entirely on individuals or local action, our larger systems will remain broken. What we need is systemic change that is encouraged and supported by governments to improve the ‘ease of doing sustainability’…
Acknowledgements
Veena Srinivasan for Hindustan Times.
The author conducted this work when she was with the Centre for Social and Environmental Innovation at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (CSEI-ATREE). WELL Labs is now taking it forward in collaboration with ATREE.
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