Sustainability: no one said it was going to be easy

This is the time of year when everyone’s mind turns to abstinence, as the natural follow-on from the excesses of December. What better time to be concentrating on the saving of environmental resources than when you are cutting back on your personal conspicuous consumption? So ran the logic behind our decision to devote this first issue of the year entirely to sustainability.

Often the mere mention of the s-word is the cue for a series of earnest exhortations. What you have to do is fit low-energy lightbulbs, build greener homes and take the bus instead of the car. That’s all there is to it. This saving the planet lark is a doddle, isn’t it?

I don’t think the housebuilder I spoke to recently who was wrestling with the intricacies of the Code for Sustainable Homes was thinking of it quite that way when he spoke of sustainability in fairly short, sharp terms. Neither do the residents campaigning against sustainable development on page 28 of this issue see the argument so benignly resolved.

Giving ourselves a sustainable future is going to be a painful process

Building new homes can enhance sustainability – if the homes are eco-friendly, they provide more custom to keep local shops and buses running, and residents can work close to where they live. But you are unlikely to see it that way if in your backyard the view is about to be blocked by a 12-storey apartment building, your kitchen gets ruined by flash flooding because the drains can no longer cope, and a precious patch of your open space is to be built on.

We don’t yet know the answers to all our questions about what is and is not sustainable. But one fact emerges clearly from this magazine: there is a heavy price to be paid for sustainability. Everyone is going to have to pay, from the developers footing the bill for energy services featured on page16 to the residents living in the shadow of eco-towns or in city centres. Giving ourselves a sustainable future is going to be a painful process. Much more painful than a new year’s resolution.