A Lifestyle for Long-Term Sustainability
- 6 years ago
We don't need to surrender anything that would drastically alter our way of life, but we need to think of our grandchildren.
Question: How can we
incentivize people to move toward a sustainable lifestyle?
Ernst Weizsäcker: I think a very important part of answering this question is, think
long-term. Think of your children,
think of your grandchildren. And don't be content with just the quarterly
reports, the returns on investment in very short periods of time. This is not sustainable. I mean, if I were a forest owner and
wanted to maximize my next quarterly report, I would cut all the forest and the
trees would be gone, and the next quarter would be a disaster. And so would be the next 50 years. So, the philosophy, the doctrine of the
quarterly reports can be very damaging.
And returning to the
question of what makes people move.
It's not only the profit thinking, it also a mentality of thinking we
want to have an elegant kind of life, not a wasteful, squandering kind of
life. It's also into the
aesthetics, what do we find beautiful.
So, I believe it is a mixture of responsibility, good rules, and
cultural understanding into a sustainable society.
Question: What will
people need to give up?
Ernst Weizsäcker: There is indeed quite a difference between just ownership and use of
the goods I own, and services. For
instances, my family is part of a car-sharing arrangement. Whenever we need a car, we get it at
the relatively low price and we don't have the permanent costs for the
car. But we always have access to
car-like mobility. But if... for
instance, my daughter's family, they own any car and they use cars only when
they really need it. And otherwise use bicycles and walking and, I don't know
what. Telephones. But then we are living in a privileged
small town of 25,000 inhabitants in Germany, so there it's easier. But even in New York with public
transport, you can do a lot of things without a car, but with the possibility
of having access to a car. That, I
believe is one example.
The same holds in a sense for big
copying machines, which typically are leased, not bought. That's fine. And I can imagine this principle going further. For instance, I could imagine that
aluminum will not be sold any longer in the future, but leased and returned
after use. So, for instance, the
airplane manufacturers could rent the aluminum they need and when the lifetime
of the airplane is over, it will be returned. And then, of course, they all have a strong interest in
doing the optimal mix alloys of the metal so that the reuse is without any
problem. So, access to aluminum is
a very good thing, but this does not automatically mean ownership. Why do I need to own aluminum?
Recorded on April 9, 2010
Question: How can we
incentivize people to move toward a sustainable lifestyle?
Ernst Weizsäcker: I think a very important part of answering this question is, think
long-term. Think of your children,
think of your grandchildren. And don't be content with just the quarterly
reports, the returns on investment in very short periods of time. This is not sustainable. I mean, if I were a forest owner and
wanted to maximize my next quarterly report, I would cut all the forest and the
trees would be gone, and the next quarter would be a disaster. And so would be the next 50 years. So, the philosophy, the doctrine of the
quarterly reports can be very damaging.
And returning to the
question of what makes people move.
It's not only the profit thinking, it also a mentality of thinking we
want to have an elegant kind of life, not a wasteful, squandering kind of
life. It's also into the
aesthetics, what do we find beautiful.
So, I believe it is a mixture of responsibility, good rules, and
cultural understanding into a sustainable society.
Question: What will
people need to give up?
Ernst Weizsäcker: There is indeed quite a difference between just ownership and use of
the goods I own, and services. For
instances, my family is part of a car-sharing arrangement. Whenever we need a car, we get it at
the relatively low price and we don't have the permanent costs for the
car. But we always have access to
car-like mobility. But if... for
instance, my daughter's family, they own any car and they use cars only when
they really need it. And otherwise use bicycles and walking and, I don't know
what. Telephones. But then we are living in a privileged
small town of 25,000 inhabitants in Germany, so there it's easier. But even in New York with public
transport, you can do a lot of things without a car, but with the possibility
of having access to a car. That, I
believe is one example.
The same holds in a sense for big
copying machines, which typically are leased, not bought. That's fine. And I can imagine this principle going further. For instance, I could imagine that
aluminum will not be sold any longer in the future, but leased and returned
after use. So, for instance, the
airplane manufacturers could rent the aluminum they need and when the lifetime
of the airplane is over, it will be returned. And then, of course, they all have a strong interest in
doing the optimal mix alloys of the metal so that the reuse is without any
problem. So, access to aluminum is
a very good thing, but this does not automatically mean ownership. Why do I need to own aluminum?
Recorded on April 9, 2010