Portlands Practical Approach to Sustainability - Essay Example

The only way we can pay back to our ancestors the way they have looked after our needs today is by doing the same for future generations.

            Ray Anderson, who is the CEO of the company Interface, puts stress on the abovementioned value at TED Talk thru a poem entitled “Tomorrow’s Child.”  He also proposed a revised Environmental Impact Equation as a business model.  From Paul and Anne Erhlich’s model of “environmental impact is equal to the product of population, affluence, and technology, mathematically explained as I =  P x A x T,”  he suggested, the New Civilization Environmental Impact Equation of “impact is equal to the product of population times affluence; affluence being an end in itself turned into a means to an end, all over the technology of the future times the happiness, where happiness becomes the end; happiness with less stuff, as I = P x a / T2 x H.”   Anderson’s proposition was not only his theory bound to be proven but a theory proved thru the initiatives of his company; that it is a business model for sustainability that can be done.  If Interface has done it, Portland can do it as well.  

            Portland has been a place involved in the quarrying business.  Exporting Portland limestone can be traced back to 1300AD for domestic and public use and continues to up to this day.   Using Anderson’s business model, Portland can minimize its environmental impact on quarrying limestone if companies will reuse limestone, and find other means of producing limestone without abusing our environment.  Residents of Portland can also start by using fewer products, particularly products that need limestone to manufacture.  Portland can start by starting a simple lifestyle.  People’s needs are basic, and sustainability is something basic.

            Sustainability is necessary for everyone in this world, for people in the present, and for people in the future.  And as Anderson said, “If something exists, it must be possible, and if anybody can, it follows everybody can.”  Sustainability exists, sustainability must be possible.  If anybody can work for sustainability, it follows that everybody can work sustainability.