Green versus Sustainability From Semantics to Enlightenment By Ernest J. Yanarella,1 Richard S. Levine,2 and Robert W. Lancaster3 Abstract and sustainability and abets it; in the book’s subtitle and text, he dubs the needed sustainability transfor- The sustainability movement from the grassroots mation as a “green revolution.” His critique in most to the global level has been both enriched and hob- respects is right on the money. Pointing to the pro- “In the green bled by the many different versions of sustainability liferation of books and popular magazine articles articulated in scholarly and popular writings, town espousing the many ways of going green, Friedman revolution we’re hall forums, and international conferences. The scolds: “In the green revolution we’re having, every- having, everyone’s latest expression of this cacophony is evidenced one’s a winner, nobody has to give up anything … That’s not a revolution. That’s a party. We’re having in the emergence of “green-talk” and the growing 1 a winner, nobody substitution of varieties of “greenness” for sustain- a green party.” What really separates a “green party” has to give up ability and sustainable development in everyday and from a genuine sustainability revolution? And what media parlance. This critical essay seeks to accom- light do these two terms shed on the other grada- anything … That’s plish two things: draw out the differences between tions on the environmentalism to sustainability con- the green label and sustainability, and situate this tinuum that have entered the global sustainability not a revolution. debate within a hierarchical sustainability rubric debate? That’s a party.” that allows us to meaningfully offer gradations on the sustainability continuum. In so doing, we seek First things first: how can we overcome the confu- sion between the terms green and sustainability? Thomas Friedman to illuminate the stakes involved in this conceptual debate and provide clarity about what these putative Although they are often used interchangeably, these variations on sustainability imply for both theory two concepts mean different things (Table 1). Green is typically associated with individual products and and practice. In an age of mounting finite resource 2 scarcities, rapid climate change, and continuing processes that seek to “pick the low-hanging fruit” global population growth, combined with the grow- that is available in seemingly abundant supply in a ing clamor for Western-style economic development, country like ours where waste remains a scandal in the sustainability movement is not going to go away. many realms of commerce and industry and where Sadly, the meaning of sustainability and sustainable profligacy continues to be a proud and thoughtless development remains highly contested and subject to feature of consumer lifestyle. Landfills throughout ongoing and fierce dispute. This state of affairs is evi- America continue to swell even though the mantra denced by the growing shift away from the language of reduce, reuse, and recycle is intoned in television of sustainability and its variants to the increasingly commercials and on elementary school blackboards. popular, and easier to swallow, term green. Green practices are ideologically safe practices that do not fundamentally disturb the driving forces of Keywords: sustainability, green, green washing, economic growth and corporate profit-making. environmentalism, smart growth By contrast, sustainability is tied to whole systems, of Green vs. Sustainability: How which individual consumer products and other com- mercial materials are a part. Its imperative breaks They Differ and Why It Matters through the ideological veil of mass production and consumerist consumption without end, calling for In his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why a cultural change in the definition of human need We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Re- and the renovation of our competitive individualist new America, New York Times columnist Thomas orientation to other individuals and toward posses- Friedman both criticizes the confusion over green sions.3 1Department of Political Science, 2School of Architecture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky. Going green distinguishes itself from sustainability 3Department of Political Science, Kentucky State University, in that conceptually it balances precariously on one Frankfort, Kentucky. leg (environmental health or economic vitality) of 296 SUSTAINABILITY MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • VOL. 2 NO. 5 • OCTOBER 2009 • DOI: 10.1089/SUS.2009.9838 Yanerella 2.5.indd 1 10/25/09 11:23 AM Table 1. Green vs. Sustainability: A Typology of Differences Dimensions Green Sustainable Relation to Only one leg All three legs (environment health, sustainability tripod (environmental improvement) economy vitality, social justice) Focus Individual components Interplay of individual components and whole system Tactics/strategy Tactical application of activities Strategic discovery of the proper that involve “picking low-hanging fruit”; scale that will make successive promoting individual changes and policy steps and actions easier reforms to make world less unsustainable and less costly by designing and implementing a sustainable, self-balancing system Political orientation Conventional, “pragmatic realist,” reformist Innovative, visionary, revolutionary (“going to the roots”) Scale Individual devices, products, indicators, City region as the level at which human practices, buildings as most tractable and social disequilibriums and ecological level for greening insults can be dynamically rebalanced Risks or excesses Greenwashing Utopian fantasizing or top-down authoritarian policy action Definition of success Infinite progress of incremental Reduction of ecological footprint improvements to a city region’s fair Earth-share 4 the sustainability tripod (economic vitality, envi- social, and urban processes to achieve a dynamic, ronmental health, and social equity), while sustain- virtuous, and balanced relationship with nature. ability rests securely on all three legs of that tripod As we have argued elsewhere,10 these sustainable, (or the “triple bottom line,” another sustainabil- balance-seeking processes never fully attain a static ity metaphor). The vocabulary of greenness allows end-state precisely because human life and social the environmental activist to focus on a narrower activities are always throwing up new destabiliz- agenda for change while leaving in abeyance the ing challenges, which in turn must be tackled and When green-talk more politically sensitive and upsetting social equity brought into balance with the larger system. Thus leg. Even putative sustainability city programs pro- green evokes small incremental improvements in and green practice moted in U.S. and Canadian cities (e.g., Sustainable social practices, modern technology, and human are promoted by Chattanooga5 and Canada’s Hamilton-Wentworth habitats, while sustainability implies a revolution Vision 2020 program6) pay only lip service to poli- in organizing our personal and collective lives and fundamentally cies addressing equity and fairness. Sustainability, inhabiting the planet. unsustainable at the very least, is built upon a core meaning that makes the pursuit of all three legs necessary and Like sustainability, green can take on ideologi- companies or other compelling. cal expression. When green-talk and green prac- tice are promoted by fundamentally unsustainable uncaring institutions, Green is popular and easy to do, as Friedman shows, companies or other uncaring institutions, they because it connotes quick and inexpensive steps to easily congeal into a deceptive ideology known they easily congeal make the world less unsustainable by deployment as “greenwashing.”11 Whether it be “revolutionary into a deceptive of tactics that reduce the environmental impact of research to save the planet” advertised by power- human activity, agricultural and industrial produc- ful oil companies12 or “clean coal” trumpeted by ideology known as tion, and our built environment. But the enemy— the coal industry,13 the underlying ideological con- unsustainability as a set of social, cultural, and ceit of the jingles is intentional; their purpose is to “greenwashing.” economic systems and practices—is never directly perpetuate the trends and practices that are leading confronted. Instead, 100 simple palliatives, 12 easy the United States and the world to an ecological prec- practices, six quick and inexpensive ideas are sent ipice. Naturally, sustainability, too, risks falling into into the battlefield without hope or consideration ideological excess. When sustainability is separated that they will really vanquish the adversary. 7-9 from campaigns of public understanding and ac- tive political involvement or detached from people, Sustainability, on the other hand, is radical (in the communities, and their politics, it can become proverbial sense of “going to the roots”) and implies a blueprint for authoritarian, top-down policy undertaking the necessary changes in our economic, action. MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • VOL. 2 NO. 5 • OCTOBER 2009 • DOI: 10.1089/SUS.2009.9838 SUSTAINABILITY 297 Yanerella 2.5.indd 2 10/25/09 11:23 AM Table 2. A Sustainability Rubric Level Characteristic/Presupposition 0. Environmentalism Bifurcates wilderness and built environment and identifies wilderness as “environment” Understands the relationship between economic growth and environment as matters of balance or repair Perceives economic-environmental