Applied Sustainability

Provided below is my definition of applied sustainability - - versus a philosophical or conceptual statement.

"Doing more with less in a world where political, economic, and cultural forces and pressures produce extreme boundary conditions of doing more with more and doing less with less."

The statement has an output and input orientation. Where outputs are critical resources that support life - - water, energy, land, food, and air. Inputs are variables that help produce outputs - - energy, labor, financial capital and technology.

Water sustainability issues provide an excellent back drop that illustrates the ideas behind my statement. Australia is the driest inhabited content and has been in the grips of a severe drought. Three ideas have been formulated. The first is "doing more with more" - - investing $13.2 billion in desalination plants. An expensive and energy hungry alternative - - that fundamentally fails to explore the linkage between water issues and energy consumption (electricity in Australia comes form coal fired power plants). Technology solving one problem while generating an entirely new set of climate change related problems. The second is "doing less with less" - - restricting development and population increases. Namely restrictive immigration policies that would cap a fixed limit on the number of people that Australia could support (22 million people). Third is "doing more with less" - - utilizing information and rehabilitation technologies combined with pricing strategies to encourage conservation, reducing inefficiencies (e.g., water loss via leaking pipes), and adjusting life styles via market forces that are compatible to an arid climate.