As such, our ethical position
is centred around technology, infrastructure and balance. We believe that the
buzzword “sustainability” should be about self sufficiency, reducing our
dependence on finite resources, cutting our emissions and ensuring waste really
does equal food. And from there our proposal to ensure a sustainable future, as
well as a sustainable present, is to embrace technology and develop the
invisible networks that can become our new fossil fuels, only infinite. But we
also recognise that there has to be a balance between the three E’s. Whilst
social equity needs to be improved, it can’t be done at the expense of economy
or environment and so we must aim for an equilibrium whereby all three elements
are considered equally.
We have trajectories that promote
ideals and utopias but we recognise that it isn’t practical or realistic to
expect these to be realised completely. The complete phasing out of cars might
be an ideal in terms of emissions and sustainability, but in reality it is
impossible to totally achieve. If we want to use the internet to shop or buy
food locally, the food still needs to be transported from A to B. People can be
discouraged from driving to work, but it’s unreasonable to expect them to never
be able to drive to visit family, or take someone to hospital or to take home a
heavy load of shopping. And as mentioned before, the loss of jobs in the
industry could have a catastrophic effect on the economy. So if we can
compromise by reducing needless car journeys, encouraging lift sharing and
public transport and supporting a work-from-home culture whilst still allowing
people to own and use cars, we might achieve that equilibrium.
