"The innovations that power modern society have led to systems of energy, transport, food and housing that are unsustainable," argues Fred Steward.
Over the past decade, awareness of climate change has brought diffuse concerns over our planet's environmental limits into sharp reality. Environmental sustainability is everyone's fault and nobody's problem. As such, addressing it represents a public good 'par excellence'.
But because of its scale and complexity, it defies conventional solutions. It treats even national borders as artificial administrative boundaries, and makes a mockery of governmental structures. Unfortunately, the innovations that power modern society have led to systems of energy, transport, food and housing that are unsustainable. The solution is a commitment to innovation for environmental sustainability as an overarching goal of national policy.
Sustainability is not just another issue on a political shopping list - to merely treat it like other goals does not qualify as planning for what Gordon Brown has described as the 'great project of our generation'. Yet, our political leaders remain equivocal - in deeds if not in words. In March 2008, the UK Cabinet split 50:50 on the minor but symbolic choice as to whether the selection of ministerial cars should signify the strategic importance of carbon emissions (the Toyota Prius) or of national competitiveness (the Jaguar).
This new sustainability-oriented innovation policy must draw on the lessons of other national mobilisations in pursuit of big societal goals. The appropriate analogies are not the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program. These were quite specific 'big science' projects pursued for national strategic advantage. They led to radical technical innovations but did not transform everyday life or our systems of production and consumption. A model of selective, top-down technology solutions, based on these high profile, mission-oriented projects, is an oversimplification of the innovation challenge ahead.
Published
April 2008
Author
Fred Steward
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