Why sustainability matters
Sustainability has become a hot topic in the last decade as we become increasingly aware of how our actions impact the ecosystems and the planet. Hence, it has been equated to the environment, i.e., environmental sustainability.
Etymologically, the word sustainability is derived from the word which in Latin means to hold which can mean to sustain, maintain, support, uphold, or endure. The term itself goes back a very long time when communities have always worried about the capacity of their environment to sustain them in the long term.
Therefore, sustainability is the ability to continue over a long period of time. Over time, its definition evolved as an approach to sustaining life and supporting the planet. This brings us to the three pillars of sustainability – the environment, the economy, and society – all these things directly interlink with each other.
The interplay of these three pillars are important because we live in a world with finite resources, in the form of natural resources. A city purifies water coming from a lake or ocean to supply it to communities and industries, which lead to economic development and the betterment of society as a whole. But if industries and people pollute the bodies of water with the wastes of progress, then the economy and society will not be able to continue its progress.
This is why global agencies and nations, in recent years, came up ways to measure sustainability, albeit in differing metrics.
One is the Sustainability Trade Index (STI) which measures economies’ behavior and effects of international trade on sustainability and economic prosperity. In the 2022 STI report, the Philippines ranked 6th regionally and 12th globally joining more developed economies as it scored high in the report. New Zealand ranked first, the UK second, and Hong Kong third.
Examining the three pillars, the Philippines ranked high globally in the Environmental pillar at 5th, Societal pillar at 17th, and Economic pillar at 19th, with mixed scores in 70 indicators across the three pillars.
One would probably smirk at this report, considering the apparent issues the Philippines have in agriculture, water supply, energy, and pollution. But the STI is a reminder for nations that sustainability of trade is impacted by the environment, the economy, and society.
Another sustainability measure is the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) reported by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. It ranks 180 countries based on 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories in three policy objectives - Climate,
Environmental Health, and Ecosystem Vitality.
The 2022 EPI report ranks the Philippines at 158, ahead of fellow ASEAN nations Indonesia (164th), Vietnam (178th) and Myanmar (179th). The six other ASEAN countries ahead of us are Cambodia (154th), Laos (149th), Malaysia (130th), Thailand (108th), Brunei Darussalam (71st), and Singapore, the highest ranked ASEAN country at 44th.
Looking at the finer details, the Philippines ranks 175th in Climate Change Mitigation, 132nd in Air Quality, 110th in Sanitation and Drinking Water, 116th in Waste Management, 100th in Biodiversity and Habitat, 161st in Acid Rain, 113rd in Agriculture, and 126th in Water Resources. In many of these areas, our country lags most of the ASEAN countries.
It seems that the EPI is more attend to the reality on the ground. Talk about pressing sustainability issues in agriculture where the Philippines is besieged with agricultural products shortages and frequent onslaught livestock diseases.
When it comes to water, more than 3 million people in the Philippines rely on unsafe and unsustainable water sources and 7 million lack access to improved sanitation, according to water.org.
Pollution, in particular plastic pollution, is a huge problem of the country which generates of 2.7 million tons of plastic waste annually according to the World Bank due to an insufficient waste management system, coupled with a high dependence on single-use plastics.
These are all aligned with the latest Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) dashboard which described 14 of the 17 SDGs as mostly with “challenges remain” or “significant challenges remain.”
If our country continues to lag in these sustainability metrics without consideration for our surroundings or fellow humans, our country will continue to contribute to making the planet uninhabitable, physically, socially, and economically, for future generations.
We can already see the impact of our actions manifesting in issues such as string and frequent typhoons, pollution, flooding, and food insecurity.
Government together with the private sector need to step up to reverse, if not slow down the impact of our collective actions to the environment, the economy, and society.
The author is the Founder and CEO of Hungry Workhorse, a digital and culture transformation consulting firm. He is a Fellow at the US-based Institute for Digital Transformation. He teaches strategic management and digital transformation in the MBA Program of De La Salle University. The author may be emailed at rey.lugtu@ hungryworkhorse.com