Portfolio Task 5- Sustainability & Capitalism

Sustainability has been defined by the Brundtland Commission's 'Our Common Future' as a ' development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of the futrue generations to meet their own needs'. This means that sustainability is an inter and intra-generational equity in the social, environmental, economic and moral and political spheres of society.


The main characteristics of capitalism are businesses creating new markets to stop themselves from dying. In order to stay afloat they must find a new market and the need for a new product or service. Another characteristic of capitalism is subsuming non-capital markets and therefore strengthening their own. It is not a linear system where they just subsume one singular item but its a 'diverse web that is continuously expanding and trapping things'.

'A crisis of Capitalism' is when capialization reaches the point where it can not expand itself any further both in terms of the product/ services and the financial expansion. This this when the cycle needs to be renewed and reinvented. In order to carry on they find a niche market in order to create a new 'web'. An example of this would be the environmental crisis. This has been used up to open a huge market of 'green' products and services. There are so many possibilities and opportunities for small and large businesses ( also owned buy these huge cooperate investors). These businesses also are not necessarily 'green' but still advertise themselves as green. This is called green washing.

There are different approaches to the problem of sustainability. The first on the the capitalist approach which still involves people buying and spending and therefore still keeping capitalism a float. This method of solving the environmental crisis is to encourage people to buy greener products , for example, the creation of the bio-diesel market and encouraging people to buy a NEW hybrid car. The second approach is ecologism which is the idea that in order to solve this environmental crisis we must stop capitalism entirely.

The concept of sustainability does not seem to be compatible with capitalism due to the need for capitalist to still sell a lot of products and services in order to stay afloat and even when they run out. There will always be another way , another niche market for them to dig their way into. Capitalism's approach to sustainability is not so much a way to solve the environmental crisis but more of a way to solve the capitalism crisis through sustainability.' Most things are not designed for the needs of the people or the plant but for the need of the manufacture to sell to people' ( Papnek. V, 1983, p46)