The Fallacy of Endless Growth

Sun Certified started out as a group of family members that wanted to shake up the building industry to improve the energy performance of both residential and commercial buildings. As individuals we all share the viewpoint that our current way of life is not sustainable and without drastic changes to how we operate as a society we would be leaving an increasingly precarious legacy for future generations. We are now starting to see major cracks in our ecosystems forming due to inaction on the shortfalls of capitalism. We can no longer ignore these issues for future generations to deal with.

I have often thought that what the Green New Deal and other social movements require to succeed is a robust plan to end the model of constant growth. Very little of what we are doing on this earth is sustainable enough to last indefinitely. New construction and retrofits should be viewed as short term activities with the goal of completing and then maintaining extremely high levels of operational efficiency in our building stock. This must be accompanied by a new type of economic system where an equilibrium is maintained between the ecological constraints of our environment and the basic needs of our population. The Co-operative movement has always been more inclined to address social and environmental issues in their operations but all too often they are forced to compete in capitalist markets where infinite growth is seen as an acceptable model. As we are now on the precipice of catastrophic environmental collapse due to our ever expanding consumption we need more than ever to rethink the way businesses operate. Co-operatives must be the catalyst to move towards an economic model of sustainability in operations not expansion. We must all focus our attention on this fundamental hurdle if we are to move away from capitalism and it needs to happen now.

Evan Proven

Added: Thu February 4th 2021