On sustainability...

Sustainability is a word creeping into our lexicon from the highest levels of government to the small rainforest path that is lined with bamboo.

Leading the sustainability movement in product design is the use of bamboo at a building material. It offers many of the properties of wood, has a high level of visual aesthetic quality and it grows back like a weed once it is harvested. It is showing up in everything from kitchen cabinetry to surfboards.

I am also hearing and reading that sustainability is a reaction to the crushing layoffs that many have experienced around the world. Due to high management salaries of corporations round the world, there is an emerging class of people that are sounding the drum of sustainability based solely on survival. Sustainable to them means earning a living wage that allows them to have a life. A life filled with the joys of raising a family and being able to afford such an endeavor.

Sustainability at the manufacturing level is adopting principles of cleanliness and efficiency to reduce their greenhouse emissions into the environment and thus clean up air quality. If you have been to Shanghai, you'll know what I am talking about. Just today I read that the Premier of China has put sutainability at the top of the Chinese governments agenda for the next 10 years. We'll see...

As we face the duality of higher consumption rates in order to grow and increase profits and using less "stuff" in order to achieve these ends, sustainability is pushing its nose into areas of our lives that need improvement.

The proliferation of the digital lifestyle is certainly contributing to this transformation. Rather than spend your disposable income on something that takes up physical space like a golf club or a paper filing system, each product can now be replaced with a digital or virtual one. Granted you cannot drive the fairway at Pebble Beach and smell the salt air of the Pacific ocean with a digital driver. You can however play 18 holes of golf on the PB lynx. Sustainable golf if you will.

To me it is in part all about "reducing the footprint" This phrase makes sense to me as we rethink our approach to living together in a high rise building with numerous families living together yet with privacy or to the sprawling ranch houses that dot the landscape still in Texas. Where everyone has SUV, 3 refrigerators, several rooms in the house that are reserved for "company" and are never used.

Fractional ownership is another buzz word that is a close friend of sustainability in that many people own, maintain and operate everything from a Gulfstream 5 private jet to a small compact car. Paying only for the time you use the vehicle is certainly making inroads into the US from the coastal states and I would imagine has Detroit worried over selling more models of sleek automobiles to wannabe cool sophisticates. This is where modern high tech really is providing a solution to a real problem of too many vehicles on the roads contributing to the issues of environmental damage and sustainability.

Thinking green has never been so popular or essential...and everyone can think more about how they can change their behavior to reduce their impact. Even if it is as simple as eating less industrialized processed foods that lead to flatulence. Using less gas in all forms is good for our environment.