BALANCING THE WOBBLY STOOL: LIVING SUSTAINABLY WITHIN OUR MEANS

Preparing for the launch of the Placemark Newsroom has stimulated a number of thoughtful conversations around the office. You can read the results in pieces such as the Signal Above the Noise and Delivering on the Possibilities of Place. Then there’s this honest re- appraisal of a word we’ve all come to wonder about, one that remains critical to our practice. These are notes from the conversation that took place with Principal Paul Fenske and Partner Theo Finseth.

Sustainable. It’s a word that has lost some of its lustre from the early days of environmentalism. We’re less naïve. Now, when someone declares a project sustainable, we want to make sure that it’s not just another case of greenwashing.

There’s too much at stake. We can’t claim that this mine or that forest practice, this factory or that housing development is sustainable.  The air, the water, the plants and animals can’t take any more sham sustainability. The margin of error is too small.

At a time when true sustainability is critical, at Placemark we’ve come to the hard realization that some of the projects we’re involved in are not fully sustainable on their own. One or more of the three legs on the stool—environmental, economic, or social—is causing it to wobble.

True, our projects are pieces in an ecology of enterprise, that is, if we look at how the project connects to other elements in the community – house, street, neighbourhood, district, city—we can work to realize a balance not attainable on the smaller scale. As Placemark Principal Paul Fenske says, his legacy single-family detached house in South Vancouver may cause the stool to wobble, but the modern city that surrounds it is more balanced. This balancing act is not perfect, however—suburban bedroom communities require the automobile and the unsustainable infrastructure that goes with it to go anywhere or do anything. Unsustainability drives further unsustainability.

Balancing environmental, economic and social pillars is often more attainable across greater scale, where there are more trade-offs. But humanity has a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The last century has seen the build-up of global trade networks, theoretically allowing for the creation of wealth based on the equitable development of resources and export of products. But instead of leveraging strengths, global development has been founded on asymmetric weakness. Bypassing regulatory regimes designed to achieve sustainability here at home, resource companies and manufacturers have gone offshore to produce cheaper goods and increase profit, at the expense of unemployment at home, critical climate change and the exploitation of cheap labour. One country allows itself to be a dumping ground for another country’s garbage. It should be obvious, but it’s not a sustainable situation.

Despite the lip service we pay to sustainability, lack of balance has crept into our way of life in the most insidious way. Somewhere along the line, we came to believe luxury goods, expensive automobiles, gourmet foods, and tropical vacations have become a kind of right.

Principal Fenske remembers when he was growing up middle class in Canada, people accepted that some things were just out of the question. You could watch Disneyland on TV, but there was no question of actually going there. Today, fueled by personal credit, Disneyland is in reach. But whatever we’ve come think, it’s not a necessity…and it is completely unsustainable. Thanks to the pursuit of luxury, our personal consumer debt is a jaw-dropping $2.4 trillion dollars in Canada. Individuals are under water—Canadians owe $1.85 for every dollar of personal disposable income. The debt-to-income ratio is 180 per cent, the highest level of any G7 country. Back when the Fenske family went camping in Algonquin Park instead of going to Disneyland, the ratio was a more sustainable 66 per cent (1980).

There’s something unsettling about putting yourself at financial risk in order to spend a holiday at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. You have to indenture yourself, often to a job or boss you can’t stand, to spend 2 weeks out of 52 living the good life, failing to understand that the good life could be within your grasp every day.

For the Placemark team, this inquiry into sustainability at the personal, community and the global level brings us back to the wobbly stool at every level. Ideally, each of the three legs is balanced, creating a steady, harmonious state of completeness, where we learn to live within our means. At the personal level, freedom from debt is sustainable; And globally, a holistic perspective will teach us to care for the planet.

At Placemark, it means seeking out projects that provide a complete lifestyle at the smaller scale of the community level. A walkable community means freedom from the car and the need for the transportation infrastructure, allowing for the development of complete neighbourhoods where you can live on a human scale, experiencing the simple benefits of living within your means.

Paul, by the way, has still yet to visit Disneyland.

If you believe in the Possibilities of Place, learn more at Placemark.