Green vs. Sustainable

What’s In A Word? Green vs. Sustainable posted by Ronnie Citron-Fink Jun 18, 2010 1:02 pm Hello, I saw this on Care2 and thought you'd like it as well. Care2 is the largest and most trusted information and action site for people who care to make a difference in their lives and the world. Care2.com send Do words matter? If you answered yes, then what do these terms mean? What does green mean? What does sustainable mean? Well, your guess is as good as mine. No, really…we are all exposed to so many green labels (products, homes, cars, technology, etc.) that it is no surprise that we each come to the party with different variations on the theme. We could debate until the cows come home whether or not the overuse of these two words still hold any value. Or, even how far we need to go to get there. I would like to believe green and sustainable do have value. It seems even more important, as the grim realizations of our dependency on oil in the Gulf has become a painful indication that we need to get our act together and change our ways for the survival of our planet. It seems like the right time to revisit theses two concepts. That’s why I’m getting out my magnifying glass and taking a closer look at the process of living a green or more sustainable life. On a surface level, green means environmentally-friendly. Which is to say that whatever the origin of the product, home, clothing company, etc. is, it places less of a burden on our declining natural resources of land, air and water. Green also encompasses less waste. How much less? Well, that seems be on a spectrum that can become the basis for wonderful new ways to live. But, it can also open us up to the ugly, gray world of greenwashing. Sustainability carries both a broader and narrower meaning. On the broader sense, it references how we are all inter-connected and how we work together towards our collective future. All of our economic, political and social gains in this area thus far, have come from a heightened awareness of what is sustainable for the future. On a narrow level, sustainability is far more encompassing than green. It addresses the individual environmental choices, and the process of discovery that include the health and wellbeing of our selves as individuals, and our planet. Knowing this, we must be aware that our decisions towards what will make us sustainable right now just may determine how our children, our grandchildren, and beyond will live. We learn very simple new ways of addressing and discovering new ways to become greener (or more sustainable) on an individual level everyday. In fact, last night I was preparing whole wheat pasta for dinner and thought, “Couldn’t I cook the pasta with less water, saving energy and water?” Not being the most accomplished cook, I generally follow rock star cooks. What would Mario Butali, and all those others wonderful Italian cooks think? Butali says for every pound of pasta, we need to boil six quarts of water. I checked around online and found a New York Times article that outlined experiments that addressed the question of cooking pasta with less water. Here’s what it found: “Americans cook something like a billion pounds of pasta a year, so those minutes could add up…rough figuring indicates an energy savings at the stovetop of several trillion B.T.U.s. At the power plant, that would mean saving 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil, or $10 million to $20 million at current prices.” Wow, those are significant numbers for such a small individual act. Oh yeah, the pasta was just as tasty with less water. We discover zillions of stories like this each day. Is there a lesson in the pasta story? Maybe becoming sustainable is the part of the process of living a green lifestyle. Or, maybe sustainability is finding answers to those questions that will guild us towards a new eco-enlightenment. I don’t have the ultimate answer, but I sure hope we figure it out for our future generations. As we continue to move towards making collective, ethical choices about the condition of our planet that we want to leave our children, should we be taking these two words to heart? What does green and sustainable mean to you? Are they mutually exclusive? Do you have a personal story of eco-enlightenment? Ronnie Citron-Fink is a writer and educator. Ronnie regularly writes about sustainable living for online sites and magazines. Along with being the creator of www.econesting.com, Ronnie has contributed to numerous books about green home design, DIY, children, and humor. Ronnie lives the Hudson Valley of New York with her family.