Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the six principles of the Green Party of Canada.  In short, it means “Let’s leave something for our grandchildren”.

We recognise the limited scope for the material expansion of human society within the biosphere, and the need to maintain biodiversity through sustainable use of renewable resources and responsible use of non-renewable resources.

We believe that to achieve sustainability, and in order to provide for the needs of present and future generations within the finite resources of the earth, continuing growth in global consumption, population and material inequity must be halted and reversed.

We recognise that sustainability will not be possible as long as poverty persists.

This requires

• ensuring that the rich limit their consumption to allow the poor their fair share of the earth’s resources
• redefining the concept of wealth, to focus on quality of life rather than capacity for over-consumption
• creating a world economy which aims to satisfy the needs of all, not the greed of a few; and enables those presently living to meet their own needs, without jeopardising the ability of future generations to meet theirs
• eliminating the causes of population growth by ensuring economic security, and providing access to basic education and health, for all; giving both men and women greater control over their fertility
• redefining the roles and responsibilities of trans-national corporations in order to support the principles of sustainable development
• implementing mechanisms to tax, as well as regulating, speculative financial flows
• ensuring that market prices of goods and services fully incorporate the environmental costs of their production and consumption
• achieving greater resource and energy efficiency and development and use of environmentally sustainable technologies
• encouraging local self-reliance to the greatest practical extent to create worthwhile, satisfying communities
• recognising the key role of youth culture and encouraging an ethic of sustainability within that culture.