Green
Innovations
Philip Sutton, Director of Policy and Strategy attempts to define sustainability
by closing it down into categories. In so doing he gets very absolutist
about it, saying things either are or are not sustainable, like you either
are or are not alive or pregnant. We disagree with this. Sustainability
can not be a property of a thing because each thing is more than itself
- it operates within a world. A product made of recycled materials for
example is no more sustainable than the same item made from 'virgin'
materials - it depends on how and for what purpose it is used.
International
Institute of Sustainable Development
The IISD is a powerful advisory organisation funded by an amazing set
of international institutions, governments and industry bodies. The SD
Gateway site is all about disseminating information on sustainable development
developed by the Sustainable Development Communications network. It too
bases its premise on the old Brundtland Report definition about meeting
the (unsustainable) needs of the present. If you do want to know how this
massive, world wide misinformation campaign got started, this site has
it all - even a time line with all the big sustainable development dates
neatly narrativised. It also has lots and lots of links to environmental
organisations world wide and hosts an international 'web ring'.
Our
Planet
This is UNEP's magazine for environmentally sustainable development that
has themed issues such as Climate Change, Natural Disasters etc. Contains
the AAAS Atlas of Population and Environment in full text that is a useful
resource for the state of the planet and explains things simply and concisely.
United
Nations Environment Program
The site of the environmental organisation with probably the most powerful
designing influence in the world, as small local councils and large corporations
equally adopt its principles (ie ESD, Agenda 21). Its designing embodies
the united nations ideals which believe that everyone should have a similar
quality of life which has become embedded in practices and structures
worldwide - the problem is the often unsustainable idea of what constitutes
this (ie access to the net which is less access to knowledge as information
than access to Western consumerism). There is a fair bit of useful information
on this site - resources for your own thinking.
The
Foundation for Business and Sustainable Development
The Foundation for Business and Sustainable Development was set up by
the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to promote
'business understandings' of sustainable development. If there
were any doubts about what this means it is cleared up by the following
statement on their mission page : " The major challenge for business
in the next decade is to create wealth for a growing world population
in a manner sustainable for future generations." This site makes
no bones about where it sees the emphasis should go in the term 'sustainable
development'. We have a major problem with this (see for example
Tony Fry Remakings 1994).
Swedish
EPA
Check out the site of one of the most 'progressive' international EPAs.
Second
Nature
Second Nature is a US based non-profit organisation that focuses on "practical,
replicable and effective" strategies for institutional transformation
toward sustainability. Trouble is, we find that most 'replicable'
strategies simply applied, are neither practical nor effective in developing
sustainments - they often cause more problems than they solve. Even so,
this site does have an OK supplementary bibliography which is very well
organised, annotated and interactive (ie you build it for them). It also
gives you an extensive list of environmental-type courses on offer across
the US in case you're thinking of spending ludicrous amounts of
money to study overseas.
Institute
of Energy and Sustainable Development
Sustainable
Development Research Institute
Global
Environmental Change Program