When can something be considered sustainable?

Decades ago, my family and I bought a small farm with an old house and 6,000 square meters of orchard trees. The goal was to rehabilitate the property and make it our home. The orchard had various types of fruit trees, including pears, apples, peaches, and nectarines, which were old but still produced the best fruit. It was hard work collecting and clearing the land with my siblings, but we enjoyed it.

We planned to certify our nectarine production as organic. However, 25 years ago, things were different, and we needed to be pesticide-free for five years and have a natural wall of trees to prevent contamination from neighbouring farms.

After trying for a long time, we decided that it did not make sense in terms of pricing, time, and resources, as it was not a commercial venture but more about pride in having a sustainable certification plantation that followed our ethos.

Despite this, we made juices, compotes, preserves, tomato sauce cooked over a wood fire for pasteurization, and peeled tomatoes with plenty of flies. It was a time of summer memories and happiness, and we felt no guilt as everything was filled with white sugar. However, times have changed, and we are now more aware of the impact of our choices.

Regarding sustainable certifications

There are different labels and processes for construction and real estate, food production, and utilities. However, few of them focus on operations and sourcing.

Nowadays, there are many certifications for corporations and businesses, such as #Earthcheck, #BREEM, and #GSTC, but most of them are based on buildings & utilities.

Although this is a significant part, it is the easiest to fix, and there is ample research on passive buildings, saving electricity, water, solar panels, etc.

The question is when we consider this, should we open all certifications to everyone? Or should we define the turnover of each property and set the standard for their sustainability certification based on their carbon footprint?

For example, if a company builds a 500-room hotel from a 100-year-old castle, should we require passive and sustainable building systems since the company has resources?

Should we look into the possibilities they had to do better, or should we analyse the bare minimum they did to achieve certification?

Where did the products come from?

These are some of the questions we need to ask. Depending on the financial muscle of each development, we should require more if they want to claim a sustainable label.

On the other hand, a small farm-to-table restaurant with a small financial turnover growing all the vegetables from the garden and having solar panels and a dwell can’t be in the same pocket or doing much more with the resources they have.

However, how can we measure this? How can we compare or analyse both properties, which are quite different but have the same goals? In my humble opinion, the little entrepreneur should have more allowance to become greener instead of allowing big corporations to greenwash. The impact of a big place is much more polluting than a small one, so with it comes bigger responsibility..

One of the main concerns for both big and small properties is daily operations such as procurement.

Even if a hotel is built sustainably, an unsustainable procurement and supply chain could lead to waste and affect its overall sustainability score.

While construction is a once-in-a-lifetime event, supply chain concerns are daily and may weigh more heavily in sustainability analysis. Even if a property claims to have green values, it may not follow guidelines when purchasing products such as toiletries, wellness products, food, and beverages.

This topic is ongoing, and questions about sustainability arise in various situations. For instance, is a new destination to Antarctica sustainable if it uses a solar panel electric yacht? Is it acceptable to have an eco-lodge in a natural park or a restaurant in the middle of a fjord?

Sometimes, we may claim too much, and the most sustainable way may be not to build anything in certain locations because human nature is to pollute in most cases. I believe it is good to leave some destinations as they are and just improve the ones we currently have.