Going beyond eco-friendly
I attended a great permaculture bootcamp today. One of the instructors made a comment that got me thinking: There is a difference between eco-friendly and sustainable. So, on my walk home, I jotted down some examples of each. Then I remembered that the goal of permaculture is regeneration: A system that repairs itself and produces yields for a very long time (think rainforests…). Regeneration does not take resources from the system that it does not replace and, in contrast to sustainability, it adds or repairs resources. It is the goal of permaculture in the hopes of aiming for it, we will at least end up being sustainable. I thus added a column. Here is what I came up with.
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| Eco-Friendly | Sustainable | Regenerative |
|---|---|---|
| Buying organic | Buying organic from local farmers | Growing your own food organically |
| Raising your kids with green products | Having no more than one kid per adult | Determining carrying capacity of local area and having less people than can be sustained |
| Whole Foods Markets | Neighborhood natural food store | Trading food with your neighbors from your gardens |
| Hybrid car | Public transit, biking | Walking or riding a horse |
| Going to a “green” movie theatre | Reading a book | Creating stories with a group of people |
Keep in mind that this isn’t meant as a list to tell us that we’re not green enough because we’re “just” eco-friendly. For one thing, I don’t know how feasible some of these things are – at least in the way we live now. The list is meant as food for thought. It is also meant to take an honest look at our lives and find areas where we might be green-washing our behavior – by really not being as sustainable as we could be. And I could be wrong with some of these. Please add your own examples to the comments! If you want my reasoning of why I put something in a certain column, please ask.
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